A Room to Die For

Last updated

A Room To Die For
Directed byDevanand Shanmugam
Written byMatthew J. Gunn
Produced bySimon Cummins
Topher Cox
Pikki Fearon
David Hyland
Starring Michael Lieber
Vas Blackwood
Jon Campling
Christopher Craig
Loren Peta
Antonia Davies
Frederik Von Lüttichau
CinematographyBeatriz Delgado Mena
Edited byEoghan Synnott
Music by Stewart Dugdale
Release date
  • 16 January 2017 (2017-01-16)
Running time
84 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

A Room To Die For, aka Rancour, is a 2017 British thriller horror film directed by Devanand Shanmugam and written by Matthew J. Gunn. A Room To Die For was made by Champagne Charlie Productions in 2015 and distributed by 4 Digital Media and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment on 16 January 2017. The film stars Ves Blackwood, Michael Lieber, Jon Campling, [1] Christopher Craig, Loren Peta, Antonia Davies, and Ben Ellis. [2]

Contents

Plot

A struggling, unstable stand-up comedian Marcus Crowe (Michael Lieber) and his girlfriend Jill Scott (Loren Peta) move into a vacant bedroom in the house of an elderly couple, Henry and Josephine Baker (Christopher Craig and Antonia Davies), in a quiet suburb of Oxfordshire in an effort to save money. As the story progresses and friction begins to build between a high-tempered Henry and a stir-crazy Marcus, it becomes more apparent that a sinister intention is drawing ever closer for the young couple. The sweet idyllic country home is bombarded by an intimidating policeman, unwanted phone calls and mysterious trams, and Marcus and Jill have completely disappeared from the room without a trace. [3]

Cast

Production

Casting

"I have great chemistry with Dev he has a real gentle way about him, he allowed us to improvise if we wished which is great as a performer because whether you are fond of improvising or not it always relaxes you to know you have the option."

— Michael Lieber, on working with Devanand Shanmugam (Director) [4]

Castings were held in 2014 by Devanand Shanmugam (director), Matthew J. Gunn (script writer), and Topher Cox (producer) in Oxford, England. The first to be secured was Michael Lieber to play the lead role of Mark Crowe; he mentions this in a press interview for the Gulf News on 9 July 2014. [5] Christopher Craig and Antonia Davies were cast shortly after to play Henry and Josephine Baker. The auditioning of the psychologically intense role of Jill Scott proved difficult and was recast several times before finally settling on Loren Peta. Minor roles and cameo appearance were resolved over the rehearsal period (Jon Campling as Gary the Tramp, Vas Blackwood as Detective McQueen, and Ben Ellis as Jill's brother Jason Scott).

Filming

Filming took place inside an old country house in suburban Oxfordshire, England, which was a converted Christian church. Other locations included a specially designed basement in the back garden of the property [6]

Reception

The film received mixed reviews from critics. gbhbl.com [7] called A Room to Die For "one big mess of tired ideas".

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jacqueline Bisset</span> British actress

Winifred Jacqueline Fraser BissetLdH is a British actress. She began her film career in 1965 and first came to prominence in 1968 with roles in The Detective, Bullitt, and The Sweet Ride, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination as Most Promising Newcomer. In the 1970s, she starred in Airport (1970), The Mephisto Waltz (1971), Day for Night (1973), which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Le Magnifique (1973), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), St. Ives (1976), The Deep (1977), The Greek Tycoon (1978) and Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (1978), which earned her a Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Algernon Blackwood</span> English broadcasting narrator, journalist, novelist and short story writer

Algernon Henry Blackwood, CBE was an English broadcasting narrator, journalist, novelist and short story writer, and among the most prolific ghost story writers in the history of the genre. The literary critic S. T. Joshi stated, "His work is more consistently meritorious than any weird writer's except Dunsany's" and that his short story collection Incredible Adventures (1914) "may be the premier weird collection of this or any other century".

The year 2000 in film involved some significant events. The top grosser worldwide was Mission: Impossible 2. Domestically in North America, Gladiator won the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Actor. Dinosaur was the most expensive film of 2000 and a box-office success.

