Mandrake is the debut feature film of director Lynne Davison. Set in a small town in Northern Ireland, it follows parole officer Cathy (Deirdre Mullins) who is given the case of ‘Bloody’ Mary Laidlaw (Derbhle Crotty), convicted murderer and infamous local legend. Cathy is confident that she can rehabilitate Mary back into society, as everyone deserves a second chance. But on the day of Mary’s release two local children go missing, and fingers are unsurprisingly pointed at Bloody Mary. We spoke to Lynne ahead of the film’s screening at Glasgow FrightFest

Can you tell us about Mandrake?

Mandrake is a folk horror that deals with motherhood and relationships between two really strong women who are battling against what they’re expected to do and finding themselves at the end of it. But, of course with a lovely horror element that is very scary and creepy!

This is your debut feature. How did you come to be attached to the project?

I was very fortunate as I cultivated a relationship with Northern Ireland Screen for around a decade and I had lived in England for a little bit and then moved back. I contacted the development executive there and asked her if she had anything she thought I might be interested in. So thankfully she put me in touch with Matt [Harvey], the writer of Mandrake, and I had the opportunity to read it and when Matt and I got chatting, we saw the same film. And then I called a friend of mine who is a film producer. We’ve been dying to work together for years but hadn’t found the right project. I told him he would love it and then the next conversation I had with him, he had already optioned the project, and then we were talking about how to move forward. It does sound relatively simple but there is a backstory of about 10-15 years of networking doing everything that Northern Ireland Screen would have on offer for us just to cultivate our skills.

You’ve been making short films since 2004.

Yeah, I’ve been making short films since I was about 15. I studied at college here and then I went to Edinburgh. I cam back and started working as a camera assistant. But all the while I’ve always been writing; I’ve always had tunnel vision that this is what I’m going to do with my life and nothing else would suit me. So, it felt like it was inevitable that this was going to happen [laughs].

Mandrake has a really intriguing set up, in that it plays with the audience sympathies regarding the two central women.

I wanted to explore them as individuals, with their flaws and with their personality traits. I wanted to make them complicated because one of the things I find most gripping about the script was that it was led by two women, and they didn’t fit any kind of stereotype. It was wonderfully unique and that’s something I’m always pushing for and trying to bring about. We were dealing with themes of loss and motherhood, and prescribed motherhood. And how you claim it for yourself in the end. Cathy is someone who’s very comfy in her job because that’s where the rules are. She knows what she’s doing but her private life is a territory that she just can’t manage as well. And, of course when you throw our supernatural element in as well things get a bit more confusing.

And it’s a depiction of non-traditional motherhood as both characters have had the chance of being the central care giver to their children taken away from them, which is an interesting dynamic between the two women. It becomes a battle of wills over who gets to continue being a mother.

Absolutely. This amounts to being the prize within the film. No spoilers allowed! But when what happens to Cathy happens, it’s almost like a gift that she’s given. They become on an equal footing by the end; and kindred spirits, which I find really interesting because they’re so different. I loved exploring that.

What was it specifically about the mandrake legend that was interesting? Is it another part of the theme of unconventional motherhood, given they look like children?

Yes, children of the earth. They’re traditionally born under the gallows, and we have a scene like that in the film. [The legend] is kind of disgusting and beautiful at the same time. It was something we were going to do with effects in regards to.., err, fluids in the earth but we were limited. I don’t think it would have fit in anyway.

You must be delighted to see Jude Hill [who plays Cathy’s son Luke] being such a big part of [Kenneth Branagh’s] Belfast?

Oh, my goodness! He’s such a wonderful actor. He’s a wonderful little boy, but he’s an amazing actor. He takes everything you say so to heart, and he gives you everything that he possibly can. We bonded quite heavily on Greek myths and legends so any time I see him we always stop and talk about Poseidon for a bit [laughs].

One of the other impressive parts of the film is the location. How did you come across the little town you in which you filmed?

We searched a lot for our locations. We had so many things and so many key points it had to fill. We ended up in a place called Gortin, which had a beautiful big forest park right beside it. It’s just a small place, and what I find very interesting is what happens in small places, and with the dynamics of the people in those small places – what we maybe don’t see. The idea of having a parole office in a small place is quite interesting. Texas Chain Saw Massacre was a big inspiration for all of us working on the film and we like that isolation factor. The isolation and the bad things that are happening we don’t know about. It was interesting trying to find that town. We did shoot little bits in Belfast. We shot certain houses and certain locations there, but we never wanted it to be set there. Belfast is too much of a thriving city now for my liking.

How were the filming conditions, given it was filmed during the Covid pandemic?

We were very fortunate. We had a wonderful team and a wonderful Covid supervisor. My producers couldn’t have taken it more seriously. We had maybe one day where we had a scare, but we were never shut down, and we shot for a solid 18 days. But a directing friend of mine, Damian McCann, who was shooting his film at the same time, they were shut down at least three times during the process of their shoot. It would have been really crippling for us but thankfully everyone was taking it so seriously. I always like to come from a place of respect when I’m working with everybody, no matter what job you do, and I think we became a lovely little unit and a little family trying make this little cool, fun film.

You mentioned Texas Chain Saw Massacre as a big influence. What other films or filmmakers have been an influence in making Mandrake?

Definitely The Witch and Hereditary. I made sure that everybody watched them before we began. A few people were a little bit frightened by them. I just love the realism they can bring, and that was something integral to me for the film. The magic is how Mary interacts with nature and how she exploits nature and that was so prevalent in these films and done in such a way that it haunts you when you leave the cinema. That’s always what I want. I want my stories to follow people home, so they can’t look in the rear view mirror as they drive. Fundamentally across the board my favourite films from childhood are Alien, Aliens, Terminator, Terminator 2, The Thing. They inform everything that I do. There’s a particular scene in Mandrake where someone is found after hurting themselves, and I was very quickly able to say to my first [assistant director], who has all the same tastes as me, about a particular scene in The Thing, and he just went, ‘Gotcha!’ And that’s what you want.

What are your hopes for Mandrake’s distribution? Are you hopeful of a cinema release?

We are hopeful that we will get a limited cinema release. I don’t know any debut film director who doesn’t want to see their film at the cinema. Even if it’s just Queen’s Film Theatre in Belfast, which is where you would go to see all the niche films. Even if it just gets released there for a week I will be thrilled! And then we’re going to head for streamers. There are certain streamers that are already interested in us, so we seem to be doing really well. But I saw an advertising campaign on Instagram for MUBI and it’s a collection of female-directed horror films and the slogan for it is, ‘The New Coven’, and if I can get in there, I would be so pleased. I’ve already spoken to our sales agent about this. I need to be a part of this new coven [laughs]!

Do you have any more projects in the pipeline?

I’m attached loosely to a remake of a horror from the ‘90s and that’s all I’m allowed to say. I also went through script development of Northern Ireland Screen of a post-apocalyptic sci-fi and we’re making really great traction. Starchild Pictures have optioned it and we’re making great moves towards making it. I do want to stay within genre, but that doesn’t mean I’m opposed to romantic comedies or anything, I just happen to be really good at bloody, gory monsters. And that is where my heart lies; that’s what I grew up on.

Mandrake screens as part of Glasgow FrightFest, Glasgow Film Theatre, 10:45am on Sat 12 Mar 2022