The Lodgers is set 1920’s, rural Ireland. Anglo Irish twins Rachel and Edward share a strange existence in their crumbling family estate. Each night, the property becomes the domain of a sinister presence (The Lodgers) which enforces three rules upon the twins: they must be in bed by midnight; they may not permit an outsider past the threshold; if one attempts to escape, the life of the other is placed in jeopardy. When troubled war veteran Sean returns to the nearby village, he is immediately drawn to the mysterious Rachel, who in turn begins to break the rules set out by The Lodgers. The consequences pull Rachel into a deadly confrontation with her brother – and with the curse that haunts them.
The film was directed by Brian O’ Malley and written by David Turpin. It stars newcomer Charlotte Vega, Bill Milner (iBoy, Son of Rambow), David Bradley (Harry Potter, Game of Thrones), Eugene Simon (Game of Thrones), Deirdre O’Kane (Noble) and Moe Dunford (Vikings). Filming took place in Hook Head in Wexford and at the famous Loftus Hall, reportedly the most haunted building in Ireland. It is produced by Ruth Treacy and Julianne Forde of Tailored Films with funding from the Irish Film Board and Epic Pictures Group.
CinÉireann sat down with director Brian O'Malley and writer David Turpin to talk about making the film.
Cin É: How did you come to film in Loftus Hall?
Brian: The script called for a very particular type of house. In the script it's mentioned that it's damp and that there's sense of that in the air. That wasn't something that we could necessarily achieve in reality, but we needed a house that had a sense of decay about it. We looked at a lot of houses around the country, and they were either in such a state of horrendous condition that it was too dangerous to enter them, or they had been so magnificently restored to brand-new perfection that they didn't have any of that texture that the film required. You would have had to dress them. It was mentioned by one of teh producers in Tailored Films that we should go look at Loftus Hall. So we drove down and had a look. When you walk inside the doorway of Loftus Hall, and you step across the threshold as David Bradley does in the film, it's like stepping backwards in time. It's like stepping into a time-capsule. Other than the sockets in the wall and fire sensors on the ceilings there's nothing about it that feels like it belongs in this century, or even in the last century. It feels like the air inside the house is from the era that it was built in. It naturally just lent itself perfectly to the script that David had written. It then unfortunately in the 1990's the ceiling had a leak which destroyed the floor around the base of the
CinÉireann / March 2018 35