1917 in film was a particularly fruitful year for the art form, and is often cited as one of the years in the decade which contributed to the medium the most, along with 1913. Secondarily the year saw a limited global embrace of narrative film-making and featured innovative techniques such as continuity cutting. Primarily, the year is an American landmark, as 1917 is the first year where the narrative and visual style is typified as "Classical Hollywood".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mike Mignola</span> American comic artist and writer

Michael Mignola is an American comic book artist and writer best known for creating Hellboy for Dark Horse Comics, part of a shared universe of titles including B.P.R.D., Abe Sapien, Lobster Johnson, and various spin-offs. He has also created other supernatural and paranormal themed titles for Dark Horse including Baltimore, Joe Golem, and The Amazing Screw-On Head.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erika Christensen</span> American actress

Erika Jane Christensen is an American actress. Her filmography includes roles in Traffic (2000), Swimfan (2002), The Banger Sisters (2002), The Perfect Score (2004), Flightplan (2005), How to Rob a Bank (2007), The Tortured (2010), and The Case for Christ (2017). For her performance in Traffic, she won the MTV Movie Award for Breakthrough Female Performance and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture along with her co-stars.

Bellamy was an Australian television series made by the Reg Grundy Organisation for the Ten Network in 1981.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inkpot Award</span> Comics award

The Inkpot Award is an honor bestowed annually since 1974 by Comic-Con International. It is given to professionals in the fields of comic books, comic strips, animation, science fiction, and related areas of popular culture, at CCI's annual convention, the San Diego Comic-Con. Also eligible are members of Comic-Con's Board of Directors and convention committee.

<i>The Vault of Horror</i> (film) 1973 British film

The Vault of Horror is a 1973 British anthology horror film directed by Roy Ward Baker, and starring Terry-Thomas, Dawn Addams, Denholm Elliott, Curd Jürgens, Tom Baker, Michael Craig, Terence Alexander, Glynis Johns, Mike Pratt, Robin Nedwell, Geoffrey Davies, Daniel Massey and Anna Massey.

The National Board of Review Award for Best Acting by an Ensemble is an annual film award given by the National Board of Review.

<i>Saw V</i> 2008 film by David Hackl

Saw V is a 2008 horror film directed by David Hackl, in his directorial debut, from a screenplay by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan. It is the fifth installment in the Saw film series and a sequel to 2007's Saw IV. The film stars Tobin Bell, Costas Mandylor, Scott Patterson, Betsy Russell, Mark Rolston, Julie Benz, Carlo Rota, and Meagan Good.

Caroline at Midnight is a 1993 erotic thriller film, written by Travis Rink and directed by Scott McGinnis. Rated R, it was released direct-to-video in December 1993. It aired on Cinemax in 1994 and the Showtime Network in 1995. In 1995 it was screened on The Movie Channel's Joe Bob's Drive-in Theater with producer Roger Corman discussing the making of the film with film critic Joe Bob Briggs. In reflecting on her career in a 2009 interview in the Los Angeles Times, Virginia Madsen described her role in this film as indicative of the low quality sex driven films which she was type cast in during the 1990s.

Geoffrey Frank Bradford was an English guitarist who played alongside British blues musicians in the 1950s and 1960s, such as Long John Baldry and Alexis Korner.

<i>The Night Shift</i> (TV series) American medical drama television series

The Night Shift is an American medical drama television series that ran on NBC from May 27, 2014, to August 31, 2017, for four seasons and 45 episodes. The series was created by Gabe Sachs and Jeff Judah, and follows the lives of the staff who work the late night shift in the emergency room at San Antonio Memorial Hospital.

Journey into Darkness is a 1968 British made-for-television horror film featuring two episodes derived from the 1968–1969 anthology television series Journey to the Unknown starring Robert Reed and Jennifer Hilary, directed by Peter Sasdy and James Hill. The film contains the following episodes:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Lieber</span> British novelist and actor

Michael Lieber is a British novelist, essayist and short story writer. Lieber's novels include The War Hero, The Boy and the Goldlock, and Helga Dune.

The 58th Writers Guild of America Awards, given on February 4, 2006, honored the best film and television writers of 2005.

References

  1. ↑ "actor wraps filming new folk horror film". Falmouth lecturer. Retrieved 12 June 2015.
  2. ↑ "a room to die for (2017)". allmovie. Retrieved 4 April 2017.
  3. ↑ "a room to die for". cargocollective. Retrieved 2 April 2015.
  4. ↑ "michael lieber talks about his role in uk horror a room to die for". britflicks. 18 May 2015. Archived from the original on 11 January 2018. Retrieved 19 May 2017.
  5. ↑ "meet the british stars of ramanujan". Gulf News. Retrieved 9 July 2014.
  6. ↑ "feature film – a room to die for". mydreamstoreality. Archived from the original on 6 April 2017. Retrieved 2 March 2016.
  7. ↑ "horror movie review: a room to die for (2017)". gbhbl. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.