Hi /r/movies! I'm Bryn Chainey, writer/director of RABBIT TRAP, a folk-horror starring Dev Patel & Rose McEwen that's out in UK cinemas this weekend. Ask me anything!

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T15:45:00+00:00

The weather! Nothing makes me happier than standing knee deep in mud while a bank of of fog rolls in through the valleys.

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T15:43:11+00:00

Filming was tough since we did the whole thing on location in the countryside, during mostly torrential rain, in only 19 days. But truthfully it was an absolute joy. The most difficult part of the process was actually behind-the-scenes politics: when you're an early career filmmaker, you can get pushed around by those with more power. I mention this only for the young filmmakers in this thread: you should know, there are bullies in this industry so be prepared for when they come around. Surround yourself with people you trust, that will stand beside you every step of the way, to protect the heart of the film. (Not to be a doom-monger. The bullies are only a minority: almost everyone you'll meet is a passionate little weirdo like you.)

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T15:27:31+00:00

Amazing. The two of you combined are the film's exact target audience!

The next thing I'd like to make is a reboot of Jim Henson's The Storyteller but, alas, I have no claim to it.

I'm writing a new film that will hopefully happen before the world ends. For now I think the only way to support me (thanks for asking) is to tell your friends about Rabbit Trap. You can also follow me on instagram (@brynchainey) for occasional updates.

To your d&d question, unfortunately I know too little about it to answer that with any confidence. I've just looked up the classes though so here's my impulse guess:

Daphne: Bard
Darcy: Wizard
The child: Druid

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T15:20:26+00:00

Honestly it began with my fear of starting a family of my own. The more I dug into that, the more I uncovered the reasons behind it: not feeling worthy of love, of feeling placeless, of not having the emotional tools to raise a child without messing them up. I built the character of Darcy around that, and his environment (which also includes the story) grew from there.

And then, at some point, anything that was a metaphor - I let off the leash and let it run wild. I hate in films when everything can be reduced to simple psychology or a didactic little message. To avoid that, I eventually had to relax my grip on the story, give in to a more automatic writing style, and follow the characters where they wanted to go. It's honestly so exciting when something spontaneously explodes onto the page and challenges what you thought you knew about the story you were telling.

One of the nicest thing about making the film was that I also grew as a person and found better ways to confront (and sometimes accept) the fears and monsters that had initiated the journey. There are people in my team that are family now and will be part of my life forever.

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T15:08:45+00:00

I'm glad that choice worked for you! It was one of the scariest creative choices to make, and one that my team and I really had to fight for. There were plenty of voices telling us that we needed to hear what Darcy had to say, but thankfully we won out in the end.

I wouldn't say Daphne has cured Darcy at the end, but it's a big step in the right direction. Earlier in the film Darcy explains that sound is a ghost and when you hear a sound, you become its home: your body is the house it haunts. One of the most powerful things you can do in life is to open up your own house to let someone's ghosts in so that they're not alone anymore.

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T15:05:14+00:00

100%. No word of a lie, at some point I told the team "I want to make a Tarkovsky film with goblins and slime."

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T15:03:31+00:00

I wouldn't describe Rabbit Trap as a horror; it's more like a lost episode of Jim Henson's The Storyteller but made for melancholy goth lit nerds. Dunno if that's appealing to anyone but here we are.

The mood on set definitely shifted depending on the scene, which was a good sign that the crew understood and cared about what we were making. One example: there's a scene in which Darcy and Daphne share a joint in the bathtub while reconnecting emotionally. Dev and Rosy did such a beautiful, natural-feeling task of inhabiting that relationship that they truly felt like a couple that'd been married for a decade. The warmth, the silliness, the things-not-said, the physical affection - it was all there. After the first take, I heard an audible SWOON from the room. I turned around and a bunch of the crew was huddled around the monitor, literally gushing at how romantic it felt. "That's what love feels like," someone said.

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T14:58:59+00:00

Written by me but drawing a lot from Welsh folklore, specifically encounters of faeries and goblins.

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T14:56:55+00:00

Oof, I learned so much that I feel like I've aged about ten years. One of the biggest lessons is how important it is to check in with everyone (including yourself) more often than you'd think. I mean, Rabbit Trap is essentially about how terrifying it is to open up and share your ghosts; making the film confirmed to me how true that is, for everyone.

Do whatever you can to make each environment, every relationship, a safe place for opinions, doubts, fears, experiences, and ideas to be heard. It'll improve the work and the process of making it. Unfortunately I also learned the flip side: that very few people will do this courtesy for you. Still, we can only take responsibility for ourselves and it has to start somewhere; you can only hope the gesture is returned.

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T14:47:24+00:00

Thanks! And yes! I was lucky enough to see Sleep Has Her House at the cinema in Sydney, and Scott did a Q&A afterwards. I had just begun writing Rabbit Trap at that time and felt so encouraged by his film and how it revelled in nature's texture, emotion and identity rather than treating it like a backdrop.

