This is the month of Halloween and Netflix is keeping its terrifying clown foot on the scare pedal with the release of Don’t Move. The 2024 horror film is directed by Adam Schindler and Brian Netto and produced by horror maverick Sam Raimi.
Don’t Move introduces us to Iris (played by Kelsey Asbille), a mother in mourning who encounters a sinister serial killer (Finn Wittrock) in the isolated woods. Under the pretense of shared grief, the killer deceives Iris, eventually paralyzing her with a drug and forcing her into a nightmarish survival struggle. As her body’s mobility dwindles, the film hinges on her mental and physical endurance, blending psychological tension with horror elements.
Chicago-based Screenwriters TJ Cimfel and David White have crafted a high-stakes narrative challenge, developing a story centered around a protagonist with limited physical capabilities. The film takes a unique approach to suspense by exploring the horror of vulnerability in an isolated setting. Iris’s terrifying ordeal sees her navigating various obstacles, including battling river currents, signaling a friendly passerby, and evading a spreading fire—all while her physical faculties decline.
While the constant shift in her physical limitations occasionally stretches plausibility, the story maintains intense suspense, with the best moments arising in the raw, wordless struggles for survival. Watch the trailer below:
Cimfel and White have carved a niche in the genre film landscape, specializing in thrillers that keep audiences on the edge of their seats. Their portfolio also includes There’s Something Wrong With the Children (Blumhouse Television, 2023), Intruders (eOne/Momentum Pictures, 2016), and their contribution to the horror anthology V/H/S VIRAL (Bloody Disgusting, 2014). Don’t Move showcases their knack for crafting high-stakes narratives.
Reel Chicago had a chance to talk with the two about their latest scare flick.
How did the idea for Don’t Move come to life?
The directors, Adam Schindler and Brian Netto, have been good friends of ours ever since we made Intruders with them ten years ago. We’ve wanted to work with them again ever since, it was just a question of finding the right concept.
It was in 2020 during the teeth of the pandemic when they called us and pitched the idea of a movie centered around someone slowly losing their ability to move. There was something so intriguing about the paralysis that we all were experiencing at the time.
This horrible sense of being trapped in our homes, how it felt to be limited in our mobility. It immediately grabbed us as a story that could be meaningful to anyone paralyzed by their life circumstances, looking for a way out. It didn’t hurt that Adam and Brian had the title already figured out. When they said “Don’t Move,” it was love at first pitch.
Your previous collaboration on Intruders had a strong sense of claustrophobia and tension. How did your experience on that film influence your approach to Don’t Move?
This is a great question because we see Intruders and Don’t Move as companion pieces. They’re the first two movies of what the four of us call our Caged Bird trilogy”—which is all about characters who are trapped, not just by the circumstances of the story, but the circumstances of their lives.
Anna Rook is trapped by her abusive upbringing and her agoraphobia. Iris Finch is trapped by her grief and her own body as it shuts down. Rook and Finch are our caged birds.
Horror films often rely on suspense and pacing to create fear. How do you approach building tension in a script?
There are a few specific tactics we used in DON’T MOVE to build tension throughout the story. The obvious one is the ticking clock—it’s not enough to have Iris’s body shut down on her. It’s shutting down on her in stages, all of which her captor explains in clear detail with a specific timetable.
That way, we know exactly how long Iris has, and we’re rooting for her to somehow get away in that brief period of time. In addition, a lot of suspense comes from knowledge: who has it and who doesn’t? Sometimes you as the audience member know something the characters don’t. And that makes you squirm for them.
Other times, the characters know something you don’t, and that’s even squirmier. Like when Iris’s captor gives a tiny detail about what he plans for her. It makes the audience fill in the blanks in a way that is undeniably scarier than if he had just explained it all.
The film’s premise involves characters who are forced to stay completely still. What were the challenges of writing a story with such a physical restriction?
This question decided whether this thing would ever become a script, much less a movie. Because we had all these amazing setpieces we wanted to explore. She’s in a fire and can’t move! She’s underwater and can’t move! She’s covered in ants and can’t move! But if she can’t move, how is she getting from one place to the next?
So that was the biggest challenge. Finding a story, the right characters, and a forward momentum that helped us glue all these amazing moments together while feeling natural and seamless. In addition, we have huge swaths of movie time where our lead actress can’t even speak.
So a big challenge was making sure she remained the center of the movie despite that. We always knew we’d need an amazing actress to pull it off, and boy did we get her. Kelsey absolutely kills it in this role.
How do you balance character development with maintaining the horror atmosphere?
Story can’t exist without the characters who inhabit it. If we don’t care about them, if we don’t understand where they’re coming from, then we won’t feel any of that tension or suspense when bad things happen to them.
So character always comes first. We try to make sure that our characters are built so that their arcs intertwine with the plot and theme. And the scares, then, come out of that character development. They’re specific to Iris and her predicament. And since we’re (hopefully) feeling a connection with her, we’re going to feel the fear that she feels.
Were there any horror films or filmmakers that inspired your writing for Don’t Move?
We talked about Hitchcock a lot when we were figuring out the story. We love how he would set restrictions that force creative solutions, like: Can I make a movie that consists of a single shot (or at least appears to)? Can I make a movie that all takes place on a lifeboat?
Can I get my hero to dangle from the nose of a Mt. Rushmore president? Or in our case, can we make a movie where our hero can’t move or speak for a large chunk of it?
What is your collaborative process like?
We’ve been writing together for so long, it’s a really organic process. Idea building usually happens together, breaking the story in the room. For the script itself, one of us will write pages then send to the other, who revise as they see fit and then push forward.
We trade back and forth with no set schedule. When we disagree on something, we have a simple system. Whoever feels strongest about it wins. We determine who that is as we talk it out. Then it’s, “Okay, we’ll do it your way and see how we feel when the script is finished.” And it almost always works out.
Given the success of horror films in recent years, do you see the genre evolving?
The horror genre has been so fluid for the last several years, it feels like it’s been evolving the whole time. Just in the last few weeks, you’ve got Terrifier, The Substance and Smile 2 all of which cater to completely different tastes. And when you consider the expanse of amazing horror fiction being written these days, much of which deserves adaptation, we think the genre is only going to continue to expand. As far as Don’t Move goes, it rides the rails between the horror and thriller genres.
It’s a horrific premise that anyone can understand and that taps into some pretty universal fears. You see the trailer and you know what you’re going to get. But how you get it is where all the surprises lie.
What was it like working with Sam Raimi on Don’t Move?
Sam is a legend. When we found out he wanted to make this movie with us, it was a dream come true. And he’s the real deal. His sense of story is exceedingly sophisticated.
We would all be on a call together debating a thorny plot point, and with a simple question, he would slice through the issue and show us a new way of looking at things. Plus, he is SO nice. It was a joy working with him, and we sure hope this isn’t the last time.
Don’t Move is now streaming on Netflix.
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Colin Costello is the West Coast Editor of Reel 360. Contact him at colin@reel360.com or follow him on X at @colinthewriter1
