Since it is a creative reflection – you won’t hear a single overcomplicated or squeezed-out sentence from me! 🙂 Enjoy!
REPRESENTATION
First of all — we wanted to avoid the usual horror clichés. No hypersexualised girls, no helpless princess types (sorry Vladimir Propp), no pure-evil witch in the woods.
In Nemor, the protagonist is a complicated woman — and so is the entity hunting her. Two female-presenting characters, zero male saviours, and (almost) zero male actors (the last scene was a necessity because no girl would even touch a cursed tarot deck). Win?
Even with all that in mind, some stereotypes still snuck in — like how the Victim is shown as naive (especially in the “gambling her life” scenes, where she keeps playing even when it’s so obviously cursed). That kind of blind hope is a classic trait pinned on female characters.
But wait — the gambling situation isn’t that simple.
Traditionally, gamblers in media are middle-aged men: unemployed, isolated, financially ruined — and they rarely escape those conditions.
In Nemor, our girl lives in a nice, pretty house. She’s escaped that typical image — but she’s still driven by obsessive-compulsive behaviour. So yeah — this gambler doesn’t look like your stereotypical one.
Also, the film starts with her cleaning dolls. Which… come on — cleaning + dolls + having XX chromosomes = stereotype x100. That wasn’t the plan, but it happened.
(Although, to be fair, the dolls are a gigantic collection of most definitely cursed antique clowns. So. Balance.)
Still, balance: the “powerful” character is also female. That shifts the dynamic. Not just a girl being chased — it’s a girl facing herself. I think Liesbet van Zoonen would be proud of our equilibrium achieved.
CONVENTIONS
Paranormal horror = ghosts, spirits, curses, boom you died.
Psychological horror = “wait, is this real or just in her head?!?”
Nemor is (trying to be) both.
We didn’t want gore or jump-scares. We wanted a rabbit hole. Confusion. Doubt. A film that makes the audience feel watched.
So we kept the exposition super low. No “once upon a time there was …” type o monologue. Just some tensioned moments and cursed air— enough for people to put the puzzle together.
The woods were our dream setting. We knew from the first second of thinking about a possible Film Task – forest it is. Cold, silent, isolated — classic! Paired with the warm, cozy bedroom at the start? Chef’s kiss for contrast.
We also used ritual attributes— tarot cards, creepy fate gambling, unseen rules. That stuff taps into collective consciousness and makes the story feel ancient, even if it’s new.
Like Steve Neale said: genres are about similarity and difference. So we gave the audience what they expect — then twisted it. That’s where the fun is. Nemor is the Trojan horse of the horror.
PS: Being completely realistic – we didn’t reinvent horror. But we did try to give it a fresher, more thoughtful face — and one that isn’t always a screaming girl in a night dress.
Now go rewatch it. There are probably clues you missed.
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