EXCARNATE FILMMAKER INTERVIEW

Writer-Director Tom Wheeler discusses the inspiration behind EXCARNATE, the cursed camera, bringing the film to life, and what he learned along the way.

Q & A

EXCARNATE is your directorial debut. What inspired you to make this film and tell this story?

I had been wanting to make a short narrative film for a long time, and every time I came up with an idea, I kept coming back to the same one: a cursed camera.

I had always been fascinated by the lore surrounding photography and the idea that, for some people and cultures, having your image captured was about more than simply taking a picture. There was something unsettling about the idea of an image being taken from you, preserved, or somehow connected to your spirit. I loved the idea of taking that fear and building a story around it.

Of course, cursed objects aren’t exactly new. But I thought a cursed camera was a great way into a much more human story.

At the center of EXCARNATE is a man who has spent his life feeling lost and left behind. He watches his friends move forward while he struggles to find his place. Then, finally, he discovers something that clicks. Photography gives him a sense of purpose and makes him feel like he has finally found something he’s good at.

Then he discovers that the thing making him feel alive may be killing the people he loves.

That was the part I really wanted to explore. What does someone do when the one thing that finally gives their life meaning comes with a terrible price? Do they walk away? Do they convince themselves it’s superstition? Or do they keep going because, after a lifetime of feeling lost, giving up the one thing that finally makes them feel worthwhile may be harder than facing the consequences?

I wanted the audience to wrestle with that question right alongside him. Is the camera really cursed, or is there another explanation? And if you finally found the thing that made you feel like you mattered, how much would you be willing to sacrifice to keep it?

This film features some pretty brutal deaths. How did you pull those off, and what was the experience of filming them?

I did want some pretty gruesome deaths in the film, partly because I wanted the violence to create a sharp contrast with the quieter, more peaceful moments. But for this project, I wanted to approach the deaths head-on, while still presenting them in an implied way.

I love, don’t get me wrong. I love gore, and I enjoy all forms of horror. But I felt that showing everything would actually make some of these moments less effective. I was thinking more along the lines of the old-school Alfred Hitchcock approach to death scenes. In Psycho, for example, the shower scene is gruesome, but you never actually see the knife go into the victim. It becomes more about the psychological horror of the victim than about just the gore or the attack itself.

If you have someone being hanged, you could show the eyes bulging, the neck snapping, and all the physical brutality of what is happening. But I thought that, for this particular project, it could be more disturbing to leave some of that to the audience’s imagination.

To me, that’s more psychological. Your mind fills in what the camera doesn’t show, and sometimes what you imagine is worse than anything I could put on screen.

The budget was also a major factor, of course. We had very little to no money to make this film, so I had to think creatively about how to achieve those moments without relying on expensive effects.

But ultimately, that became part of the filmmaking approach. The question wasn’t, “How much gore can we show?” It was, “What do we actually need to tell the story well?”

I didn’t want the deaths to exist simply for shock value. I wanted them to have an impact, and for the way we presented them to contribute to the psychological horror of the film.

The sound design plays a major role in building tension throughout the film. What inspired the sound and music, particularly during the film’s most intense moments?

To me, most films, and especially horror films, are at least 50% about sound design and music. Sound is such a huge part of how you experience a scene emotionally, so I knew I wanted to put a lot of thought into that aspect of EXCARNATE.

For the musical score, I took more of a tonal approach rather than trying to compose traditional music for every scene. I used a variety of instruments and virtual instruments, and I would watch the film in real time while building the tension with the music. I could start with something very quiet and gradually build it at the pace and tempo that felt right for the scene, so the music was helping create the tone and emotion rather than simply sitting underneath the picture.

