Interview for The Chamber with Director Ben Parker and Cast Members Charlotte Salt and Johannes Kuhnke
The Chamber is a claustrophobic tale of four people trapped on the sea-bed inside a submersible. A feature debut by director Ben Parker, the film sees civilian Matz (Johannes Kuhnke) thrown together with a team of three special operatives headed up by Edwards (Charlotte Salt). The trio are on a secret mission, but need Matz’ help. The mission doesn’t go to plan and soon the group have to work together to find a way to survive.
The film had it’s world premiere at Horror Channel’s Frightfest and was met with a very positive reaction. On the day of the premiere we were fortunate to get a few moments with Parker and his leads. We took the time to ask all about the shoot and what it is about water that scares us all so much.
Interview for The Chamber with Director Ben Parker and Cast Members Charlotte Salt and Johannes Kuhnke
How did the idea for The Chamber come about?
BEN PARKER: Well it’s sort of three different things, the ability to have a small group of people in one space, that’s usually a horror film in a house, but the idea of putting them into something that could fill up with water or could be detached to the bottom of the sea; taking the horror house and putting it at the bottom of the sea, it’s something different, it was going to be quite interesting. Then my obsession with all the politics of the East China Sea, Yellow Sea and North Korea – that hotbed. Recently it’s been kicking up quite a lot making this quite topical which is good for the film, bad for the world. (All Laugh) The idea was an amalgamation of those bits.
JOHANNES KUHNKE: I read the script and it was all about this claustrophobic environment; of us being there. Then when we were starting to shoot in the first week I saw the panic in Ben’s eyes. We’d built this wooden box that we filled with water and underneath we were all trapped. I saw the panic in Ben’s eyes (laughs) and this was the guy we should trust! Once we stepped out of it he was talking, giving direction and was so free – ‘you should do this, or try this’ – then we stepped back in and silence again. Little did we know that he wrote a piece on his worst nightmare. And little did he know that he was going to be trapped in it for a month.
BP: I’m not great with small spaces.
CHARLOTTE SALT: Careful what you write next time.
BP: Yeah it’s going to all open spaces. In the sun.
CS: Lot’s of sunny fields, dry weather.
What was it about your characters that you liked?
BP: (To Johannes) Well you like submarines don’t you?
JK: Yeah when I was small I built these models of submarines. I don’t know if you remember, but in Sweden a Russian submarine was found in the water outside of Stockholm. A U-137. It was a big thing and I was really into submarines and building of those plastic things. I always wanted to go down with a submarine, but hadn’t been able to do that until the movie.
Interview for The Chamber with Director Ben Parker and Cast Members Charlotte Salt and Johannes Kuhnke
CS: I think to get the opportunity to play a strong female character is always on every actresses’ wish list. What was particularly attractive about Edwards is that she wasn’t a stereotypical female action. There is definitely a tipping point in the movie where you really get to see the person; maybe more of that empathy that as a woman in that scenario would perhaps have. So it was really nice to play vulnerable and strong at the same time. So I found it was quite a… there was a juxtaposition there and I found that really intriguing. I hadn’t played that before. Usually you’re quite labelled, you’re playing the victim, you’re playing the love interest, you’re playing the sexy girl, and to suddenly play someone who was nothing I had done before, and yet was multifaceted, was really nice.
BP: I think both these guys; we put Johannes in a box, we put him in a restricting situation where his character is supposed to keep people safe and know what is happening at all times. He doesn’t have any of that, and so by the end he gets to be someone who gets to do that job, to make sure that everyone is okay. Charlotte’s job in the beginning is quite sort of bitchy to handle people and she can come across as quite controlling. Then by the end you’re on-board with her as well.
CS: I think both of our characters very much start out one way, and then by the end of the film you see them in very different lights.
