Jason Wan Lim jumps into horror at CUFF with Blood Mountain
By Gurman Sahota, April 19, 2017 —
Turning away from his typical domain of teen comedies, director Jason Wan Lim jumps into horror with Blood Mountain. Using GoPro cameras to craft a found-footage style, the film revolves around three mountain bikers who lose a member of their trio. While looking for their friend, the remaining two encounter a group of hunters who seem to have something to do with the biker’s disappearance.
Wan Lim says that one morbid question spurred the film.
“What would you say to your family or to your loved ones if you knew that you had to say goodbye under duress?” he asks. “That’s kind of what I built the whole thing around. This young father [is] out on a mountain and things go wrong and he’s got to say goodbye to his wife and kid and he gets a chance to do so.”
Wan Lim’s new direction was inspired by his passion for action movies. He says the shift to horror was a stepping stone for him to eventually try making an action film. Blood Mountain features intense running and fighting scenes as the protagonists come across the hostile hunters, all captured from a first-person perspective.
The film is aimed at those under 30. Wam Lim says that keeping an age demographic in mind is important to keep up with the business aspect of movie-making.
“It’s very important to make sure that you can cater to your market and that you know who you’re making the film for,” Wan Lim says. “We all want to make the movie that is inside of us, but you have to think about who’s going to watch it at the end of the day.”
Blood Mountain will premiere at this year’s Calgary Underground Film Festival. Wan Lim says he’s excited to see the audience’s reaction to the white-knuckle film and adds that it’s important to grow local talent, especially since Hollywood uses Alberta to set the stage for many films.
“There’s a lot of stuff that shoots here, and it’s exceptionally busy right now, but it’s important to keep developing that indigenous Alberta talent,” Wan Lim says. “It’s also very important to make sure that the creatives — whether they’re writers or directors or passion project producers — they also have projects that they’re also developing as well.”
Blood Mountain will premiere at the Globe Theatre on Friday, April 21 at 9:45 p.m. as a part of CUFF. Tickets are available online or at the box office for various prices. The director, cast and crew will be in attendance.