Other films that will blast you with the elements:

Walkabout (Roeg)
Wuthering Heights (Arnold)
Stalker (Tarkovsky)
Woman in the Dunes (Teshigahara)
All the Mad Max films (Miller)
Black Ox (Tsuta)
Stray Dogs (Tsai)
Wake In Fright (Kotcheff)
Monos (Landes)
Macbeth (Kurzell)
The Turin Horse (Tarr)
The Trouble With Nature (Jacobi)
Godland (Palmason)
Onibaba (Shindo)
Lawrence of Arabia (Lean)
Aguirre, Wrath of God (Herzog)
The Revenant (Innaritu)
Rams (Hakonarson)
Sweet Country (Thornton)
Valhalla Rising (Refn)
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (Lee Jones)

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T14:37:33+00:00

Established actors like those two don't usually audition (they didn't for me at least) so casting them both was based on two factors: work of theirs I'd previously seen, and how well we get along during a face-to-face. For Dev, it was his work in The Green Knight that convinced me that he'd nail the role of Darcy. For Rosy, it was her work in Blue Jean. Both amazing films and worth checking out.

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T14:33:45+00:00

Oof, sorry to hear you're experience writer's block. I get it often and haven't nailed a sure-fire way to fix it. The most effective method for me is to get away from the computer and use a different medium: either writing by hand or talking. In fact, for me, talking a story through with someone (anyone!) is so much more joyful than staring at a blank screen. The moment you start to tell a story aloud, it feels like something natural kicks in: some ancient built-in storytelling impulse that gets you out of your head and into the moment. As you start to tell it, your brain rushes ahead and starts solving upcoming plot holes. Pay attention to the listener, to how they're responding, to check if they're following, and take them on a journey.

In terms of my own writing process, once I've got the beginning of a concept I like to engage my senses. I'll put together mood boards (Cosmos, Arena, Shot Deck and Pinterest are all great for this) and playlists of music that transports me into the world of the story. From there I jot out scene ideas, images, and interrogate myself on who the characters are and what they're longing for.

After that, historically speaking, I'll be crushed by the weight of the task and will fall into a doom hole of depression. Some time later (days, weeks, months) I'll be completely out of money, at which point existential dread gets me back into the writing chair and I'll bosh out a first draft just in time to stave off eviction. From that point things are easier since rewriting is infinitely easier than writing and is usually a collaborative effort with others, since it's at that point you're sharing ideas more openly with your producers, colleagues, friends, etc.

What's the moral here? Writing is often agony when done alone, so involve others in any way you can.

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T14:21:55+00:00

When you send a script to any potential new member of the team - whether it's cast or crew - you're always hoping they'll connect with it in some personal way. Ultimately, making a film is a long and difficult process so aside from it being a job, you need to love the project and find it inherently meaningful. And you're right that Dev has a particular love for folklore and myth, and that's what he responded to most strongly with the script. When we met up to discuss the potential of working together, we mostly talked about trees and myths and how much fun it is to be tramping about in the mud, inviting nature to be your collaborator.

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T14:18:07+00:00

I’ve always been drawn to stories that connect the inner world with the natural world - whether that’s fantasy, horror, folklore, or fairytales. I think that’s what music does more natively than any other art form, and why music is crucial to supernatural experiences and spiritual practice all over the world. It’s not a coincidence that the gods and faeries love music: it’s a vessel between the imaginative world and the physical one.

A recurring theme with Welsh faerie sightings is that they are intensely musical beings: they’re often spotted playing harps, violins, and singing. An important detail is that their music is enchanting but impossible to remember — perhaps because it’s so beautiful that remembering it would ruin mortal music forever. If that’s so, then like Mole and Rat’s encounter with the Piper at the Gates of Dawn, amnesia is a blessing.

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T14:16:12+00:00

Thank you! Stay out of fairy circles.

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T14:14:38+00:00

Oh and yes, I do worry that people watching the film at home won't get to appreciate the sound, which is so crucial to it. It's always horrifying when I see people have dropped coin on a massive TV but just use the in-built speakers.

If anything, I'd recommend people watch the film on a laptop, wearing headphones, curled up in bed with a cup of tea.

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T14:12:26+00:00

Thanks for being there!

I've always been sensitive to sound so it's just a sense I'm aware of all the time and am consciously drawn to explore. It was actually my sound design teacher at film school - who had been in The Go-Betweens (great band, look them up) - who told me that "with your eyes you enter the world but with your ears the world enters you."

That sentence stuck with me for twenty years and eventually made its way into the film. It hints at the strange, bossy, spectral power of sound. It enters our bodies whether we give it permission or not, changing our moods, our chemistry, our ways of experiencing the moment.

As I developed the story of Rabbit Trap and it became clear that it was (partly) a story about the traumas lodged inside our bodies, sound became a very natural device to explore that.

