SEARCHING FOR EVIL
Overview
'Searching For Evil' is a British short film made in 2019 and directed by Harry Bell. Inspired by the classic slasher films of the 1980s it follows two detectives as they turn from hunters into the hunted after following the tracks of escaped serial killer Ivan Astaroth.
Solitude of the woods - The look of Searching for Evil
The entirety of 'Searching For Evil' takes place in one vast and dense forest. Our main characters are secluded from the rest of the world, they are alone with the ruthless killing machine that is hunting them down.
To get across the feeling of helplessness and disorientation , everything apart from opening and closing shots are all on ground level. We stay with the characters. We know roughly where they are in relation to the killer but we are never 100% sure.
The film starts with aerial shots and slowly descends into the forest where it stays and is not allowed to leave until the characters meet their fate.
Both groups, the detective and the killer are assigned their own style of camera movements:
whenever we follow the two detectives around the forest, the camera is exclusively handheld, always moving between the two in extended longer shots. Paired with a couple of creeping shots from behind the trees further away, a slightly paranoid and unsettling atmosphere is created. These two people don't belong in this forest and the camera "stumbles" around with them.
Then there is the killer, Ivan Astaroth. I wanted to show that he is the one in charge, the "king" of this forest. Therefore, smooth and calculated camera movements are used whenever the focus shifts over to him. Especially during the climactic clash between the two parties, the shots focusing on Ivan are shot on a gimbal, a crane or locked static shots.
One sequence of the film - the part where the two detectives find the discarded chains of the killer - was orignally intended (and shot) as a long one take. The shot began with one of the detectives stepping on the chains and picking them up and then continued while she moved through the forest to find a phone signal. Constantly rotating around her, we would then see the killer sneaking up on her partner and dragging him off into the woods, before she would turn around and find the tongue on the tree. In the end, even though planning, rehearsing and filming that one long shot took quite some time, only edited fractions of it made it into the final cut.
While we were all satisfied with the shot and its execution itself, in the end, a more edited and cut down version worked a lot better for the pacing and the suspense.
What was used in the end was a combination of alternative coverage i got on the day and bits and pieces from the one take.
Confronting pure Evil - A look at the fight sequence
The big climax of 'Searching For Evil' is the brutal showdown between Detective Lanes and Ivan Astaroth. This final fight was the biggest set piece of the film and the sequence that took the longest to shoot with the originally planned version being longer due to it including a chase through the forest.
In the end the chase was scrapped to make sure that the actual fight got the time and care it needed.
The fight itself was planned and structured form beginning to end with me and the director going through several tests and rehearsals to see what worked best.
The goal for us was to create a sequence that looked chaotic and frantic but still followed a structure that would build suspense.
Therfeore we needed to make sure that the different parts of the fight worked well together and still maintained a rough and raw look.
In the end, the fight is split up into three parts: the initial strangling, the brief pause and discovery of the body and the final clash.
The end product is a frantic struggle for survival with the slow and methodically moving Ivan having the upper hand for the entire encounter and the detective fighting for her life with all she has left.
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