Cinephiles in Barbados, the diaspora and across the globe who love horror flicks have a new one, 100 per cent homegrown, to add to their “must-see list”.
After three years in the making, Stockton Miller’s film The Silence After premiered recently on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, and the movie’s website and before a very engrossed and engaged audience at the Daphne Joseph Hackett Theatre in Queen’s Park.
With top-notch special effects, solid acting and a good script, the story is centred on the chaos that ensues after violent zombie-like protestors run rampant across the country following a mysterious viral outbreak.
Survival is the main theme of the DarkWeb Films, Animekon Studios and Boardhouse Productions movie, but there are sub themes of abuse and relationships.
After the screening before an audience comprising Miller, his co-writers Brandon Atherley and Cherah Belgrave, the cast, media and other specially invited guests, Miller said: “This film was something we’ve been working on for a while. We did it before, then we did it over.
“My focus this time was about the survivors and what they would do in a weird situation. And as you can see, what happened.
“I’m trying not to be emotional. We really worked hard on this film and last year August till yesterday . . . we were trying to get this day happen, and it finally happened, thanks to the National Cultural Foundation,” he said to robust applause.
He thanked the cast for their hard work, the late nights of filming and re-shooting scenes multiple times, and noted it was also fun. He also thanked and praised the co-writers and said that it was Belgrave who named “80 per cent of the characters” because he could not, even though he visualised who he wanted to play them.
Miller told the DAILY NATION there was a casting call for people to be in the movie, which was done with a small budget.
In his remarks, Atherley said the word he “hated” most on set was “tweak”, which was Miller’s “favourite word.
“Because it means that I have to rewrite something or change something. And normally when he says tweak, it means a few pages. So that was an experience.”
He also shared an experience on set, where he saw an upset Miller wearing “a whole hazmat suit” after one of the actors got COVID. Following that, he had to “fix” the script to make it work as they had no shooting days left and the budget was small but they made it work.
Miller urged the audience to like and share the movie trailers and stream the movie, which will also be available on TiVo from May 13.
Senior business development officer at the National Cultural Foundation Andre Hoyte said the goal now is to drive the distribution of the film.
“So let us put some money behind it. Encourage our friends to download, pay, go on the Amazon Prime and Apple TV and the website and really support this film, because we have to support all of these actors as well. And this is just a taste of things to come . . . Congratulations again to all of you,” Hoyte said.
Before the screening, the audience was treated to a 30-minute screening of Tyquan Neblett’s capstone short film Spotlight, based on the Heartman of Bajan folklore. (GBM)
