When planning your movie, location is key. Scouting for the perfect place to stage your production can be the difference between success and failure. Finding a set which both manifests the essence of your story but also adds to it. One of the most famous examples is the Overlook Hotel in The Shining, which is as much a part of the terror as the transformation Jack Torrance undergoes. The staging is a bit less fancy in Glorious.
Wes (Ryan Kwanten) is having a bad day. Following a messy breakup with his girlfriend Brenda (Sylvia Grace Crim), he finds himself at a remote rest stop. After a night of letting rip, he’s desperate to get it all out. Upon completion of his manoeuvres, a voice (J.K. Simmons) starts talking to him from the adjacent cubicle. When he tries to leave, he’s trapped, caught in a cosmic game which is more terrible than his worst nightmares.
Glorious works because it uses its limited surrounding to full effect. That and a clever use of dialogue and pacing, allowing the conversations to linger just long enough. Essentially a two-hander, Rebekah McKendry’s film is back and forth between Kwanten and Simmons. They compliment each other perfectly. Glorious obviously has its limitations, but there’s an ingenuity and cleverness at play which makes you sit up and listen.
Glorious will premiere on Shudder on 18 August.
