New Horror Movie ‘Other’: An Interview With Director David Moreau

Other is a new film from French horror director David Moreau. I had the opportunity to chat with Moreau about his eerie new project, which explores isolation and trauma.

The movie, which is now streaming on Shudder, is about Alice (Olga Kurylenko; Thunderbolts*, Oblivion) who returns to her childhood home after her mother’s death, only to find the house is rigged with surveillance tracking her every move, as a sinister presence lurks, driving her towards a terrifying revelation.

Never miss a take

Our best stories, weekly.

FOURTH TAKE: What are some things that you may have learned on previous films that you were able to apply in the movie Other?

David Moreau: The previous movie I did, called MadS, is a one shot movie. The fact that you just have one shot to tell a story keeps you from doing a lot of things, but it helps you to do others. I found a way to tell the story I wanted to make. When you have too many possibilities, sometimes you lose yourself. You know?

At the beginning I thought, “Oh, it’s going to be so tough and so difficult,” and it was, for many reasons, but the main difficulty for me as a director is to find the right way to tell a story. And when you cannot do things, you need to find ideas to get through this line.

With Other, by having this character lost in her world, for reasons we will understand at the end of the movie, the fact that she’s the only character we actually see the face was, in a way, the difficulty I needed to tell this story. I don’t know if I was clear.

FOURTH TAKE: I think you were very clear. If I understood, something you learned on MadS was that sometimes the constraints, the limits you put on yourself, can help the process, and help spur you to make creative decisions. So to put yourself in a place where you have to make those hard decisions in the service of the story. That can bring out something magical.

David Moreau: Thank you so much, Alexander. Yes, exactly. You put it in a very sharp way, what I was trying to tell you.

FOURTH TAKE: Well, since you brought it up, something that was really fascinating that clicked with me early on we don’t get to see anybody’s face, other than the principal character, for the vast majority of the film.

In the notes you said, it kind of came to you in pre-production. What was that moment like where you kind of had that idea and, and was it, was it like a wow moment or like an almost exciting, scary moment?

David Moreau: Actually, I think it was partially there in the writing, the way I wrote the story, even if it was not, like, a rule. And once I knew that we were going to make the movie and we were starting prepping and all that, I read the script and, I thought, I wanna do it this way. After that was clear, crystal clear, because, as I told you, I needed to find this idea of keeping myself from doing too many things, you know?

I think it was when I saw, panic room, I thought it was so great that we actually could stay in this panic room with this mother and a child. We’re just seeing the video of the ones who trained to get in. Like in reality, when you actually don’t see more than the character will. Typically in those kinds of movies, when you want as much as possible to put the audience in the mind of the character. When you jump from inside a room to outside, showing what the character doesn’t see, which is, the definition of suspense for Alfred Hitchcock, which is something amazing in his movies, you know?

I always find myself more connected to the genre movies where I actually don’t see too much. And where I can give the audience the possibility to use their own imagination, you know?

FOURTH TAKE: It was fascinating from a technical standpoint, and I think really effective from a storytelling perspective.

David Moreau: I think Steven Spielberg would say that, movie making is audiovisual, you know, and with audiovisual you have audio first, which is very important for me. I always find a way to give the sound as much space as possible and when you actually don’t see things, but hear them, It’s very effective and it’s giving something very abstract and very clear to the audience, who actually is going to make their own monster in their mind.

FOURTH TAKE: Speaking of the audio portion of it, the sound design in Other was really effective and I wondered, what was that process like? Because, there were a lot of sounds that I couldn’t identify and, like you said, my imagination started going.My mind kept going to bone crunching, like something gnawing on bones. So what, what was that process like, finding those audio cues to try and get your audience engaged?

David Moreau: Louis [Bart], the sound designer stepped in the movie, I could not see him for three, two or three days when it started. Then we finally, uh, got together and he started to put a lot of sound, and I said, no. I think we have to go very simple.

I wanted the movie to be almost silent. I wanted precise sounds in the silence. Marco, in his studio, I sang him some sounds and he said, “oh, shit. I have to find that.” So he spent nights, and nights trying to find the perfect sound. He is a very talented guy. He told me that it was a very important movie for him because he spent so many times trying to have a clear and also abstract sound. I said I want it to be clear, but something we haven’t really heard before. You he played with all of his tricks, you know, he went to record sounds in the forest and stuff like that.

One of my favorite parts of making a movie is to work with the sound, especially in this genre. It can be so interesting and gives such a strain to a simple visual when you actually hear something that you don’t see.

The first movie I saw, when I was probably nine-ish, was Texas Chainsaw Massacre. My parents forbid me to see the movie, so of course I found a way to see it. I was outside the room and I was trying to see the movie through the peep hole. It was very difficult. So I heard the movie, only and it was, [makes chainsaw and screaming noises]. I was so frightened, but I was frightened only by the sound. So as a movie goer, my first horror movie was seen only with ears.

FOURTH TAKE: Wow. That’s great. Even back then, you were clever. And that cleverness shows through in this movie Other, it’s really entertaining.