Post-pandemic, big pharmaceutical companies have been put under the microscope, especially since the vaccine rollout. There are a lot of questions surrounding their business practices, ethics, and motivation. Ian Hunt-Duffy’s Double Blind (2023) is consequently a very timely horror flick, gripping audiences with a terrifying experimental-drug concept.
Screened at the Belfast Film Festival, the feature follows a group of people who sign up for a clinical drug trial. A simple double-blind test turns into a morbid game of survival as the side-effects start creeping in. Based on the concept ‘if they fall asleep, they die’, Double Blind is a high-stakes thriller that is out now in select theatres and digital platforms.
The Indiependent caught up with director Ian Hunt-Duffy and actor Pollyanna McIntosh (The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live and Vikings: Valhalla) during the film festival to talk about filming in one location for Double Blind, the effects of COVID-19 on the script, and what they would do if given the ultimatum of ‘fall asleep or die’.
Indie: To start us off, can you please give us a brief introduction into Double Blind? How will this film entice people to go and see it?
Ian Hunt-Duffy: “Double Blind is a horror-thriller about a clinical drug trial that goes terribly wrong. It’s about seven young people who sign up to test this new drug for a pharmaceutical company. One of the side effects from the drug is at first, no one can sleep—they’re not even feeling tired! This continues for a few nights: no one is sleeping, they’re wide awake. All the while, the drug company is upping the dose to see what will happen. Eventually, the effects peter-off and they start feeling tired and one of them falls asleep—and they die. Horrifically, the rest of the group figure out that if they fall asleep, they die too. That’s sort of the main premise of Double Blind.
It’s a high-concept horror-film and has a killer-hook with the rule you can’t break: if you fall asleep, you die. I think that’ll grip an audience; its something they can latch onto very early on. It’s a one-location horror which I’m a big fan of. You take a group of mismatched characters —these characters who are rough but sympathetic, characters living on the margins—and you put them all under one roof and create a pressure-cooker environment. That can really make for tension, suspense, and horror. If you like horror, if you like thrillers, I think this is going to be one for you.”
Pollyanna McIntosh: “I think Ian put it succinctly. What really struck me when I watched this film was—what I hoped for in being part of making it—beautiful cinematography and characters you can really get under the skin of. The performance is so realistic and natural that you’re in their world and you’re with them. It feels very real, which is the best thing in a horror, isn’t it? When the stakes are as high for you as they are for the people in the film. There are some good surprises too and some good twists.”
Indie: Can you please tell us about your character Dr. Burke and the role she plays in the Double Blind experiment?
PM: “She is in charge of the trial and keeping everything on track. Essentially, she is a scientist doing her work. She does recognize these effects are going to be too much for the people in the trial. Unfortunately, because it is a double-blind trial, she isn’t told what’s going on either. She becomes aware that the pharmaceutical company is doing dirty and wrong to these people and there’s little she can do about it. Dr. Burke is a complex character in the sense that there may be other people who would have handled it differently. But she’s just trying to get on with it, do her job, and keep going. I can’t say too much about how things go for her because that’s part of the fun. I will say that I really enjoyed playing her and there are surprises with her.”
Indie: I really like the mix of supernatural dreams against the very scientific backdrop of Double Blind. What films and pieces of media did you look into to achieve that balance and effect?
IHD: “A lot of films! This, in many ways, is a love letter to the 80s era of horror films that I would have grown up with. The kind of films that got me excited about film and wanting to be a filmmaker. A touchpoint for me is John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982). It’s a huge favourite of mine in just that, again, its characters are trapped in a location and there’s all the paranoia of turning on one another. There’s the sci-fi element to that which is this entity that they’re trying to overcome or face. One by one, they’re dying and turning on each other. Aliens (1986) would have obviously been a touchpoint as well. Cube (1997) is another horror film in a sci-fi setting and limited location. Even Black Mirror has a great vibe. It mixes with the everyday and finds horror in the everyday.”
PM: “And the commentary that Black Mirror brings to the audience as well. Because whatever creature you’re battling is essentially capitalism run amok, isn’t it?”
IHD: “That is true. Because the villain of Double Blind is very much big pharma. It’s this faceless evil corporation that’s running the trial and exploiting these innocent people’s lives for profit points. That was something I thought was a good villain for a horror film.”
Indie: Speaking of one location, there are also a lot of very optical illusion-esque transitions in Double Blind. For you as the director, what are the pros and cons of filming all of that in a limited set?
IHD: “I would say largely it’s pros rather than cons. Logistically speaking from a budgetary point of view, if you can set things in one location, it’s advantageous because you’re not spending a lot of time moving from location to location. It’s great having everything under one roof as well. For me, it was great creatively because with our cinematographer and the lighting, you can create a mood and an atmosphere in one space. With the art department and production as well. It allowed us to focus, everyone together—all of the departments—and create this singular look and style to the film. I think that came from having one location. Also, it creates in-and-of-itself a kind of claustrophobia and tension that the actors could use as well.”
