BTL Radio Show with special guest director KEVIN LEWIS talking about MISDIRECTION

Описание: I’m very excited about this week’s BEHIND THE LENS and my special guest, director KEVIN LEWIS.  This marks Kevin’s third appearance on #BTLRadioShow, following the brilliantly bonkers WILLY’S WONDERLAND and PIG HILL. Still, this time we’re talking about his new film MISDIRECTION, which, in many respects, is a big departure from the horror films you’ve come to know and love from Kevin.

Set over one long night in a glass-walled modern house, MISDIRECTION follows a couple driven to carry out a series of high-end heists to pay off a dangerous mob debt. When their latest break-in — targeting a prominent defense attorney — spirals out of control, the pair find themselves caught in a web of secrets, deception, and deadly consequences.

A glasshouse should offer clarity, but in MISDIRECTION, it does the opposite — reflecting, refracting, and distorting truth until every face becomes suspect.  With a script by Lacy McClory, Kevin sets this sleek neo-noir thriller inside a space that promises transparency, then weaponizes it, turning glass, marble, and open space into instruments of paranoia over the course of one long, unforgiving night as Sara and Jason are planning that one final heist before leaving their life of crime behind. Everything goes smoothly until things don’t.  Their target, wealthy lawyer David Blume, returns home unexpectedly and stops their escape in its tracks.  But Blume is neither the easy mark they thought him to be nor the person they thought he was; but then, neither are Sara and Jason.

Directed by Kevin Lewis and written by Lacy McClory, MISDIRECTION stars Frank Grillo, Olga Kurylenko, and Oliver Trevana.

MISDIRECTION is a completely new style for Kevin.  It’s a bold, different work in his filmography.  So used to seeing horror films from him, he dazzles with this neo-noirish home invasion crime thriller, which begs the question, how does directing a contained non-horror film like MISDIRECTION differ from multi-location films like "Pig Hill" and "Willy's Wonderland"? 

As you’ll hear, Kevin frames the difference as being driven entirely by what each script demands, not by genre labels like “horror” vs “non-horror,” but you can see and hear clear contrasts in how he talks about them.

For MISDIRECTION (contained, non-horror neo-noir thriller), it’s about being trapped in one house where the house is a character.  It’s “non-horror” and more because it demands intimate, performance-driven, one-environment suspense, versus the bigger, location-driven, concept-y mechanics of “Pig Hill” and “Willy’s Wonderland”.  Each film’s geography dictates his directing muscles and he makes perfect use of each of them with MISDIRECTION.

With Willy’s, you’re trapped in a pizza fun land for kids; with MISDIRECTION you’re trapped in this glass house with three people who might be lying to you. The locations are characters, but the way they create tension is completely different. 

The deeper we get into MISDIRECTION, the more emotionally complex it becomes, and Kevin dives into how performance and action influenced the emotional tonal bandwidth as he leans on performance first, and action second to create that emotional complexity; the fights are really extensions of what the actors are already playing.   With performance driving the tone, Kevin talks about the film as “primal” and built on jealousy, anger, and dark emotions. 

Working with longtime editor Ryan Liebert, Lewis starts MISDIRECTION as a slow burn, then tightens the screws by cutting from wide, glass-walled compositions into suffocating close-ups and ticking-clock inserts, so the tension creeps up until the house feels as claustrophobic as any horror set.

On his first collaboration with DP Matti Eerikainen, a favorite DP of Renny Harlin, Kevin found a partner who wasn’t just chasing a cool look but was moved by the script’s emotional core, shaping MISDIRECTION’s handheld, anamorphic, glass-and-shadows aesthetic around the characters’ inner lives.

Every craft choice is in service of jealousy, secrets, and morally gray areas: the glass house promises transparency but hides pockets of darkness; handheld anamorphic keeps us trapped in real time with people who may be lying; Olga Kurylenko’s stripped-down look as Sara removes any glamour barrier between the audience and Sara’s guilt; and even Bob, her battered stuffed dog, becomes a visual reminder of how love, hurt, and loyalty can coexist in the same fragile object.

With some time to spare this week, I've also got some fun, female-centric Oscar trivia for you about the 98th Academy Awards.

And while you can see MISDIRECTION on digital, make sure to hit the theatre to check out Luc Besson's DRACULA.  I've got a few things to say about that.   (And yes, I love the film.)

Enjoy!

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