JK: Also the mix of ‘he’s a civilian submarine Captain/Pilot being caught with these three special ops agents’. Talking a lot about how the submarine is built, but underneath he’s trying to figure out what is going on why are they here? Why do they want my submarine? All this inner-monologue that he is having I thought it was really fun to be in that.
Interview for The Chamber with Director Ben Parker and Cast Members Charlotte Salt and Johannes Kuhnke
Did you have to do much training for the roles?
BP: I think the training for Johannes was that… the main thing about his character is that he’s been on this sub for a very long time. He’s a civilian pilot and he needed to walk onto that sub looking like he knew where everything was. (To Johannes) Do you remember saying ‘I need to know where every nook and cranny is’?
JK: I was actually there a couple of days before shooting just to be in the space and become comfortable.
BP: Yeah, the training for him was to make it look like he’d been there for a long time. The training for the visitors was about getting this special ops stuff right. We had a great stunt coordinator called Peter Pedrero who does all sorts of Game of Thrones and all these big films.
CS: He was fantastic.
BP: Especially for Charlotte, knowing how to do that sort of special ops stuff and look like it’s natural.
CS: The fight sequences were definitely a challenge because of the restricted space. But saying that, what we thought might be a negative actually became a real positive. With the contained space, especially as a woman and you’re not as tall as everyone or you haven’t go the physical strength, it was quite deceiving because everyone was hunched over. It kind of gave me the advantage.
BP: Yeah, you have the big guy who’s the brawler, he can’t move, but Charlotte can get in there and twist an arm.
CS: In terms of training we didn’t have perhaps as much time as we wanted. It was a very demanding schedule. Because we were surrounded by such great individuals, every ten minutes you had off set, or twenty minutes, or lunch breaks, you would just practice routines and talk to people and try to get the lingo. It was such a spontaneous movie, it’s not like you see them over a long period of time, it’s that sort of real-time.
BP: It was all that Krav Maga stuff, the fluid motions and stuff, the wax on/wax off stuff that was tricky.
CS: (Laughs) Yeah that took a few times to get right.
JK: I was the only one that could fight (laughs) and I wasn’t allowed to!
CS: Johannes was frequently frustrated with our bitch slaps. He was like ‘no, no, no, you don’t do it like that’.
Interview for The Chamber with Director Ben Parker and Cast Members Charlotte Salt and Johannes Kuhnke
What is it about the ocean that makes it so terrifying, I can’t think of a film in or on water that’s happy throughout.
BP: I think that a lot of people, particularly my generation, had a real fear of Jaws after seeing that film. Just seeing this wide open space. I think its about the fact that there’s this thing underneath that you can’t see. There’s a whole world of sharks and things that can kill you.
CS: It’s like agoraphobia meets claustrophobia in the same thing.
BP: If it’s a film on top of the water it’s about never getting back home. If you’re underwater it’s just that panic of how are you going to get out of here.
What’s next for everyone?
JK: I start rehearsing Macbeth in Stockholm.
BP: Are you allowed to say Macbeth? Usually people say ‘The Scottish Play’.
JK: It’s fine, I’m not superstitious. I’m playing Banquo. Then I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a film project that will take over after that.
CS: I’m working… well we’re in development with a director called Simon Hunter on a project about Emily Hobhouse.
BP: Is she a Navy SEALS person?
CS: (Shakes Heads) No… Emily Hobhouse is a suffragette. She was a suffragette who was out in Africa at the time of the Boer War and helped to free children and women from the prison camps in 1901.
BP: I’m not yet into pre-production, but there’s a couple of scripts that people are interested in doing. Thankfully not involving small spaces (all laugh). One’s set at the end of the Second World War which would be really interesting.
JK: You pitched it for me, it’s really good.
BP: I kind of like the idea of having a bit of genre, but also something that’s a bit different.
CS: It’s always nice to have variety and contrast, then you never get bored of one genre. I think if you just did a certain type of film it would be quite hard to continue to be inspired.
Read our review of The Chamber here.
