The director of new tech-based thriller Drop has been singing the praises of the Irish crew he worked with while shooting his new movie in Dublin and Ardmore Studios in Wicklow.
Drop, which is in cinemas now, stars White Lotus actress Meghann Fahy as Violet, a psychotherapist recovering from an abusive marriage who goes on her first date in five years and gets far more than she bargained for.
The movie, which also stars The End of Us actor Brandon Skelnar, sees Dublin stand in for Chicago and Ardmore Studios in Wicklow used for the interior shots.
Speaking to RTÉ Entertainment, director Christopher Landon said, "I loved Dublin, beautiful city, magical city but it was the people. I had the best crew I've ever had and it was a delight and a joy and everyone was so talented but also so joyful. I found that culture-wide.
"Being in classic old Ardmore . . .it feels like a place that is steeped in movie history but, yeah, the combination of the modern parts of the city and the old."
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Landon, who previously directed Happy Death Day and Freaky, worked with industrious movie studio Blumhouse and horror veteran Wes Craven on Drop and he says that Red Eye, which starred a deeply creepy Cillian Murphy and Rachel McAdams, was a big inspiration.
"Red Eye was a big one. It kept coming up when we were making this movie for me and Wes Craven in particular. We felt like that was a movie that achieved a very similar vibe and I was definitely channelling that."
Drop takes places in real time and in one location, which resented all kinds of challenges for Landon.
"Oh, absolutely!" he says. "Whenever you do something that’s generally a single location and is in real time, your biggest challenge is pace because you’ve to keep things moving and you have to keep it interesting.
"We worked very hard on the script and for me there needed to be a new plot pivot every few pages - one event after another because you’re actually watching this very high paced chess match unfolding.
"Every time Violet tries to out manoeuvre this person who is tormenting her, they’re already one step ahead of her. The set that we built also gave us enormous flexibility from a camera perspective.
"It allowed us to keep moving because I could shoot so much in such a short amount of time. It’s a very visually exciting movie for a movie that is set in a single location."
Meghann’s character Violet is a survivor of domestic abuse and it’s a subject that is very close of Landon’s heart.
"Yes, it is," he says. "I’m very close to someone who really experienced some really scary stuff and I know how terrifying and isolating that can be but I also feel that this was an opportunity to speak to the strengths of being a victim and how people are able to fight their way out of that.
"So this is really a movie about strength and redemption in my eyes."
Drop is in cinemas now
