DN326: Joseph Sims-Dennett Embraces the Voyeuristic Darkness in Horror Mystery Feature ‘Observance’

You’d be forgiven for presuming that once a director has gone through the blood, sweat and tears tribulations of getting their debut feature out into the world, older and most certainly wiser, feature number two would be a relative breeze. However, that is often far from the case as Director Joseph Sims-Dennett can attest. After putting his first feature Bad Behaviour to bed, Joseph found himself adrift in a three-year wilderness of attached projects which ultimately failed to go anywhere, that is until he took things back to self-initiated basics for his dark horror mystery feature Observance. DN spoke to Joseph at the London Film Festival about the anxieties of building a directing career and how he ensured Observance wouldn’t languish as one project of many on an indifferent Producer’s slate.

Observance (2015)

In the grip of grief following the death of his young son, his marriage on the rocks and nearing bankruptcy, Parker reluctantly returns to work as a private investigator. Embarking on an unusual assignment to observe a woman from an abandoned apartment, Parker witnesses bizarre happenings surrounding her, unaware that the derelict building that he surveys her from has birthed a dark presence which slowly threatens to consume him.

It was going back to that whole 1st feature scenario of I’ll be in charge of this & I’ll drive it myself cause I can trust myself to get it done.