No Exit has plenty of inspiration to pull from given that it is adapting a popular novel written by Taylor Adams in 2017. While the cast and audience have and will notice a few differences, the core concepts of the thriller are kept in tact for the 20th Century Studios film which is now streaming on Hulu. Still, No Exit director Damien Power did have other influences in mind while crafting the mysteries and twisted thrills of the film. In an exclusive interview with ComicBook.com, Power opened up about the ideas behind his No Exit film.
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“Hitchcock’s one of my favorite filmmakers,” Power said. “Psycho is one of my favorite films. It was a film that I re-watched when I was thinking about at this. I feel that in many ways Darby’s flight to the visitors’ center is a little bit like Marion Crane heading to the Bates Motel. She does not know what she’s getting herself in for.” The film centers around Havana Rose Liu as Darby, a character who has escaped a mental health institution only to find herself snowed into a visitor’s center on a highway. In this visitor’s center, there is a kidnapper who has a little girl trapped in a van outside with Darby being the only other character with such knowledge and a desire to rescue the child.
Hitchcock influenced Power in more ways than one, as the director tried to emulate camera styles and character perspectives to inform the audience to the evolving situation as layers of the mystery were being peeled back. “What does the character know versus what does the audience know?” Power posited. “And what’s the tension in that gap? And as a director, point-of-view is one of the most fun things to play with. So yeah, I was thinking about that film.”
There are other films and directors who Power found inspiration in for No Exit, like Denis Villeneuve and Jeremy Saulnier. “I also thought about a few contemporary thrillers that I felt were playing it real, films like [Villeneuve’s] Prisoners, films like [Saulnier’s] Green Room,” Power revealed. “Films that you could imagine if they were done in a hyper-stylized way would have a completely different kind of feel, but land with such intensity because, you know, they’re playing it for real. And then I think I watched, just because of the snow, really, I watched a bunch of films set in the snow, like Fargo, or A Simple Plan, which I love. Even The Grey or The Thing in terms of thinking about… Well, you know, I find it’s interesting, those films it’s the stark white of the snow. It’s the cold, they just throw everything into such relief, you know? There’s nowhere for the characters to hide. And very much wanted to kind of bring that feeling into this film.”
Ultimately, Power wanted to utilize every element of the film to his advantage, including the violence. While No Exit does get messy and visceral, it makes an effort to use violence as a tool which exemplifies the escalating dire nature of the situation in this visitor’s center. “I think the key for me was that the film feel realistic, overall,” Power said. “It’s gonna feel very experiential. We’re gonna see a lot of it from Darby’s kind of point-of-view. And I think that that, then, has a consequence when you’re thinking about the violence. If the violence is gonna feel real, and not like kind of movie violence, then it’s gonna land with a kind of impact. And for me, then that tells me, or, you know, gets me thinking about how am I gonna show that? How much am I gonna show, what am I gonna leave it up to the audience’s imagination? And, honestly, I think that audiences, it’s sometimes worse to be left to imagine what’s happened.”
You can see ComicBook.com’s full interview with Damien Power in the video above! Are you excited for No Exit? Share your thoughts in the comment section or send them my way on Instagram! No Exit is now streaming on Hulu.
