Told from the point of view of children playing seemingly innocent games in the woods, Jack King’s new BFI Network supported dark, suburban slice-of-life tale Predators takes viewers on a disquieting journey of questionable morality. King has crafted a narrative that delves into profound questions about cruelty, care, and the uncomfortable grey areas between mercy and malice. By centring the narrative on the perspectives of the children and deliberately limiting adult presence, Predators houses a self-contained world where young characters must navigate complex ethical terrain without guidance. At its thematic core, Predators examines the duality of human nature through a compelling metaphor: are we inherently nurturing beings or heartless monsters? King refuses to provide a simple categorisation, instead asking viewers to consider how circumstances and choices push individuals toward kindness or cruelty. As the short makes its online premiere with DN, we speak to King about sinking his teeth into the moral grey areas of this story, working with hardy kids who were able to deal with the big topics at hand and needing to construct a cut which was very different to the script’s structure.
I believe Predators was inspired by an article you read.
There was a news story about exotic snakes being found abandoned on wasteland and fields in my local area. These snakes had been abandoned, unclear whether they’d been left to be rescued or hidden to die by their owners. I wondered about the moral distinction; was it an act of deliberate cruelty by an abuser, or an act of mercy by an otherwise caring animal lover in the face of no alternative? It got me thinking about the duality of kindness and cruelty and the delicate and complex responsibility of care.
It’s challenging when they are children, because the assumption is that really, deep down the parents or carers are responsible in some way.
The duality of kindness and cruelty is central to your concept – how did you work to maintain moral ambiguity rather than clear-cut villainy, especially when focusing on the story from a child’s point of view and their supposed innate innocence?
I think the ambiguity is what interests me – it’s the muddy grey area that gives the story and characters depth and complexity I can sink my teeth into. I enjoy being forced to understand flawed and unlikeable characters and try to see them from inside and out at the same time. It’s challenging when they are children, because the assumption is that, really deep down, the parents or carers are responsible in some way. The kids get off easy. There is a bit of that with Tegan and the fact that she is in foster care. Is she really responsible? Wherein lies the moral blame for her actions? I hope that some people will sympathise with her, but I also hope that some people will absolutely not.
The adults are almost completely removed from the narrative and are blind to what is occurring.
I wanted to keep it centred on the kids. It was important the film play out from Tegan’s POV as much as possible and not to frame her actions or behaviour to fit the adult understanding of it. However, it was important to briefly see where these kids come from and the adults who are around them, because I want to invite the question of how their home lives and circumstances might be related to their actions.
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You boldly chose to work with children and animals – two more unpredictable elements in any film production and the performances are impressive. How did you work with the young cast to embody such dark and mature themes within the framing of kids being kids?
We got hardy kids! They weren’t sensitive at all, and they were all smart enough to understand the complexity of it and where the nastiness was coming from so we could be sure we weren’t going to inflict any mild trauma on them! I didn’t fully believe they wouldn’t all run off screaming when we started introducing snakes into it but they couldn’t get enough. Although Liam Mpholle, who plays Reece, bless him, liked the snakes but was understandably less keen on having an 8ft one wrapped around him in a muddy ditch. Luckily, we’d anticipated he might change his mind and had a dummy on standby.
It was important to briefly see where these kids come from and the adults who are around them.
How did wanting to approach the film as a dark, suburban slice-of-life influence your visual choices, and how did you weave that into the mysterious and more ethereal elements with images of the forest and the abandoned dump site?
This just feels like where I live to be honest! Bradford is a weird mix of hills and woods and moor dotted around colourful and grotty urban spaces. I go for a run in my local woods a few times a week and on most days there’s a nice big fresh mountain of crap that’s been tipped into the middle of a closed country road or over the wall into the woods. It’s like evil Santa has been. It’s obviously disgusting behaviour but I get excited sometimes at the sight of it, cos it’s creepy and surreal. (Some of the roads are actually closed due to how much fly-tipping there used to be, so it’s all kind of re-wilded a bit. Looks like a mini Chernobyl in places). So really, those elements you’re referring to – it’s real!
I definitely wanted to exaggerate and heighten it though, and the music really helped achieve that. A lot also came from Robbie Bryant’s cinematography; he thoroughly threw himself into the look of this and just made everything drip with colour and a beautiful but off-kilter sense of cinematic discord and unease. I think I’m also a bit influenced by Eerie, Indiana a kids’ show from the 90s, I’d love to do a dark adult take on that one day, set in Yorkshire.
I love the moment Tegan is chasing Reece into the forest and the way you hide him from us – talk us through the shooting of that scene.
All I can remember is we were filming this scene and Liam (Reece) was getting so into it and scared of Tegan that he didn’t stop running even when me and the whole crew were calling cut at the top of our lungs. Then we heard a massive, heart-stopping scream booming through the trees. It was the scariest moment ever. I thought he’d lost an eye to a stray branch, and we were obviously gonna lose the end of the film with it. Luckily, he’d just had a little trip and was doing what all great actors do and dramatising it. It took about 10 minutes for my heart rate to go back to normal and then he was running around again, although with someone on the other end to grab him. That’s how he was the whole time, he believed it. So we just shot a lot in a way that would make him forget the camera was there.
I think cutting it this way just helped us feel the strangeness and unreliability of Tegan’s POV.
With such an intense storyline and so much that could have gone wrong, were there any big changes that came from the shoot?
It was a learning curve. I cut the script as we shot it, but it just lacked something. It was our producer Hollie Bryan who actually re-wrote it on the spot because I think we were both a bit panicked about the fact that, after all the pain and hard work, the film wasn’t as good as we thought it was gonna be! It was a bit of a mad puzzle to solve because of continuity and things suddenly falling apart but we ended up with a cut that you see. I think cutting it this way just helped us feel the strangeness and unreliability of Tegan’s POV, whereas before it played out a bit more procedurally and predictably. I still don’t know why it worked in the script though and not in the film…very worrying…I need to properly investigate that.
What else are you working on now?
We’ve got a couple more festivals with the Ceremony before the release in August, so I’d love to urge anyone reading this to come and see it in a cinema and please support proper grass-roots indie-cinema in the brief window it’s gonna be on! Other than that, me and Hollie are trying to find finance and support for my second feature Sunburn but I’ve got a slate of other projects in development alongside that. I’m trying to write more scripts and spin as many plates as humanly possible outside working, as there is absolutely no way to predict or harness the whims of industry so I think it’s the only way I’m going to stay sane!
