Synopsis

After working in Dundee for 15 years, a University lecturer returns to the South of England to take a new post. However, the house he moves into with his wife and young daughter seems to be inhabited by some unknown entity. Life becomes unpleasant for the family as the entity manifests its presence in a rather peculiar way...

Writer's Notes

The idea for the script was conceived back in the 70's. My elder brother, Dave, his then girlfriend, and their infant daughter moved in to a three bedroom mid-terraced house in Fareham. There was a block of 7 houses and only the first one was occupied, by an elderly lady, when they came to move in. The houses were on raised land facing the sea, and the wind blew so hard that the roof would shake constantly on windy days. It was always cold in the house and somehow the loft kept flipping open on its own. Initially Dave thought it was his girlfriend opening it, and she thought it was him! Then the kettle, fridge, and everything electrical started to just stop working. A presence was being felt in the house, above all after dark, although nobody ever saw anything. It was as if somebody was walking around the house...They were also having nightmares but keeping it to themselves in order not to scare each other... Then the child, who was less than three years old at the time, started to claim that there was a person in her room at night... They lived there for only 7 weeks before moving to a new house in Poole!

Personally, I don't believe any of it!. The simple explanation is that the wind was so violent it just kept blowing the loft open. The house was over 200 years old and the electrical system was too old, therefore the fuses were just being blown when the fridge and kettle were on together.

However, one mystery lingers... It is very unusual for children under 5 to have nightmares, and this child here was able to give a vivid description of a very white faced young woman standing next to her bed....

I found the whole tale intriguing, and although I know there is a logical explanation for it all, I thought it would provide good material for a script and a short that could be produced cheaply. Years after I heard the story I wrote it down, adapted it a little, and came out with the screenplay for The Attic...

Director’s Notes

I had a precise vision of how the final product should look - since it was all indoor scenes and the rooms were not that big, I wanted some special camera angles. It was very easy to transfer this vision to the DoP. He has feature film experience and the way he lit the scenes and photographed them proved that he understood my vision perfectly. The team we had was excellent and very keen, allowing us to complete the film in two days. Although having to hire expensive lighting equipment meant the cost of the film exceeded its £600 budget.

The sound edit, and the colour grading were completed at the beginning of December. We now hope to transfer the film to DIGIBeta for the purpose of entering festivals...