Director Chris Mul Discusses New Film ‘Astral’ Starring Frank Dillane

Horror Geek Life caught up with Chris Mul, writer and director of the new sci-fi/horror film Astral, as well as plenty of terrifying short films. He talked to us about his inspirations, films, and what the future holds.

Astral follows a detached university student as he faces the consequences of astral projection when he uses it to reconnect with his dead mother. The film is set to be released November 23rd and stars Frank Dillane (Fear the Walking Dead).

Horror Geek Life: Thank you for taking the time to speak with us! We’ll get right into it, tell us a bit about yourself, what inspires you to make films?

Chris Mul: Films inspired. I started from an acting background, and went to a small theatre school. I’ve always been passionate about films and storytelling, and I guess I fell into filmmaking after I worked at acting and fell out of love with it. I actually realised as an actor that it’s a lot of sitting around waiting on sets, so I got quite bored very quickly and saw everyone else doing things behind the scenes. I got a little more of an interest in it and I started talking to my brother about the concept of writing our own stories, so we basically wrote a short story.

My brother was the one that pushed me to study independent filmmaking as a masters degree, after I’d already come back and done a business degree. I’ve always been fascinated with films, and how they piece together and the concept of storytelling on a larger platform.

HGL: You’ve made several short films before making Astral, are there any short films you’d like to go back and make into a feature length?

CM: The first thing we ever did was The Hitman, which my brother and I co-wrote. It came as just a conversation at a dinner table, and I don’t think there was too much of a narrative story there, it was more of a concept, so for me, definitely not that one.

The short film Debt, which I didn’t actually write, but I definitely feel there’s an interesting story there about relationships between friends and love, and then the concept of human trafficking to an extent. That’s obviously such a relevant topic, I think that’s something I would love to explore further if I had the opportunity. There are some great short films I’ve seen, that often feel like scenes from a bigger picture. I think whenever I was making short films, we tried to make them as complete as possible, so it would take a great deal of work to really conceive or find the narrative within it.

But there’s no particular ones. I mean, Debt would definitely be the closest, and Two Line Terrors, the anthology of shorts that piece together. They’re larger stories, but again, they’re very much based on concepts and the idea of telling a horror story in two lines and using a short platform to convey it. I don’t know how much they adhere to a narrative structure, per se.

HGL: How does the creative process differ making shorts compared to feature films?

CM: It’s funny, I had a friend/mentor while I was studying the Masters programme, who’d always said making a feature film is like making a short on a larger scale. So I would say from a production perspective, it felt pretty much the same.

When we were working on our short films, we had such a quick turnaround. We had the script, would start on the Monday, and by the end of the week we’d be editing. We’d have a kind of Friday-Saturday shooting period, so I guess we got very good at the production aspect.

I would say on a narrative and storytelling, or writer’s perspective, there’s a hell of a lot more that goes into the script. Understanding characters, and developing those characters across a longer platform. Obviously, you want to have as developed a character as possible, but in a short format, its very difficult to convey that element. It’s something you have to get across on screen on a longer platform. So I would say the biggest shift for us, working with my brother, writing Astral, was a much larger undertaking than any of the shorts, not necessarily the production. But I guess, as I said, we got very good at it production-wise, so we benefited largely.

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HGL: Astral was shot in just twelve days, so do you think the quick turnaround was influenced by making shorts?

CM: We knew the period we had, and we had an amazing location, the Royal Holloway University in Surrey. It looked beautiful, but we knew the time was fast approaching for the summer to end. We didn’t want to be there whilst there were students, so we had a week.

Frank had just got back and wrapped from Fear The Walking Dead, and he was off to Mexico a week or two after that and had some ADR work, so we only had a limited time frame.

On any film with a low budget, you have to secure and make the time work for you as much as possible. I remember we had a conversation with a producer friend and initially suggested three weeks to shoot. They’d said to us, “Well, if you have three weeks, or you can do it in three weeks, is it possible to do it in two weeks?”

This particular reference was with crew. Although everyone received payment for the film, for working on it, at this budget you can’t meet the larger scale minimum rates, so we almost took it as like a two week holiday. And we had a large number of collaborators, and people who we’d worked with on the short films. Like, for example, our gaffer was someone we’d done a lot of work with on our short films, who actually ended up doing a lot of the drone footage for us as well, and a cinematographer was a relationship we’d developed over time. So, I think when we initially pitched the idea and went into it, we knew we had the two weeks. I definitely think we benefited from the fast-paced turnaround we’d learnt from the shorts.

HGL: What went into the casting decisions for Astral?

CM: We had our casting director, Alice, on board for three months before we were shooting. The longest process for us was finding the youngsters. Frank, funnily enough, was actually the first person we went to. We were really lucky to have him, because he kind of skyrocketed straight after [Fear The Walking Dead]. My producer, Christos (Kardana), knew of him through a friend who’d shot a feature with him and his dad, and had seen his final short film at RADA theatre school. When we went to meet our casting director, the first name we had on our list to play our lead was actually someone she was well aware of. She knew his agent very well, so we reached out to Frank. Frank actually had a link to sleep paralysis because he suffered from it himself, so immediately there was this connection and the material for him jumped out of the page.

