20/04/2022 - The upcoming horror-thriller will star British actress Millie Brady and Pollyanna McIntosh, from The Walking Dead; Ian Hunt-Duffy is directing

Actresses Millie Brady (left) and Pollyanna McIntosh

Los Angeles-based indie genre production company Epic Pictures Group began shooting Double Blind [+see also:
film review
film profile] in Ireland earlier this month. The film follows seven strangers taking part in a paid drug trial. However, things go wrong rather quickly – they become trapped in the lab after the side effects of the study kick in, escalating the situation into a nightmarish scenario: if they fall asleep, they die.

Written by Darach McGarrigle, Double Blind marks the feature directorial debut for Ian Hunt-Duffy, who, along with producer Simon Doyle, runs Dublin-based production company Failsafe Films. “Being a universal story, Double Blind could have been set in the USA or Europe, but as Irish filmmakers supported by Screen Ireland, it was a very organic decision for us to make the film here,” Doyle tells Cineuropa. “We are shooting in the West of Ireland, in County Limerick. After looking at many different locations across the country, the local film office in Limerick helped us find our unique set, which led to the decision to shoot here. We feel it’s a different type of Irish film that we’re making, and we wanted the locations to reflect that. We didn’t want to use a place that had been shown on screen before.”

The film is the latest in a string of Irish co-productions that Epic Pictures Group has been a part of, including the SXSW title The Cellar [+see also:
film review
interview: Brendan Muldowney
film profile] by Brendan Muldowney, which saw a family slowly coming to terms with the many dark mysteries hidden inside the house they had just bought.

“I’m delighted to be shooting Double Blind with the support of Epic and Screen Ireland. As a filmmaker, I am deeply passionate about creating original, suspenseful and intelligent genre cinema, and I believe that the hook of our story – fall asleep and you die – is so evocative and memorable,” said Hunt-Duffy. “It takes something ordinary and innocent, and makes it deadly. We have a fantastic ensemble cast led by Millie Brady and horror icon Pollyanna McIntosh, so I cannot wait for audiences to experience the tension, claustrophobia and dread that we have in store.”

Brady has been seen in the likes of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Netflix’s British series The Last Kingdom, while Scotland’s McIntosh directed Darlin’, a self-described “social issue horror” in 2019. Brenock O’Connor, Abby Fitz (already seen in The Cellar), Shonagh Marie and Diarmuid Noyes will also star.

“I want to put the audience right in the characters’ shoes, and make them feel the same twitchy disorientation and confusion that comes from prolonged sleep deprivation. The unusual composition and unnerving sound design will all help accentuate the haunting, dreamlike atmosphere of the film,” added Hunt-Duffy. “The hallucination scenes, in particular, are a great opportunity to represent the personal fear of each character and create an emotional connection for the viewer, so these sequences are all shot with their own individual style, creating a sense of urgency as the tension and paranoia rise.”

Epic Pictures Group will launch worldwide sales on the film at the upcoming Marché du Film in Cannes, which unspools from 17-25 May.