One of the things I learned pretty quickly is that a lot of the time, and in fact, in most cases, less is more. During the party scene, for example, I kept thinking, “There should be music here.” But then I realized, why? There was already sound design happening in the environment. You could hear the barbecue, the people talking, the background activity. The scene didn’t need music just because there was space for it. That scene was more about the interrelationship of these friends who have known each other their whole lives. They’re catching up, and we’re establishing Jase as a bit of a hobby hopper and somewhat of a dilettante, which is a major part of his character and why he feels so distant and lacking identity in himself.

There’s a great example of how powerful that can be in Psycho. Imagine that famous shower scene without composer Bernard Herrmann’s shrill, staccato string motif. If you take away the music and leave the scene in silence, suddenly, it’s a different emotional experience. It’s still horrifying, but for that particular scene, without the motif, it just doesn’t hit us as the audience the same at all. The music has enhanced that moment and enriched the storytelling of the scene.

But sometimes silence itself can be way more horrific. I remember watching Peter Jackson’s King Kong, particularly the scene where the characters fall into that chasm filled with bug creatures. There’s a moment where the music goes completely out, or is practically gone. But instead, you’re only left with the sounds of the creatures moving and feasting on the people as they frantically try to defend themselves. One guy is screaming his head off, and a big slug-like, worm-like creature with teeth bites over the top part of his body. You can hear him screaming, but it’s muffled and very faint inside the creature. That is far more disturbing to me than if there had been a big, epic musical score there.

So for EXCARNATE, it really depended on the tone of the moment. Sometimes the music needed to build, and other times the absence of the music was more appropriate.

You handled nearly every major role on the production. Why did you choose to take on so much of the filmmaking yourself?

Honestly, I never set out to do every role. I was trying to get going in narrative filmmaking, and I was reaching out, looking for collaborations, trying to get on sets, and trying to find opportunities to work with other filmmakers. But I was newer to the narrative side of filmmaking, so I didn’t have a big narrative portfolio yet. I wasn’t really getting anywhere.

I never went to film school. I’m completely self-taught. I did think about going to film school, and I actually looked into it and got all the way to the point of almost signing up. But I had a lot of friends who work in the industry, many of whom went to film school, and most of them told me, “Don’t do it.” I’m not advocating for or against film school, but I’m starting this film journey at 45, and I had to look at what made sense for me. Rather than taking on a significant amount of college debt, I decided to put that time and money into actually making films.

I’d already been doing video editing for about six years, working on documentaries, local business commercials, and other smaller projects. By the time I made EXCARNATE, I had about a year of hands-on experience with cinematography and filmmaking through those projects. Narrative filmmaking, however, had always been the goal and the dream. It was just new territory for me.

At some point, I realized, you know what? No one’s giving you the opportunity to work on narrative films, so you have to create the opportunity.

So that’s what I did with EXCARNATE. It was the first time I had ever written a narrative script, the first screenplay I had ever written and completed. It was also my first time directing a narrative film, doing the cinematography and lighting, recording sound, casting, scheduling, organizing the production, scouting locations, and handling all of the post-production. I edited the film, did the VFX, sound design, musical score, color correction, color grading, finishing, and final deliverables. Hell, I even learned how to create my own DCP.

Honestly, what I got out of making this film was about four years of film school in a total of six months.

Filmmaking is such a hands-on, practical field, and there’s only so much you can learn without actually doing it. I thought initially that I might just get some friends to act in the film, but I was fortunate enough to connect with some seasoned actors. I got a phenomenal cast, and that made a huge difference.

The directing itself wasn’t difficult. It actually felt quite natural for me. What made it difficult was that I was also operating as the director of photography, the gaffer, the sound recordist, and so on. I was literally saying, “Roll sound. Speed. Camera. Action,” while also trying to keep the frame, sometimes operating a gimbal with movement in the scene, sometimes working from a stationary camera, and so on. Then I’d have to call cut and immediately switch back into directing mode. I was fortunate to have some really talented, experienced actors.

