Rob Savage’s filmmaking career had a precocious beginning which makes Orson Welles look like a slow starter. He wrote, shot, edited, co-produced, and directed his first feature film at the age of 17. It’s a social realist relationship drama called Strings (2012) and tells the story of a group of friends coming of age the summer before they head to university. It won the British Independent Film Award and screened at a variety of international festivals including the Rome Film Festival and Raindance in London before being picked up and distributed by Vertigo.
As proud as he was of his first film, social realism wasn’t really where Rob’s heart lay. He wanted to explore the genre films and particularly horror films that he’d grown up on. He made a number of short films, honing his craft with such imaginative and original films as Dawn of the Deaf (2016) and Salt (2017). He also directed several episodes of the epic TV series Britannia which was shown in Italy on Sky.
When the pandemic hit, Rob found himself – like many of us – locked down with very little to do but talk with friends via Zoom. The idea for a film originated in a prank which Rob played on his friends, as he went to explore noises in the attic while on a video chat with them, to terrifying results. The clip went viral and horror channel Shudder asked if Rob had any ideas for a film. He did. The idea to make a found footage horror film of a Zoom room seance was a stroke of genius and like most strokes of genius also incredibly obvious. The inventiveness and effectiveness of Host (2020) won over the internet, thrilled a locked down audience and was lauded by horror luminaries such as Joe Dante and Stephen King.
With the success of Host, it was only a matter of time before the big Hollywood players came calling and Blumhouse, the studio behind some of the most creative horror films of recent years, offered Rob a three picture deal. The first picture from that deal sees Rob direct Dashcam (2021), a second lockdown horror this time one which followed a NoVax shock jock played by musician Annie Hardy as she travels to London to visit friends and livestreams a nighttime odyssey of increasing insanity. Striking while the iron was hot, Rob went on to write and direct an adaptation of a short story by the King of Horror himself Stephen King: The Boogeyman (2023) for Fox/Disney, a film which will be released this year.
Currently, Rob is working on several projects including a collaboration with Sam Raimi – the cult director of The Evil Dead (1981) and Spider-Man (2002), and has just signed on to direct a TV adaptation of Jason Arnopp’s novel The Last Days of Jack Sparks. He is one of the brightest, most original British talents to arrive in years and the future looks bright, or given the nature of Rob’s horrific work it looks very very dark.
