DIRGE: New Psychological Horror.
June 2, 2018
Charlie (Neal Ward) and Olivia (Nadia Lamin) embark on a gripping journey into the isolated woodland wilderness of 1970s England. Searching for answers to the insidious nightmare that devours them, they must face their darkest fears. At first, everything appears normal, but the deeper they descend, the increasingly dark and twisted their reality becomes. Haunted by the demons of their past and present, will they overcome the terror that follows?
Dirge was born through the mutual love of the horror genre and fascination in human psychology that writers and directors Richard Oakes and Adam Leader both share.
The human mind works in mysterious ways when in a depressive state, it has the power to drive oneself to act and see things completely out of character. When in this dark, lonely place, we tend to distance ourselves from loved ones, which is an important statement to make in order to change this negative pattern. Dirge aims to explore the struggle and beauty that can be found within the family dynamic even when manifested in the darkest way, questioning the social expectations of the viewer when presented with difficult choices between love and life.
Bringing Nadia Lamin on board with the writing process was a creative decision Dark Fable Media felt added immensely to the project. Not only for her talent in creative writing but to also give a balanced view on the contrasting coping mechanisms used socially by opposing genders and exploring the various techniques men and women subconsciously use to manipulate each other for their own goals, even within the confines of a loving family dynamic.
Ultimately, DIRGE is a film questioning the established ethical principles of our society, how we deal with mental illness and the duality of love and ego. It uses more abstract story telling methods and has distorted the standard cinematic structure, to not only engage the audience on a deeper level but to also increase the impact the final moments of the film have on them.
Richard and Adam met in 2014 on a video shoot for Adams band 'In Search Of Sun'. Since then, the two have gone on to work as a close team, shooting music videos for the likes of Airbourne, SHVPES, The Raven Age, Daniel Tompkins, Dani Filth, The One Hundred and many more. In 2016, having worked on various short film projects together, they started writing the story for what would become their first full length feature film, 'Dirge'.
"From a young age, I threw all my eggs in the music basket, and since 2010 I've been working on nothing else other than In Search Of Sun. Now that the band is gaining some traction, there's a window for me to finally pursue film, which has always been another passion of mine. We shot the concept trailer just to get a feel of the overall vibe we'd been discussing for so long. I'll tell you, Rich and I were getting emotional on set because of how well Nadia and Neal portrayed Charlie and Olivia. It was magic. The two of them are so talented and play off each other perfectly. We can't wait to shoot the real thing!" - Adam Leader
"I've been running Dark Fable Media for over six years which started as a music video production company, however I've always had a passion for film and for a little over a year now, I've been working as a DOP in feature films. There comes a time where you just have to bite the bullet and go out and make a film yourself and that's exactly what we're doing. We've been working on this solidly for so long; I'm incredibly excited to finally bring it to life!" - Richard Oakes
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