Interview with ‘Psych:9′ Director Andrew Shortell

A young woman seeks out the mundane after a troubled past and finds peace in a hospital alone at night, collating patient records. That is, until a series of unsettling events leads her to believe the hospital may be connected to a number of recent murders in the area. To get to the truth, Roslyn must solve the mystery of her own disturbing past.

The first clips for UK horror-thriller Psych:9 were released earlier this month and I recently had the opportunity to talk with director Andrew Shortell about the film that stars Sara Foster (The Big Bounce) as Roslyn, Cary Elwes (Saw) and Gabriel Mann (The Bourne Identity).

When Shortell started his production company, Green Card Pictures, he was approached by writer Lawrence Robinson who he had previously worked with on several short films, asking him to produce Psych:9. Originally, Robinson had another director on tap for the film but Shortell fell in love with the script:

“I read the script and I really liked it so I went back to him and said, ‘I don’t know if you have an agreement with the producer or the director because I’m really interested in it and I would be interested in directing it if we can buy it from you.’ …It was a pretty quick process once we found the script. I was drawn to it because I thought that it had a lot of great things in it and to me it wasn’t necessarily just a horror film. I loved the psychological-thriller nature of it–this women who is tormented, the things that are going on inside of her head and being able to manipulate that.”

Psych:9 is scheduled for a UK theatrical release with a US distributor hot on the heels of the film. I wondered if Shortell felt if a U.S. deal was necessary for him to feel as though the film was successful:

“The U.S. is definitely the market you want to be in. I think this it’s a sort of validation of the work that we did and all the hard work of everyone for it to come out in the U.S. and to be in the horror market. The market in the U.S. is huge and I think it can find its home.” Shortell confirmed that, “We’re hoping that before the release in the UK we’ll be able to announce a U.S. distribution deal.”

Horror is a new genre for the first time feature filmmaker, but he’s keenly aware of the iconic horror films that have out of the US as well as the UK’s “strong, underground horror following.” Psych:9 has crossed paths with one particular horror film on several occasions. The film shares producer credits with Eli Roth’s Hostel and Hostel: Part II and Shortell also ended up moving into Roth’s old office in Prague:

“We ended up filming within a couple of days after Hostel wrapped. In fact our pre-production overlapped with Hostel filming. The costume designer on our film happens to be my wife, and she worked on Hostel II as well. We had the same Assistant Director and we had probably a lot of the same Hammer crew. With Hostel II, some of the visuals behind the scenes and the stuff that they did was pretty horrific. I think some of that was left in the crew that was on our film. I think I tried to make sure that the film we were doing was a very different film. We went in different directions and it certainly has a different feel to it. I was careful to try and separate the two. But you know, we’re working in Barrandov, Prague on the same sound stage for part of the shots where they had just ripped down the set from Hostel II.”

Shooting the film in Prague was a positive experience for Shortell, whose apartment was right above the Charles Bridge and had a view of Prague Castle. “It was a magical sort of experience,” he said. “And every day [the crew] just took such good care of us. The people on set were great.”

The atmospheric hospital in Psych:9 is the centerpiece of the film and was created with a combination of location and created sets. Shortell explained further:

“The exterior of the hospital was an old, government science building on the outskirts of Prague. We were location scouting in July. Immediately when I saw this place it was great. It sort of goes back to old horror films when you see some of the old building facades. I knew it was definitely going to be the exterior. It had this great part with this long row of trees down to it leading up to the hospital which was amazing.

We then went to see if we could find an interior hospital that we could use as a hospital rather than the building. The building became the second option down the road. We scouted 15-20 different locations. They all had ups and downs as far as the shooting schedule, what we would have to do and what we would have to recreate. A lot of the hospitals had that sort of distressed look and we would have had to do a lot of work to bring it down to where it needed to be. In the end, we ended up building the [lower level] interior of the hospital in Barrandov, where they shot Hostel II and actually it was on the same sound stage as James Bond. So, we built this incredible set that was the hospital and had a lot of fun distressing it, pulling it apart and making it look worn and old.

