The Den

The list

1. 01

   The Den 2014

   Found-footage webcam horror from director/co-writer Zachary Donohue; stars Melanie Papalia as Elizabeth Benton.

   Where to watch ▸

Where to watch: IFC Midnight - select theaters and on VOD, Friday, March 14th, 2014

Facts from the original

• Donohue said the goal was a found-footage movie that felt like you were on your own computer screen.
• He wanted to convey a voyeuristic sense that viewers were privy to the character's emails and chats.
• Donohue described wanting to create a funhouse and present funny commentary about the internet alongside the scares.
• He said some moments in the movie are meant to be laughed at rather than only feared.
• The inspiration came from writing partner Lauren Thompson's job at a chat roulette site, where she polled users about their opinions.
• Thompson came across a still image of a girl and had a strange text conversation with it, prompting the filmmakers to play out scenarios such as witnessing a murder.
• The story was then presented in a traditional slasher formula.
• Donohue said he has been a big horror fan since childhood and always wanted to make a movie like Dario Argento or in the vein of Halloween or The Burning.
• Writing the first draft revealed many scares were similar, so they had to generate varied scares instead of a creepy figure appearing behind the girl's shoulder.
• They aimed to craft scary moments with traditional horror angles and cutaways while using webcam limitations to their advantage.
• Donohue noted it is scary that you often cannot see what is off-frame, and they played with the best scare scenarios for those limitations.
• The film has a few good effects gags, but Donohue said the focus was on how violent acts serve the story rather than gore for its own sake.
• The casting audition was intense because the movie is essentially all Elizabeth.
• For Melanie Papalia, they wanted to see if she was interesting when doing little, whether she could scream well, and whether she brought intensity to keep audiences on edge.
• Donohue praised Papalia for taking a leap of faith through bizarre, unnatural scenes and direction like moving her eyes left and right.
• He described Papalia as a very cool person who loves horror movies and always wanted to be in one.
• The synopsis describes Elizabeth Benton (Papalia) logging onto a video chat site called THE DEN to study its users after receiving a grant for her graduate thesis.
• During a random video chat she watches a teenage girl gruesomely murdered in front of her webcam; police dismiss it as a viral prank but Elizabeth believes it is real.
• Her life spirals as she is pulled deeper into the darkest recesses of the internet, and she becomes trapped in a twisted game targeting her and her loved ones.