Director Statement 

Everyone has a point in his or her life when their whole world changes. We all go through this realization, some at a young age, some later on in life. I call it, “the loss of innocence.” It can be anything from finding out Santa Clause isn’t real, to the death of a loved one. No matter who you are, we all go through it. On the surface, “The Void” is a monster movie, but if you dig a little deeper it is about that moment in life we all go through. 

Time is something we cannot buy or sell, and time it self plays a character in this film. Emma’s watch is a constant reminder to us, that no matter how hard we try to believe in Santa Clause, we all realize our parents waited up till we went to sleep to put the presents under the tree. 

I have gone through and seen hard times, I believe I lost my innocence three times in the past. After graduating from high school I was a volunteer fire fighter, I believed I was going to save houses from burning to the ground, and be the hero of the day. Instead it was where I was introduced to death, and I could not stop it from happening. Later I was a Red Cross volunteer and was flown to Louisiana to help the refugees of Hurricane Katrina. It was the first time I traveled out of the Pacific Northwest. I was introduced to real hardships, the reality was that no matter how good my intentions, no matter how hard I tried to help, the people affected by Hurricane Katrina, lost everything. All I could do was provide blankets for their cots in the middle of a basketball stadium, and offer them water and food rations. And the last time I lost my innocence was during my time in Iraq, working as a combat corpsmen (medic) for marines. We were there to save lives and kill the bad guys, but no one told me how it would feel to loose a friend that was only 18 years old, come home and tell his mother I could not save him. 

Every time a piece of my innocence was ripped away from me, I felt like it came out of nowhere. An invisible beast, waiting for the right time to strike. The Void was an amazing way to put all those feelings into a narrative. My passion in film has been to make people feel what I felt. Yes, it is a monster story, but the character Frankie is all of us. At some point and time wee are all trapped on the other side of the fence while we have to watch our innocence be savagely ripped apart in front of our own eyes, and it will happen.