Talents lurking in the shadows of The Shining

Checking in for creepiness in Misper with Samuel Blenkin (left) and Dany Ryan as the hotel manager Photo: Courtesy of EIFF

For anyone not in the know the title Misper, the first feature by director Harry Sherriff and writer Laurence Tratalos means, of course, Missing Person.

There was a bit of discussion on the set whether it would work but on balance the pair who have collaborated on various shorts together, decided to go with it.

Sherriff who was at the Edinburgh International Film Festival with Tratalos for the premiere earlier this week said: “I didn’t want to put an ‘explainer’ on it which would have felt a bit pretentious and redolent of film school. As I had just left film school [the National Film and Television School] I didn’t want to be reminded of the fact. I like that Misper gives the audience a bit of homework. It’s still an unusual term but I think in a few years it will be much more commonly used.”

Writer Laurence Tratalos, left, and director Harry Sherriff take the first-feature plunge at EIFF Photo: Pako Mera for EIFF

The narrative has nothing to do with connotations of a police procedural but rather is character driven. Set in a faded hotel which has seen better days like most of the surrounding seaside town [the film was shot in Folkestone, Kent], it follows the repercussions among the employees after one of them Elle Pritchard (Emily Carey) goes missing. The hang-dog Leonard Lowry (Samuel Blenkin) takes it badly and starts to go to pieces.

“We like to have a mixture of genres. There is always humour in our work even when confronted with awful things because we feel that is more true to real life. It comes naturally to us … that mix of genres,” says Sherriff. “The combination was the jumping off point for the film: we knew it was going to be awkward and interesting and having humour in this story is something people would not be expecting. We thought that would make it exciting and original.”

Tratalos adds: “You are seeing characters in situations where they are not equipped to cope and that is funny – we are laughing not at the situation but laughing at the way they are dealing with it. We have all probably been through terrible things in our lives and people often behave in strange ways. The film was always about the characters and how they felt and reacted.”

Their guiding tenet, courtesy of director Ben Wheatley, was “to write it dark and cast it funny” which explains the presence of a cast of character actors such as Christine Bottomley, Daniel Ryan, Oliver Ryan and Sunil Patel who have the ability to jump genres.

They admit they were fortunate in landing the two leads in the nick of time. Blenkin had just finished a six-month shoot of Alien Earth in Thailand and had a free month in his schedule. Carey [House Of Dragon luminary] also was between projects, loved the script and signed on.

“With a low budget film they are always telling you not to have a lot of actors because you won’t be able to do it. We were kind of breaking all the rules by casting a lot of great actors who just happened to be available. I think it is one of the strengths of the film that the performances are all so strong,” says Sherriff.

As a director Sherriff likes to leave his cast room for improvisation even on a tight shoot. “We had some very funny scenes that did not make it into the final cut because it would have unbalance the rhythm. We had a line about The Shining because we both love Stanley Kubrick and with a hotel setting the reference was inescapable. And to be honest the shoot was a bit like something out of The Shining because there was a very creepy basement in the hotel, and during the week most of were actually staying there. So the echoes of Kubrick’s film were there, but in a good and creative way. I’m also a fan of Aki Kaurismäki, the Finnish director, and I had in mind his early works which were often two-handers. I was adamant we should keep at brisk 73 minutes running time because how often have you come out of a film and thought that it was about ten or 15 minutes too long.

Samuel Blenkin - from Thailand and Alien Earth to Folkestone Photo: Pako Mera for EIFF

“Originally we were going to do a different film which we were going to shoot it in Southport, my home town. We started writing this which originally was set in a shop. At the same time we were scouting locations and our producer who is great at finding locations, sent us details of ten hotels and The Grand was at the top of the list. It’s an amazing building and each time we we visited it we kept finding new places to fit. We even involved some of the residents who live there in private apartments.”

The pair's partnership began on a short film made in Manchester during the pandemic. They were given £500 to have a go, they met up, and three months later Harry is Not Okay (2021) – in which a troubled writer loses his grip on reality – was completed. It proved a calling card for Sherriff and earned him a place at film school. By this time they had both moved to London. Sherriff explains: “At school they are keen to suggest that you can meet your creative partner among the intake and for many that is true. But I had already met Laurence – it was just that he wasn’t in the school. They weren’t too happy about that but once the shorts started to come along they must have realised we were the right match.”

Already they have another feature idea on the stocks but are too superstitious to elaborate. Tratalos adds: “One of the fun parts of being a writer on set with room left for improvisation was that the actors responded well to the possibilities. Harry’s directing is very collaborative and he is open to things and that’s important.”

Sherriff concurs: “Loose can be a synonym for chaos but it was never like that because we’ve had the experience and we knew what we were doing. I love the actual time of the shoot because that is where it all comes alive. As for ambitions we just want to keep making films.”