Another thing that helped out a lot was I would do a tremendous amount of preparation for the production. I would sketch out storyboards and build detailed shot lists. I’d go to a location with my phone and essentially pre-visualize the scene, figuring out how I wanted to shoot everything. Honestly, the most time-consuming part of the entire process was creating the shot list and then turning that into a shooting plan for each day. Because you only have your actors for a certain amount of time, you only have the location for a certain amount of time. If you’re shooting during the day, you only have a limited amount of daylight. And you really had to account for all those things.

And then there were the practical realities of making a film with essentially no budget. Some of the scenes involving Jase were originally supposed to take place in a downtown apartment. But we didn’t have the financing, time, or permits to make that happen. So I thought, okay, let’s change it. Instead of Jase living in an apartment and trying to scrape by, he lives at home with his parents.

I had a spare bedroom, so we shot it there. And honestly, that turned out to be a lifesaver. I didn’t have to haul equipment all over the place, and it actually suited the character better. If this guy can’t follow through on anything, keeps failing at jobs, and can’t seem to find his identity, maybe he would wind up back at his parents’ house. The compromise actually strengthened the character.

That’s probably one of the biggest things I learned from the entire process. As a storyteller, it’s important to have a vision for your story, but you also have to be willing to adapt. You’re working through development, pre-production, principal photography, and post-production, and every stage presents its own problems.

I wasn’t trying to rewrite history with EXCARNATE. I wanted to tell a simple story, take it through every stage of the filmmaking process, create my own opportunity, and stop waiting for someone else to approve me to do it. I wanted to build my portfolio, learn as much as I could, and prove to myself that I could actually make a narrative film.

And ultimately, that’s what the experience taught me. You absolutely need to tell your story and protect the heart of your vision. But filmmaking is also a series of healthy and wise compromises that still allow you to holistically achieve the vision you have for your story and your film.

What do you hope audiences experience and feel after watching EXCARNATE?

Honestly, I hope audiences experience and feel like they’ve watched a good little psychological thriller. I think most of us have either experienced it ourselves or know someone who has had a hard time following through on certain things in life. I feel like Jase represents that part of all of us. He’s just taken it to the next degree. Some people may relate to him more than others, but I think there’s a little bit of Jase in all of us in certain areas.

I also love the fascination with the supernatural element. I think the world has a lot of mystery to it. And whether you view those things as supernatural, coincidence, or superstition, I like tapping into that sense of mystery and asking, “What if?” What would you do if you were in Jase’s shoes? By the time you reach the climax of the film, I think it’s interesting to consider how you would react if you were in his position.

One of the things I’ve really enjoyed when hearing people’s reactions to the film is hearing their favorite death scene. Like I said, we did a lot of nasty death scenes, but there was a lot of implication, and it makes me happy to know that it created a stronger psychological effect on viewers. I also have a lot of people asking whether there could be another film or spinoff that explores more of the lore of the cursed camera because they like that supernatural and historical element of it. And yes, there is a reason this particular camera is cursed. I just didn’t feel like that was the story I wanted to focus on in this particular film. But hearing people become interested in that mythology is great.

More importantly, I hope people walk away with something that makes them think. I don’t want to sound preachy or anything, but I think there’s something to be said for having mental barriers, depression, or some other negative aspect of your life and still pushing through to accomplish the things you want to accomplish. That’s something I personally relate to, and I think Jase’s character gives people an opportunity to interpret that in their own way.

Of course, I hope people have far better outcomes than the characters in this film. For storytelling, Grimm fairy tales have always had a big impact on me, and those stories had a lot of meaning and great takeaways, while not always having the happiest of endings.

And there’s another aspect of this film that I’m happy a lot of people are noticing. By the end of the film, you realize something interesting about the story’s structure. When I was doing rewrites, this idea sort of popped in my head out of nowhere. And it surprised me even. I love how that structure toward the end sort of redefines the whole viewer experience. It creates more thoughts and conversations with the people who watched it as the credits start to roll. I’ll just leave it at that.