Director's Statement

“The Shells” grew organically out of a number of key interests and goals. One, I wanted to write a genre film that featured strong and dynamic female roles that defied the “scream queen” model and, unlike the vast majority of contemporary genre flicks, was centered on a dramatic relationship between women.

Two, I’ve been deeply inspired by the narrative flexibility, risk taking, and dark humor in genre films of the 1980s, which “The Shells” attempts to re-imagine. This sensibility is reflected aesthetically in the lo-fi approach of our VFX, our cinematography and lighting, and our hybrid electronic score. The story has the thrills of a sci-fi horror, but it is also quite funny – and we hope this combintion of dark humor and horror is a great way to open an audience to an unusual story.

Third, we had very little money to spend! So the story was built around a single location and we carefully planned to achieve an ambitious film on a very small budget.

At its heart, “The Shells” is intended to be a sexy, fun, wild ride for the midnight movie crowd while also challenging its audience to engage with a head scratcher of an ending that we feel “Generation Matrix” will spark to.

I hope you enjoy “The Shells”!
Max Finneran

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