PM: “It helps during COVID as well to be in a slightly controlled environment. Not that we weren’t without any COVID situations.”
IHD: “Actually, one of our actors, Brenock O’Connor who plays Paul, got COVID on day two of the shoot. He had to isolate for seven days. Only two days into filming, we’re already having to re-jig the schedule and throw things out. It was a tough schedule as well and we only had twenty-three days to shoot the film. It was really ambitious what we were trying to achieve in 23 days. But, again, having it all in one location—we were trying to be pragmatic and smart in that sense.”
Indie: As an actor restricted to that one location, did you have any time at all to see the sights of Limerick?
PM: “We did have some cast dinners together, which was lovely. We tried to go to places outdoors that had a bit of space, that were quiet and all of that. There was a lovely hotel we were all put in where we could sit in the bar and just talk the nights away; that worked well to connect and bond us all. It was nice at lunch-time because we’d get the production/canteen area which had an outdoor space. People would all be like dead flies under the sun after lunch and then be back to it. Everyone was there to do the job so it was really no question that we weren’t away on a holiday. We were away on location and that’s a different thing which has its own pleasures.”
Indie: Going back to the scientific side of Double Blind, did you do any research into medical testing, the steps and the stages, and the different types of clinical trials taken in creating new drugs to have a better understanding of the story and Dr. Burke’s role?
PM: “I did not! Lucky for me, her intention and her want are very singular and clear. It didn’t really matter to me the details of the testing. The fact that it was double-blind trial, a lot of it was kept from my character anyway. She was always about control and containment. Not just of these people and her trial going to plan, but of her own feelings and emotions that might have come up during it as well. It was really about that for me. That didn’t require intensive research as it might have done in another situation or another role. Again, I always want to talk about all the stuff in the film with my character. I can’t really because I don’t want to give anything away to the audience!”
Indie: Well, Dr. Burke does have a kind of omnipresence and duality to her role. Not to give anything away, but how did you approach that bait-and-switch to her?
PM: “The way I always do. It’s funny, because I’d look back in my career and a lot of times, I’m playing two characters in one. Whether she’s in disguise or she changes her name, her way of speaking and her look. It’s just very often that comes up for me. This was a case of a switcharoo as well. I just love a horror audience and I know what they enjoy and I had fun with that.
With that last sort of piece that Dr. Burke’s involved in, Ian shot it in a really smart way. He had the option of using the dialogue coming from her or disassociating it from her facial expressions—doing it very close and doing it very far. It’s so creepy when something’s at a distance and you don’t know when that’s going to change. Of whether it’s real or not. It was really fun for me to see the final-cut and to see how that worked out. I thought that was very effective. It’s one of my favorite parts of the film and not just because it’s me! It’s a real horror kind of switch-up in the film’s style. That’s always fun to have in a third act.”
Indie: I read in a different interview that you finished the script during COVID. You were also filming while all of that was happening. Did any of the real–world events back then affect or inspire how you would tackle big pharma and medical testing in the film?
IHD: “It’s interesting because this had been in development since 2018. It was pre-COVID when we first started writing the script. We were supposed to go into production in 2020—or that was the aim. Obviously, COVID happened and the world shut down. It’s funny looking back; we had the term “lockdown” in our script then but that’s taken on a whole new meaning now. With the vaccine being made, we’re all familiar with pharmaceutical companies and drug trials. It gives it a different resonance now; it’s fortuitous and gives it an edge. Beyond COVID, there have been some scandals with big pharma like the opioid epidemic and different things. This isn’t a message film by the way; I’m not picketing against big pharma. I just think they make a good villain in a horror film. With the last few years, I think the audience will agree with that.”
Indie: And finally, if you yourself were stuck in that lockdown situation with the dilemma of ‘if you fall asleep, you die’, are you going to power through it however long it takes to get out? Or are you just going to give-in?
IHD: “I don’t know if I’d give-in so to speak, but I’d probably just fall asleep. I have a three-year-old son so sleep is a must—I never have enough sleep!”
PM: “I’d love to think that I would power through and that I wouldn’t fall asleep. I’d find a way and keep everybody rallying together and going for it. Certainly, I wouldn’t let what happens in Double Blind happen with certain things. You know, that was maddening! But you just don’t know how you’re going to respond in these circumstances. I think I’d definitely be a strong hallucinator and have a bit of a wild time in my own head. I would hope that the want to keep the group together would overcome that. The dancing in the script is a really good plan to keep you going. I think I’d probably be dancing a lot.”
Interview and words by Mae Trumata