DIRECTOR STATEMENT
When I was writing, my goal was to make something that I had yet to see from other DePaul students. Horror is one of those genres that tends to be forgotten about and doesn’t receive the recognition it deserves. I had numerous friends who also wanted to try new things, thus I made this film in order to give the PD/SFX individuals, the sound department, camera team, etc the chance to experiment with things that they wanted to try out.

Other is not the type of film that is going to have a long lasting emotional impact on its viewers. That is not the point. My goal in telling this story is to demonstrate that people tend to judge others based on their own personality traits. We see traits within ourselves that we don’t like and it can bring out the worst in us. We become rather irritated by what we don’t like because it can remind us of ourselves. The protagonist in the film kills people due to them being stereotypical of common horror traits. He wants to encounter unique people. As time goes on, he becomes lazy and irritated with those that he kidnaps. When it comes to the final girl, Amber, she doesn’t do anything extraordinary, but she sees his laziness. His lack of precision and care allows her to defeat him and throw it in his face that he is now being a stereotype. He ultimately becomes what he hates. A boring individual. In horror movies, it is always about the creative and gory kills. When a killer uses a gun, it is underwhelming. Amber uses this to her advantage and calls him out on his faults. In life, it feels like you have to stand out in order to be remembered by the people you are surrounded by in the workforce and in general to be honest. I have been told this by people throughout my life, which forced me to open up more in general and show who I am and what my talents are without being fearful of judgment. As a result, this film came to fruition.

Going back to what I stated earlier, I wanted to make another horror film as I don’t see a lot of DePaul students make them. They are hard to make, which I understand, but a lot of films I see tend to be dramas that can win awards or be “award worthy”. I want people to watch this film and be entertained. Films are made to tell stories and entertain. COVID was a time where entertainment was everything. I don’t see the fault in creating something simply to entertain. Plus I wanted to do some gore SFX in order to show that DePaul students are capable of using their readily available resources to create something gnarly. All in all, Other was created with a lot of love and with the intention to show that DePaul students can entertain on a very low budget, which I do believe we have achieved. I am very proud of this film and the many many hours that have gone into making it. People have had a blast watching it and I hope to share this part of DePaul filmmaking with a larger audience at the Premiere film festival.