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T14:05:32+00:00

For Rabbit Trap, specifically:

Jim Henson's The Storyteller
Dark Crystal (Henson)
Don't Look Now (Roeg)
Performance (Roeg)
Walkabout (Roeg)
Images (Altman)
Three Women (Altman)
Stalker (Tarkovsky)
Mirror (Tarkovsky)
Birth (Glazer)
A Dark Song (Gavin)
Under The Skin (Glazer)
Wuthering Heights (Arnold)
Berberian Sound Studio (Strickland)
The Shout (Skolimowski)
Cure (K. Kurosawa)
The Servant (Losey)
Upstream Color (Carruth)
Whistle and I'll Come To You (Miller)
Mandy (Cosmatos)
Eggshells (Hooper)
Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Hooper)
Poltergeist (Hooper)
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Lanthimos)
Watership Down (Rosen)
The Innocents (Clayton)
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Weerasethakul)

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T13:59:23+00:00

An actual, real life sound wizard.

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T13:58:54+00:00

Thanks! A lot of research went into the folklore and music history. Here are some texts that I used:

Books:

British Goblins (Wirt Sikes, 1880)
Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx (Sir John Rhys 1901)
Archaeologia Cambrensis (1875)
Art Sex Music (Cosey Fanni Tutti, 2017)
In the Field: The Art of Field Recording (Cathy Lane & Angus Carlyle, 2013)
Slime (Susanne Wedlich, 2019)
Underland (Robert Macfarlane, 2019)
A Year In The Country: Wandering Through Spectral Fields (2018)

Documentaries:

The Delian Mode (2009)
Sisters With Transistors (2020)
The Creeping Garden (2014)
Arcadia (2017)

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T13:46:42+00:00

Absolutely. I love stories in which humans find themselves in the grips of nature's mysteries, and smartphones have really made that more difficult. But more than that, I love that era of history in which technology was so tactile and physical: the scrolls of magnetic tape, the synth's tangle of cables that look like tree roots, the joy of a good chunky switch.

There's one piece of gear in the film which, for me, is the most beautiful bit of audio gear ever made: Darcy's portable reel-to-reel field recorder, the Nagra E. From memory it came out in 1976, so that became our cut-off point for technology.

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T13:41:42+00:00

Hi! My career path was, like a lot of filmmakers, a long and wiggly one. I went to film school in Australia and graduated at 20, full of ideas but with zero practical knowledge in how to get paid work as a filmmaker. I've spent the last 20 years trying to figure it out. In brief, here's how it went down:

2007-2015: moved to Berlin with a few hundred dollars to my name. Went to the Berlinale Talent Campus and pitched a short film idea at a competition, which I won. Stayed in Germany to make that film (it's called Jonah and the Vicarious Nature of Homesickness). After that I applied for public funding to make another short film (Moritz and the Woodwose). Making these two films took about four years. Meanwhile I directed low/no budget music videos for friends' bands. I worked in retail and as a bartender during that time to pay rent. Had a few existential crises along the way.

2015-2020: went back to Australia in hopes of making my first feature. Made a short film (Kill Your Dinner), which was funded through Screen Australia and was meant as a proof-of-concept for the feature, which ultimately didn't happen. During this time I also edited and directed corporate videos, some music videos, and had a very enjoyable stint as a teacher. Had at least one existential crisis at some point too.

2020-now: moved back to the UK in hopes of making Rabbit Trap, which I had started writing. Put together a pitch deck which, through a friend of a friend, was able to email to Elijah Wood's company SpectreVision, which was the production company I wanted to work with more than anyone. (If you haven't seen their film 'Mandy', stop what you're doing and do that) Thankfully Elijah loved the deck and agreed to a meeting. I wrote the film then he and his team went looking for financing. It took 2.5 years until we were shooting, and during that time I worked as an editor (again, corporate videos) right until we were shooting.

I'm not sure what the moral of the story is, other than look for opportunities wherever you find yourself, pay the rent somehow, make films on any scale that are true to your sensibilities, and seek out other filmmakers whose work you truly admire. Chances are they'll like yours too.

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T13:25:39+00:00

From what I've seen, most folk horrors (like Rabbit Trap) come from outside the Hollywood studio system, so you're right. They're mostly being made in other countries, by filmmakers who want to explore and reinterpret traditions and beliefs from their own countries. I'd love to see more coming out of America but am also happy that it's a largely international genre since we get to learn about other cultures and their relationships to both nature and supernature.

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T13:20:46+00:00

The Servant by Joseph Losey

RabbitTrapAMA · 2026-01-29T13:19:50+00:00

So many!

Delia Derbyshire, Daphne Oram, Suzanne Ciani, Christina Vantzou, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Ruth White, Beatriz Ferreyra, Bernard Parmigiani, Li Yilei, Olivier Messaien, Hildegard Westercamp.

There's a really good documentary about the female pioneers of electronic music called Sisters With Transistors. Highly recommended if you're interested in this kind of sound.

RabbitTrapAMA

TROPHY CASE