Damien Power Compares No Exit To This Classic Thriller - Exclusive
Hulu's "No Exit" makes you feel as claustrophobic as its protagonist. The movie follows Darby (Havana Rose Liu), who escapes from rehab so that she can see her mother potentially for the last time. Unfortunately, on the way to the hospital, she gets stuck in a snowstorm and has to wait it out with a bunch of strangers. To make matters even worse, one of those strangers is trafficking a young girl, so Darby fights to do the right thing and save her.
It's an intense thriller, expertly crafted together by director Damien Power. With a slew of short films to his name as well as a directing credit on 2016's "Killing Ground," Power is well-acquainted with the thriller genre. And for his latest effort, he looked toward one of the all-time greats to craft the story.
In an exclusive interview with Looper, Power spoke about what films helped inspire the tone of "No Exit." There's some excellent pedigree amongst his choices and a reminder of what movies you should check out if you still find yourself in need of a good thrill.
Damien Power likens No Exit to Psycho and other famous thrillers
Whenever making a movie in a given genre, it helps to look at the greats within that field. That was precisely Damien Power's thinking as he looked toward all-time great filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock to help inspire "No Exit." He even thought there were similarities between scenes in the two films, as he'd put it, "'Psycho' is one of my favorite films, and I always felt that Darby's flight from the rehab center to the visitors' center felt a little bit like Marion Crane driving to the Bates Motel, right down to being stopped by the policeman. That was in my mind. The way Hitchcock thinks about point of view was something that I was thinking about."
One could also likely find similarities between "No Exit" and "Psycho" in how each one conceals its twists to provide one shocking reveal after the next. However, "Psycho" was only part of the equation. Power proceeds to mention "Green Room" and "Prisoners" as exceptional thrillers he looked toward, but it wasn't just tone he was looking for with his influences.
He also wanted to examine movies that made good use of snow, seeing how there's a lot of it in "No Exit." As he explained, "Things like 'Fargo,' 'A Simple Plan,' even 'The Grey,' and 'The Thing.' They're not necessarily exactly the same kind of genre, but there's something about these films when they're thrillers or crime stories, set in the snow, where everything is thrown into this kind of stark relief by the whiteness of the snow and the cold and the pressure of the environment. It really kind of brings out the drama and the focus — characters and the consequences of their actions."
"No Exit" is now streaming exclusively on Hulu.