As a society, we’re familiar with ghost stories. When we turn to supernatural films, the ones filled with poltergeists and phantoms, we typically know what we are getting into. There’s an expectation, a formula. It’s rare this formula gets changed, but “Never After Dark” does so expertly.
“Never After Dark” takes the traditional ghost story and turns it completely on it’s head. The film follows psychic Airi, who encounters a very powerful ghost in a home in the woods. While investigating the spirit, she uncovers something more sinister, dark and threatening than she was expecting.
The story feels unique, breaking out of the previously established supernatural story box. The film also features an intriguing, complicated, female protagonist, creating a distinctly feminine perspective on the story.
With spectacular performances and a masterfully curated eerie atmosphere, the film is sure to keep your blood pressure high and your eyes glued to the screen. With it’s distinct take on the genre, “Never After Dark” is sure to be a horror staple for years to come. Don’t watch this one with the lights off.
Cinema Femme sat down with director Dave Boyle, and lead actress Moeka Hoshi for an interview.
Megan Henderson: I would love to hear a bit about both of your journeys and careers up until this point. What brought you to this moment?
Dave Boyle: I’m a long time movie lover and wanted to make movies since I was a kid. I started out making tiny, tiny independent films at the same time I was working as a editor, editing documentaries and TV Sports stuff, anything I could work on. Some of those indie films got enough attention on the film festival circuit that I could keep going. I made a movie called “Man From Reno”, 11 or 12 years ago, it was a murder mystery in San Fransisco and it had a Japanese cast in it, and I got some financing out of Japan.
That lead to me making a show for Netflix called “House of Ninjas” a couple of years ago. I spent a couple years in Japan there working on it. I really hit it off with the co-creator of the show. When that show was finished and came out, we didn’t want to wait for anyone else to determine our future, so we started a company together and “Never After Dark” was out first film under that label. A lot of the same team that was on the Netflix show hopped over to “Never After Dark” and we just kept the party going.
Moeka Hoshi: There isn’t any dramatic story for me. I did ballet for 10 years when I was a kid. I had to quit because of my family’s situation, and of course lack of my talent, but I wanted to be a ballerina. My dream and goal had gone. There are some similarites between ballet and acting, there is a story and there are roles. In acting there is lines, but in the ballet there is choreography to tell a story. I’m not sure why but I suddenly started to say “I want to be an actress.” I started to take audtions when I was 17 years old, and I started working as a professional when I was 22 years old.
Then I continued to do it and do Japanese work. Five years ago I joining “Shōgun”. That opened a door to the world, I was very happy to know the world because I had never been outside of Japan before “Shōgun”. I had a very special experience because of the show. Then “Never After Dark” brought me to LA again. I’m so happy to bring my new project to American audiences.
MH: Dave, you wrote the script as well as directed. What inspired this story? How did you make sure this felt different from other supernatural horror films?
DB: The second part of the question was the inspiration for the first part. I have a passion for ghost stories. Whenever I see a trailer for a new one, like a haunted house movie or some kind of ghost story, I’m in. Every flavor. I don’t know why, but that whole world is so fascinating and always a good tine for me.
I do feel they often end in the same way. No matter how intriguing the start is, they kind of settle into a…well you know, they’re hard to end. I’ll put it that way. Even movies I love sometimes feel like there’s a let down at the very end of the story. I wanted to challenge myself to come up with a ghost story that would feel cozy and familiar yet end in an unexpected way, or at least tweak the formula that’s come before. I felt like I have a lot of interesting ideas that might find a good home inside a ghost story. It’s something I’d been wanting to do for a very, very long time and I had the opportunity to do it, so everything I wanted to do in a ghost story, I did.
MH: Moeka, you play a psychic with a very complicated relationship to the living and the dead. What was your experience like building this character.
MKH: It wasn’t so hard to get into this world and story. We had a lot of discussion before filming. I thougth i needed to understand very specifically, so I asked a lot of questions to Dave. Dave always gave me the information and details, so that helped me a lot. It wasn’t so difficult to act as Airi.
MH: On the other hand, Dave, what was it like for you developing and creating such a complex female character?
DB: I felt really helped along by Moeka’s presence and discussion. Actually when I cast her for the film, we didn’t have a script yet, I just had a synopsis. The way the schedule and everything worked out, since we were all jamming this into the schedule, we knew we were shooting something but we needed to get it together, which is a lot of times how the film industry in Japan works. You put all the players together and then write the script.
It was definitely a challenging role to write because I didn’t want to explain everything in words or dialogue, I wanted to get most of it across visually. In addition to that, I wanted to stoke the audience’s curiosity about her and sort of let her behave as though nobody is watching. So you’re just getting breadcrumbs of her story along the way. Originally she was in the story on her own, but once the sister character was in there it became easier for me to write. I grew up with two sisters, and I feel like sibling relationships are really fun and interesting for me personally, so imagining them as my own sisters and what kind of interactions they might have suddenly made it easier to write and think about.
MH: One of the most stand out elements of this film to me is the sound, both the soundtrack and the sound effects. It’s so singular. Could you share a bit about how you developed the soundscape?
DB: We mixed it in Atmos, without knowing if anyone would be able to watch it that way. The surround mix is awesome but the Atmos mix is even cooler.
I love working on sound and this movie represented a really great opportunity to bring together some collaborators, both in Japan and in Hollywood, that might otherwise be the big fish in their respective ponds, but being able to throw them together was fun. The sound design and foley was all done by Natsuko Inoue, she did “Godzilla Minus One” and the Netflix show I worked on. Here in the States, Carlos Sanches has been my long time supervising sound editor and rerecording mixer. I wasn’t able to work with him on the Netflix show, I had a wonderful team at Toho Studios in Japan who did that show. So, I was able to collaborate with the two of them on this. Folks who come from wildly different philosophies about sound and how it works, working together often times coming up with something new.
The third part of it was Jonathon Snipes, who did both the songs and the score for the movie. He was another person I worked with on “House of Ninjas”, who just kind of has a sideways approach to music. It was great.
MH: I would love to hear a bit more from you guys about the contrast between the spirituality and ritualistic aspects of the film, versus the real, human fear that’s in the film.
DB: For me, I think, I mean it’s even stated in the movie. Ghosts aren’t as scary as what living people are capable of. I’m sure people have had frightening experiences with the paranormal, but the core idea I wanted to express was without worrying about what’s to come after death, there is plenty to fear here in life. Coming up with a structure for a movie that would express that idea and satisfy both the cozy ghost story, as well as the more visceral, home invasion thriller, which is the stuff that really scares me, that was the fun challenge and the joy of making this movie.
MKH: This film, I think we see that the fear, living human beings can generate fear through the film. At first glance you might consider this to be a ghost story, but I do think that Dave’s message is spot on. Instead of fearing something that you don’t see, maybe we should fear something that is actually present in reality, that is actually in the here and now. I sincerely hope the film communicates Dave’s ideas of that adequately.