The way we found Damson (Idris) and Vanessa (Grasse) were actual casting sessions. I would say the most complicated was definitely the older, more experienced actors who often came on board two, three, four days before we were about to shoot. As we were progressing, we got very lucky. Once we had Frank, we had more interest from very talented actors, and that extended to the more experienced actors. Because we had a certain time frame and schedule, it’s difficult in the film industry, where you know about a project but you don’t know if it’s going to happen. We were very fortunate in that we were in this position – we were shooting in a few weeks – that actors would know if you jump on this project it’s going to happen, you know we’re in the process.

It was stressful particularly because I had to make casting decisions almost on the fly. During the shoot I remember Christos coming to me with reels from actors and saying, “What do you think of this person for this role?” and so it was pressured, but it worked. We ended up kind of actually benefiting on a number of occasions and reaching out to a number of talented actors who we knew just had the time at that period.

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HGL: Where did the inspiration for the film come from?

CM: My brother is currently writing a book about the history of mankind, and whilst he was writing it, he was looking into spirituality and religions and came across the notion of astral projection. He actually decided to try it himself, and during his undertaking he experienced a number of frightening hallucinations. Things like waking up in the middle of the night and suffering from sleep paralysis, feeling an entity breathing over his neck and growling, or the bed would violently shake and he would wake up in the morning and look at the scratch marks on the floor where the bed had shook.

I was living with him at the time, he hadn’t told [our housemates] about what he was doing, and they started to see things themselves. And when he realised they had, we discussed using the idea of that as a narrative through-line to tell a psychological, paranormal thriller.

HGL: There are some sensitive elements to the plot. Were they difficult to deal with as a writer/director and for the actors?

CM: I had a number of conversations and did a fair amount of research into astral projection without actually undertaking it myself. I know for Frank, it was something which he had suffered from so he had that connection. We wanted to highlight the difficulty that you struggle with spiritually and mentally, but also allow the audience to see that because a lot of it is very much internalized within characters, we tried to make as much of it external and that’s why we chose the spiritual route.

We tried to focus on the scientific aspect at the same time and kind of bring a realistion to audience members that this is something that, although be it a pseudo-science, there is a scientific prospect to it.

I think it was difficult for my brother when he was undertaking it. As a director, it was very difficult to try and convey that on-screen, when so much of it is internalised. I had a number of conversations with Frank about it in the run up prior to us filming, and a number of conversations with our crew members.

We did test shoots and had a look at how to convey shadow figures. I’m a big fan of practical effects, so often we didn’t ask Frank to convey any sense of fear or uneasy-nerving without having someone there. We had people dressed up, almost just completely blacked out to give him something to work with. Particularly for an actor, I think when you’re trying to overtly display an internal feeling, it’s very difficult to convey it on-screen without some form of practical effect. If you’re looking at a green screen and you’re showing some form of shock and awe, you’re never going to get the same reaction as you do if you’re using practical effects. I think much of the success for us came down to the use of practical effects and actually conveying it from an internal perspective.

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HGL: What can we look forward to next from you?

CM: More thrillers. I’m a big fan of sci-fi, a big fan of thrillers. I didn’t necessarily want to go too much the horror route, I wanted to allow the audience to see the unnerving aspect of astral projection, or of any form of mental problems, and I think that we tried to convey that as much as possible psychologically with the film. I’m a big fan of those psychological thrillers, think very much Hitchcockian or Kubrick’s The Shining, so I think going forward the prospect of thrillers have always attracted me.

The project my brother and I are working on at the minute is an off-world sci-fi about the dangers of advancements in human technology and artificial intelligence. But it also is very claustrophobic because it centers around two characters predominantly. Similarly, the one we’re in the process of writing is very much so about one man’s survival against nature, and I think there’s something there about man’s inner journey and the difficulty dealing with that sense of isolation for any character. I think, for me, they’re definitely themes I’d love to explore more. I hope that’s something that people will find interesting and very much in the almost Castaway, 127 Hours vein.

HGL: We’ll finish on a cheesy question: what film has made the biggest impact on you as a filmmaker, and why?

CM: My guiltiest pleasure, Roland Emmerich’s Stargate, prior to Independence Day. I guess for me, it’s interesting because its very much rooted in historical accuracies, but with a scientific premise that allows an alternative theory.

My brother and I work very closely together and have very similar ideas, which I believe is why we work so well together, but there was something about Stargate, it told on this grand scale I always found very much appealing.

And then I can’t not mention the 1969 Italian Job because, for some reason, I’ve always been drawn to it. Just the colours, Michael Caine’s accent, very much the feel it has of the ’60s, and yet it tells a story that feels relevant no matter when you watch it. I think those two have been the biggest influences.

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