Don’t Move, which begins streaming on October 25 on Netflix, is a breathless thriller that rests on one woman’s survival instincts. The movie was directed by Adam Schindler and Brian Netto, with the iconic Sam Raimi serving as one of its producers after the pair previously directed an episode of his50 States of Frightanthology. While Raimi may be best known for theEvil Deadhorror franchise and the firstSpider-Mantrilogy, he has also produced similarly claustrophobic thrillers such as the crocodile-infestedCrawl.
The pedigree ofDon’t Moveis heightened ever further thanks to cinematographer Zach Kuperstein, who served as DP on2022’s surprise box-office hitBarbarian, which similarly makes use of tension over gore. The story, written byIntruders' T.J. Cimfel and David White, follows a grieving mother named Iris (played byYellowstonestar Kelsey Asbille), who is accosted by a stranger (portrayed byAmerican Horror Story’s Finn Wittrock). He injects her with a paralyzing agent, leaving her with 20 minutes or less to fight back and escape with her life.
Don’t Move Trailer: Yellowstone Star Fights Serial Killer’s Time-Delayed Paralysis Drug To Escape
The new trailer for Don’t Move shows Yellowstone’s Kelsey Asbille as a woman in a perilous situation as she is injected by a killer’s paralytic drug.
Screen Rantinterviewed Netto and Schindler about their collaboration with producer Sam Raimi and his heart-swelling reaction to the director’s cut ofDon’t Move. The duo also shared how they coached actor Kelsey Asbille regarding the taxing physical aspect of her role, and why their preparation in the early parts of production helped filming go much smoother on set.
Don’t Move Directors Fondly Recall Collaborating With – And Impressing – Sam Raimi
Screen Rant:The legendary Sam Raimi served as a produceron this film. Can you describe the collaborative process of working with him?
Adam Schindler: Yeah, absolutely. Sam is very hands-on. We learned this when we did an episode of 50 States of Fright, which was on Quibi — rest in peace. That is where we first worked with Sam, and we learned in that process that he likes to sit down and read through every single line of the script.
Don’t Move is no different. We spent hours literally poring over the script, reading every action line, and reading every line of dialogue. He gives the best, I think, script to screen notes that we’ve ever received. And it’s basically just like, knowing this movie is for an audience, “How are we going to do this? How are we going to get the audience to feel that emotion or feel that suspense?” and this and that. We literally read through every single line, and we’d stop to talk about it.
Brian Netto: We would read the script. We were performing the lines. It was great. We learned we’re not actors in that moment. I’m glad that was not videotaped!
Screen Rant: Can you describe the emotion and reaction as you watched Sam Raimi’s positive, enthusiastic reaction to your first director’s cut?
Brian Netto: Yeah, we were sitting behind the producers. We sat in the back, everyone was ahead of us, and the lights were down, so we were trying to determine, “Who is that who keeps talking in the front? Who’s talking up there?” And we just realized that he was having a very strong reaction to it — a positive, strong reaction.
And afterward, it was great to hear him. He was proud. He was happy for us. I think he was excited about what it would become — because obviously there was a director’s cut — but hearing him gush over what it was at its current state was incredibly gratifying.
Adam Schindler: We were watching him actually enjoy the movie, knowing full well that we were going to get into the nitty-gritty and really tighten the bolts on it. But to see him turn around and just have that big smile on his face and just be like, “Wow…” I was pinching myself!
Brian Netto: All the producers, really. Alex Lebovici, Zainab Azizi, Sarah Sarandos… They were all like, “Okay, we’ve got something here.” And so, it was just a matter of fine-tuning and just making it a lean machine.
How Don’t Move Star Kelsey Asbille Perfected The Art Of Stillness
“We were grateful that she gave us that trust.”
Screen Rant: Kelsey said she really leaned on you guys as directors when you got to those full paralysis scenes, and she really learned the art of subtlety during those scenes. Can you talk about working with Kelsey on Iris' full-on descent into paralysis, and also what impressed you the most about her performance?
Brian Netto: Starting with the body movement. We’d talk performance, so early on in the process, a friend of ours' wife is an anesthesiologist, so we had a Zoom meeting and talked about the script. What does that look like? What does that descent look like with her mobility or her loss of mobility? That was really instrumental, I think, for all of us to just get a sense scientifically and biologically of, “What does this really look like?”
And then we said, “All right, what do we need it to look like for the film?” When we got to Bulgaria where we shot, we had a conversation with Kelsey where we just talked about the chapters of the script and how, in this moment, this is what it’s going to look like. And in that moment, this is what it looks like.
Adam Schindler: I already had that all planned out. So, on the day when we’re shooting, we don’t have to think about that. This is where we were at, and we already discussed at length what this portion looked like physically.
Brian Netto: But then getting on set is a different thing because now you’re lying in the grass or sitting in the car. Then it’s a matter of like, she’s probably thinking in her head, “Am I giving enough? Or am I giving too much?” And that’s where we would both, at that moment, just have to assess where we shot. “What was the previous moment? In the fiction of our story, what was she just able to do moments ago?”
“Alright, so she was able to do that then. Now, the progression looks like this…” But a lot of it was just because [even though] we didn’t write the script, it came from us and we developed it so closely, so it felt like we knew every beat of it. It was just a level of confidence we always had that we were going to nail this progression.
Adam Schindler: It’s a level of trust on her side to just go, “Okay, am I giving too much? Am I not giving it?” She’d trust us to go, “Yes, this is a perfect amount of movement,” or, “You’re moving too much,” and guide that. We were grateful that she gave us that trust.
Brian Netto: And what impressed us was that exactly. There are moments where we’re just on her face or just on her eyes, and you have to feel something. You have to feel desperation. You have to feel hope, or you have to feel a loss of hope. All those things, she was able to convey in a way that was hers. That was her being able to tap into that, and [it was] remarkable.
Screen Rant: Can you discuss the real-time narrative structure, and how that influenced your direction of Kelsey and Finn? Particularly when it comes to maintaining the continuous tension in the film.
Adam Schindler: Yeah, we really charged ourselves with the real-time aspect of it. When we went to craft it, we sat down with our DP Zach Kuperstein, who also shot Barbarian. And we really decided, “Okay, how are we going to live? How are we going to do this? Are we going to live in these moments?”
This is not a very cut-cut-cut movie. We wanted to build the suspense, so we wanted to be comfortable living in the moments where we’re just on her face, listening to the trees and seeing that and experiencing that and being confident that that will work. And every day on set, it was Zach in our ear like a mantra." We stick to the plan."
You can feel hurried sometimes when you’re trying to make your day and all this, but we were just setting that plan of, “We’re going to live in these moments, build that suspense by being there.” And Zach was great, always reminding us that this is the plan.
More About Don’t Move (2024)
When a killer injects her with a paralytic agent, a woman must run, fight, and hide before her body completely shuts down.
Don’t Move
Cast
A grieving woman must escape a serial killer in the remote forests of Big Sur after being injected with a paralytic agent. With only 20 minutes before her body shuts down, she embarks on a desperate race against time, battling fear and her fading physical strength in this tense survival horror thriller.
