A Haunting New Experience [Watch]

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In 2015, Gore Abrams and Danny Bellini appeared together in the found footage hit Hell House LLC. Since then, the two filmmakers have become creative partners, co-writing and co-directing their new horror short film Locations, a haunting tale about fatherhood.

Read the full synopsis below:

An American man, Arnold, follows his pregnant girlfriend, Camille, to the North of France to meet his new extended family while on assignment for his job as a locations scout. As he struggles to assimilate into his new life, his own paranoia is exacerbated by local folklore—suggesting that any souls unable to adapt to local customs are doomed to be entrapped in stone.

Arnold’s violent past comes creeping to the surface. His fear of fatherhood guides his every misstep, as the family is forced to reconcile, what should be done with this outsider’s negative energy?

Watch the official trailer:

Locations is meant to be a proof-of-concept for a feature film. For Abrams and Bellini, the short film was a way to ensure they could not only translate the characters to screen, but also successfully produce a film in the small town of Saint-Malo, France.

The filmmakers said, “In creating the short film, we pulled together important scenes and visuals from the feature screenplay and wrote what we knew would be an accurate depiction of the character dynamics and an affordable production that we could accomplish with our own funding and crew.”

In their director’s statement, Abrams explained the inspiration for Locations, saying:

“I first came to mull the story of Locations when I went to meet my now-wife’s family in the port city of Saint-Malo six years ago. I had the normal set of nerves that anyone would in this situation, elevated by the fact that I did not speak French nor understand it.

Their warmth was a quick relief and my nerves gave way to calm. That first night I dreamily laid in their downstairs basement overlooking the sea, saddled with a bellyful of wine while being hummed to sleep by the ocean’s gentle patter. I was the only one who slept that night.

As it turned out a major case of insomnia set in with the rest of the family. Those who did make it to sleep were awoken by horrific nightmares. This pattern evolved into the next night as well. This led me to wonder—is it me? Did I bring in a sinister energy that I’m not even aware of? Do I have some unexplored damage that seeps and slithers to the surface without my waking self in the know?

At the center of Locations is a ghost story. It’s about the ghosts that inhabit an area, an island, a family, and most importantly, our own psyche. The modern American male ego is put on trial and posited, an ever-present threat to any societal dynamic. Who is the virus? What constitutes as ‘valid culture’? Can one ever truly adapt to what their nature eminently rejects? Locations, the film’s title, is in this way a reference not only to the job that Arnold, our American, works; but to the different places that we store our thoughts, dreams and emotional injuries and how they come to the surface and why they come to call at all.”

Sophie Mourousi, Sophie Porzier, Clotilde Denis, and Loïc Baylacq star in the short film.

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