UNSAYABLE THINGS
Screenwriting with David Turpin The former IADT film student and EMCS lecturer on his screenplay for gothic horror movie the Lodgers. Interview: Michael Fortune.
“I
t began as a game that I used to play with myself when I was a child. I used to imagine, when I closed my bedroom door at night, that other people would occupy the house. I think that a lot of children imagine that”. David Turpin is recalling the origin of his first screenplay. The Lodgers is directed by Brian O’Malley, produced by IADT graduates Ruth Treacy and Julianne Forde, and shot in Loftus Hall (Ireland’s most haunted house). It’s the story of twins, Rachel and Edward, alone together in their haunted familial home.
Three rules, layed down by their ancestors, compel the siblings to be in bed by midnight, never let strangers in, and always stay together. David is joining me for an interview between lectures at Trinity college, where it turns out that he teaches in 18th century literature. Writing a horror is no great departure of interest then. Indeed for fans of David’s atmospheric electro-pop, under the musical moniker the Late David Turpin, a story of mystery, romance and the gothic also appears in fitting with his creative identity. He also contributes to the movie’s
soundtrack with singer Cathy Davy. The opportunity to write the movie came to David “out of the blue” when he was approached by producers Treacy and Forde, looking for a horror story. “I suppose I dabbled in the gothic a lot in my music. I don’t see it as a “capital H horror film”. I’m interested in genre because it’s a language and its a language that we can use to talk about things that are difficult to talk about. Yes there are tropes but those tropes are tropes for a reason - they have an archetypal power and they enable us to talk about things we can’t talk about. For instance it’s very difficult to talk about family, it’s very difficult to talk about sex, and horror, I felt, made it easier for me to talk about those kind of unsayable things. So I don’t accept what some people would believe about a film like this - that it’s a matter of shuffling the deck of the genre tropes. I don’t think that’s enough. You see a lot of it, but I don’t think that’s enough.” “My next project is called The Winter Lake. That was supported by the IFB and by Creative Europe, which is another avenue that people can look into for doing stuff like that. And that one is a kind of psycho-drama. After that I’m working again with the same producers on a film called Black
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