How the director of MadS made his bloody single-take horror film

MadSan edgy new horror thriller on Shudder, races through a French city in a chaotic, continuous take. When all the blood is spilled and the credits roll, many answers may come to mind: “That’s definitely faked,” or “Whoa, where did they get the camera for that sequence?” or “How did the crew pull that off?”

The one thing viewers probably won’t think is, “Oh, that looks like it was easy to pull off.” However, director David Moreau says that in some ways this was because of the challenge Creating a 90-minute film without any cuts brought the entire cast and crew to exactly the same level and all focused on the same goal: simply keeping the action moving.

“I didn’t think it would be that difficult because of the rhythm it brings on set,” says Moreau. “The way we were all together – to achieve something like this, even if some of the crew members have done 50 films, others maybe three, some of the actors have never done any features, [it didn’t matter]we were all on the same team.

“That’s why I think every film should be made like this now. I didn’t find it difficult. I mean, it was intense.”

MadS takes place in real time over a period of one and a half hours. It begins with 18-year-old party boy Romain (Milton Riche) taking a new recreational drug at his dealer’s house, then hopping into his father’s sleek convertible and returning to his wealthy neighborhood for a booze- and drug-filled party. On the way he meets a desperate, frightened woman (Sasha Rudakova) who needs help. Soon there will be blood everywhere.

Seasoned horror fans will immediately recognize what kind of story this is and know where the story is going – but this genre familiarity heightens the tension as it becomes clear how great the danger is facing Romain and everyone around him are. The single-shot trick is certainly a gimmick, but it’s impressive and gives the film a breathless and wild feel as the camera darts from one location to another.

Many films stylized as single shots are actually composed of long takes by Alfred Hitchcock Rope (which pushed the limits of how much film the cameras of the time could capture) to Sam Mendes’ harrowing journey through the First World War 1917. But Moreau curses MadS is truly an authentic one-take film, or “oner” as film and television professionals would call it.

“I wanted this film to be as truthful and honest as possible,” he says. “So when I had the idea to do a one – it has be an attitude. So we shot for five days and did five takes. The first day was a disaster. The second day was a disaster. And the last three days were actually the film from start to finish. The film you saw is the last recording we took on Friday. I have the GoPro tapes [from the cameras] We hired some of the crew members who can actually prove that we did it in one take. Filmmaking isn’t like a competition – I just wanted it to be real and true. So we had to do it in just one take.”

When asked what the “disaster” looked like, Moreau said the problems were just technical glitches – loss of focus, the camera losing power because the connection to the battery failed. The film’s third take was nearly destroyed by a massive storm, but it passed just in time for filming, a thrill that left Moreau buzzing with excitement. “I would do it again tomorrow,” he says. “It was great. It was like a football team accomplishing something. We were really, really connected. It was really a wonderful human experience, really wonderful and really powerful.”

Moreau says he fired MadS on one Red Raptor VV camerabuilt into a bespoke box system – “there’s only one in the world” – that allowed him some of the mobility and flexibility of a handheld camera, without the usual accompanying wobble. He wanted the film to look stable but not rigid – “not handheld, but not static.” The rig he commissioned allows the camera some vertical movement, but no horizontal movement, “which means “You still have emotions, you still have movement, it’s stable but not too much.” And that was for us so that we wouldn’t throw up after 25 minutes.”

The most difficult scene to shoot, says Moreau, was actually a scene early on where Romain is making tires to get an injured hitchhiker to safety and the camera pans back and forth between them.

“It had to be very choreographed,” says Moreau. “There was a choreography between the camera and the actors who had to move in the car, a movement without a green screen. We really had to do it. You can’t edit, so you have to find a way to choreograph a camera in the car. It was pretty hard. That’s why we had this big American car – of course because it looked cool, because Romain is a rich kid, so he takes a car from his father – but also because it was big and we could get around.”

As for all the behind-the-scenes GoPro footage – proof that Moreau and his team shot the entire film in a single take – he would like to make it available to the public in some form. “We’re working on that,” he says. “It’s a great idea, it’s just a lot of footage. But yes, we plan it. We’re actually working on it because it’s interesting to see how we did it. It is always interesting for film lovers [to see] these different types of shooting.”

Some reviews from MadS have turned it into a political metaphor or a social commentary. Others see it as just an adrenaline-charged exercise in style. When asked which direction he would prefer to see the audience, Moreau pauses.

“I mean, the message is… I have an 8-year-old child,” he says. “And when I was young, I didn’t listen to the news every day [saying] that the world will end, the world will end. Kids these days live with this and it’s really hard for them. So I don’t know if [MadS is] political, but it exists [sense of] How can you try to look forward every day with dark noises in your ears? So I’m sure there’s a connection, even if I didn’t want it to be political. I want to hug [positivity] And I want to tell the children today that I really agree with them and hope that we still have dreams ahead of us. But these days it’s difficult to find them. I mean, it’s tougher than it was 20 years ago.”

MadS is now available on Shudder.