In the location scouting we were lucky enough when we were looking at one hospital–an old hospital up on a hill, there was an old wing which had not been used for probably 20 or 30 years. There were buildings that almost looked like army barracks—buildings off of where the hospital was, that we ended up going into and they were really disgusting. They had homeless people living in them, going to the bathroom in them and all sorts of stuff. We went into them and it had this great ceramic tile and that green color…that dirty, old, creepy look. We took over one wing of that and built that into the psych ward. And that’s where we built the Doctor’s office which Cary played. That was where the psych baths were and the actual room Psych 9 was.”

According to Shortell, homeless people plagued the set more than ghosts did, but there some unsettling moments:

“It’s funny because in Prague they actually do ghost tours for tourists. They take you to parts of the town that are supposedly haunted. When we worked at night in some of these buildings it was pretty creepy. The crew themselves were a little bit nervous, mostly in the psych ward. Once in a while, you may not see a ghost, but there would be rustling in bushes and a homeless person crawling out which was pretty scary. By nature, filming in the psych ward was a pretty creepy experience for everyone. At that point in the film, when we were shooting that with Sara, the nature of the content of the material and the things we were dealing with in the script was a little unsettling. Sara’s performance as well—she was amazing. All that probably put people on edge more than anything else.”

Sara’s role as Roslyn developed quite organically as Shortell explains it:

“The first time I met Sara was about three days before we starting shooting in Prague. We just hit it off. Funnily enough the role required her to be a brunette—a very dark brunette. The subject hadn’t even been broached, but she showed up in Prague with this dark hair. She had decided to dye it dark even before deciding to take on the role in this film, so it was just kind of ironic and meant to be. She was ready for this role.” He continues, “She did an amazing job. I have to say she totally consumed herself in this film. I was so proud of what she did and what she gave to us…I think she worked 29 of the 31 days when we shot principal on the first unit. She really didn’t have any time off and she really did immerse herself in the role…”

Cary Elwes plays Dr. Clement in the film, who tries to help Sara discover the real meaning behind the dreams and hallucinations she’s having. Since this is Shortell’s first venture in the horror genre, I asked him if he relied on Cary at all for a little direction:

“Naturally, a very seasoned and experienced actor is going to take on the role of trying to help the director at first. I think the first few days we were definitely getting our footing and finding our places. He was bringing a lot of suggestions and ideas to the table that we sort of got nailed down in a couple of days…letting him know that these are the things I want to do, but then letting him know that this was a collaborative process.”

“Cary and I got along famously…He was instrumental in helping Sara because she’s new to this and it was similar with Gabe, who was in some of the very early scenes we shot with Sarah. We drew upon his experience just the same as we drew upon Cary’s, because he really did help Sara get to those places we really needed her to be in. Sara herself was very good at doing that, but it was instrumental having someone that experienced and just someone who had that calming way of letting Sara drop down her guard–allowing her to open up and do her thing and he was great at that. He really did help Sara tremendously.”

Filming in Prague was essential in keeping the actors immersed in their roles. As Shortell puts it, “No one left the hospital as it were. Everyone checked in and they were there the whole ride until everyone got on those planes to leave right before Christmas.”

Shortell offered some advice for first time filmmakers like himself, stressing that you should “surround yourself by good people…Make sure you choose people that are really going to be supportive to you and at whatever level, be really good at what they do.” After putting together a shot list book several months prior to shooting, Shortell quickly realized that it was better to “be organic” for most of the scenes and reserve planning for action sequences, “otherwise you’ll be floundering for days just trying to get the scene.” Lastly, Shortell advised to “stay positive and don’t give up when things don’t go your way. Don’t upset people because you’ll need them the next day,” he laughingly added.

You can follow Psych:9 on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook, or visit the official website for more information. Visit the Psych:9 photo gallery for more stills.

Images: Universal Pictures UK