US Premiere

About the Director

Simon started his career shooting documentaries, including the flagship series, Cutting Edge, on UK’s Channel 4. During this period he also edited Hollywood movie trailers for iTunes. This mix of shooting and editing, along with his developed interest in CGI and VFX combined with live action work, led to directing opportunities on promos and commercials.

Living and working in London, he is now working on getting his first feature made.

Simon graduated with an MA in Film and Television Production from Bristol University, after completing an MA in Politics at the University of Edinburgh.

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT:
I’ve always been fascinated with serial killers… the notion that they are living amongst us, camouflaged beneath a veil of manufactured normality is truly terrifying to me - and as such it was important that my serial killer lived in a highly populated area: an apartment block surrounded by unsuspecting neighbours, going about their lives. It was reading about notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer that possibly sparked the idea for Dead Cool, although the idea came some weeks later. I was struck by his reply when they asked him why he kept parts of his victims: “everyone always left”. People know that psychopaths cannot feel fear and don’t have empathy - all the usual Hollywood cliches… but do they get lonely? And, more importantly... can they fall in love?

Scanning the Psychiatric Times, I came across an academic article called “The Hidden suffering of the Psychopath”, which postulated that the limitations in lacking a core emotional compass meant the psychopath’s ability to have “normal” relationships was quite limited - a fact that was very distressing to them. In my mind’s eye, the notion of a horrific killer struggling to find their emotional compass was fertile territory for black comedy - and so, Maurice was born. A cuddly clown, who struggles with insecurities and social awkwardness like the rest of us.

Focusing on the poor serial killer can obscure an important fact: they are horrific people. As a filmmaker I thought it would be fun to try and exploit this myopia, taking the audience abruptly between worlds of sympathy and disgust - and ultimately reminding them that there’s no way round it: our friend Maurice is a complete monster.

One other aspect of serial killers also interested me: why do they proliferate their killing up to a time when they get caught? I decided (completely unfounded by anything I read) it might have something to do with their growing obsession as to what might happen when they were caught. For Maurice, he was the serial killer that just couldn’t get caught - no matter how brazen he was. He had to actually tell the police where he was for his capture fantasies to come true!

At a genre level, I was torn in two directions: if I was going to make a film about a serial killer, I wanted it to be thriller as those are the films I love. But every time I thought of Maurice he led me down the black comedy path… could the two genres co-exist? In a sense, that was the experiment in Dead Cool, and I felt it would rely heavily on a series of obvious gear changes to make it work. As it turned out, I think the genres live pretty happily side by side in our film… and I’m proud of the monster we created!