Movie Review | Filmmaker Interview with Phil Claydon

It is always a pleasure to sit down with a filmmaker who not only understands the mechanics of the genre they inhabit but possesses a deeply ingrained passion for its history. In a recent conversation for UK Film Review, my fellow film critic, James Learoyd had the distinct pleasure of speaking with director Phil Claydon, a veteran of horror and comedy, as he discussed his latest feature, Helloween. The resulting interview was a fascinating deep dive into the creative compromises, stylistic choices, and nostalgic influences that coalesced into what Claydon proudly describes as his “most fun horror movie” yet.

Helloween is a film rooted in the all-too-recent cultural anxieties of the 2016 “creepy clown craze” that swept across the UK and beyond. Claydon outlined the core concept: a journalist named John Parker becomes convinced that the synchronised, identical clown makeup being worn by perpetrators is linked to an incarcerated serial killer, Cole Kaine, known in his bloody heyday as Kane the Killer Clown. Parker and psychiatrist Dr. Ellen Marx embark on a dangerous mission to uncover Kaine’s insidious plans, a desperate attempt to thwart an impending, bloody threat. Claydon’s ambition was to construct a “suspenseful, Purge-like horror” experience—contained within its immediate locations, yet surrounded by a palpable sense of a larger world descending into chaos.

The discussion quickly moved to the film’s powerful cinematic influences, many of which are evident from the opening frames.

From the unsettling opening sequence depicting Kaine’s murderous childhood to the presence of a Dr. Loomis-esque figure who pronounces the killer as “pure evil,” the film wears its homage with pride. Claydon, a self-confessed VHS junkie whose early diet consisted of genre classics like Poltergeist and An American Werewolf in London, stressed that these references were born purely of instinct rather than calculated intellectualism. He saw an opportunity to honour the iconic opening of Carpenter’s film by depicting young Cole Kaine’s first victims—a horrific trick-or-treat scenario where the child killer takes out his foster parents and a callous social worker. For Claydon, a successful homage is a vital handshake with the audience, establishing instantly: “somebody understands the genre… and they know what the audience is.”

Beyond the obvious influences, Claydon’s filmic DNA reveals a broader, more eclectic palate. He expressed profound admiration for Steven Spielberg’s ability to forge an emotional connection and generate phenomenal suspense and humour. Yet, in the horror camp, he revealed a particular fondness for John Carpenter’s 1980 supernatural chiller The Fog, citing its atmosphere and tension as a “massive influence” he watched even more frequently than the film that gave Helloween its namesake. Other inspirations stem from the high-concept, fast-paced world of Larry Cohen (Q the Winged Serpent) and, notably, the anarchic camera work and inherent “playfulness” of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead series.

This drive to connect with a contemporary audience led to one of the film’s most crucial narrative elements: the pervasive influence of modern media. Claydon made incorporating the “internet bombardment of media” and social media discourse a central pillar of his script. This was a deliberate choice to ground the horror in a contemporary setting, reflecting how social platforms and news cycles can fuel division and sway opinions. By creating an outer world of “impending doom,” driven by viral videos and digital unrest, Helloween becomes a powerful, if uncomfortable, commentary on culture. Claydon observed that the current era is defined by the “loud mouse with extreme views” finding a platform, allowing a figure like Cole Kaine to gain power by speaking to those who feel neglected by the system—a chillingly relevant subtext.

The interview also offered great insight into the technical constraints and creative leaps required when working at a microbudget level. Claydon wanted Helloween to be a “very colourful horror movie,” a true “circus of fear,” consciously rejecting the desaturated palette so common in modern genre cinema. The DP, James Wesley, proved to be an indispensable ally, sharing Claydon’s vibrant vision, even before they spoke. The challenge was executing this vision during a punishing nine-day shoot where the crew had to cover approximately nine pages of script a day, packed with set pieces and emotional moments. The DP’s small, efficient team, capable of 10-15 minute turnarounds on setups, was vital. Claydon was keen to leverage bright aesthetics—neon pinks in a car park scene, for instance—that instantly recalled the colourful, stylised atmosphere of early Joel Schumacher films, such as The Lost Boys. The visual idea was to create a carnival-esque Halloween vibe that starts colourful but gets increasingly “murky and as nasty and grimy” as the story progresses.

On the set, everything was “very well drilled,” a necessity born of the tiny crew and lack of time for manoeuvre. However, even the most meticulous planning can be derailed. Claydon recounted a particularly challenging car scene where a planned suspenseful reveal—using the car bonnet to obscure the killer—was ruined by the discovery of a large gap under the hood of the crew member’s vehicle they were using. Claydon had to “think on his feet,” but ultimately discovered the tension worked purely because the audience knew a presence was near, a moment that proved the power of suggestion over spectacle. In a similar vein, the film’s modest use of gore was not just a budgetary decision but a conscious stylistic one. Claydon acknowledged that practical gore effects are time-consuming, and instead drew inspiration from the “extremely bloodless” work of Carpenter and Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre). The director realised that by obscuring the violence or making it happen quickly, the audience’s mind fills in the blanks, often making the result more terrifying because what we think we see is far worse than what is actually shown.

Reflecting on his career, which includes Lesbian Vampire Killers (a straight comedy) and Within (a more traditional studio horror), Claydon noted that Helloween is closest to his personal sensibilities. Despite starting as a brief from the financiers, the ability to write the screenplay himself allowed it to become his “baby.” After a nine-day shoot described as “blood, sweat, and tears,” Claydon spent two gruelling years in post-production, personally handling everything from editing to VFX, a testament to the dedication required in independent filmmaking.

With Helloween—releasing digitally on 29th September from Miracle Media and on Blu-ray from 101 Films on 13th October—now complete, the energetic #filmmaker is already looking ahead. He teased two future projects: Lust, a self-described R-rated Amblin-style teen sci-fi comedy reminiscent of Weird Science meets John Hughes, and Dead X, a twist on the slasher genre, which he pitched perfectly as a fusion of Fleabag meets Scream. It is clear that whatever creative constraints he faces, Phil Claydon remains a resourceful and enthusiastic voice, one who continually finds new ways to delight and disturb British audiences.