“I just love things that you haven’t seen before.” 7 Keys director Joy Wilkinson on her new thriller

Directed by Joy Wilkinson and showing at this year’s FrightFest, upcoming thriller 7 Keys shows a toxic romance set in London.

In a world obsessed with dating apps and real estate, a generation is trying to make a connection and find their corner of the capital while the gap between the haves and have-nots continues to grow. Daniel (Billy Postlethwaite) has kept the keys to every place he ever lived. Lena (Emma McDonald, pictured above) wants to use them – on the ultimate property porn tour of London, a lost weekend of getting to know each other intimately in other people’s homes. But as Lena unlocks her lover’s past, what began as a risky fantasy becomes a deadly threat…

We spoke to 7 Keys director Joy Wilkinson about her obsession with property and what she’s looking forward to FrightFest audiences seeing…

How did you first get the idea for 7 Keys?

Like lots of ideas, it was several things coming together. I’d always had a thing about keys, and I’ve got Daniel’s thing about not being able to throw them away. They feel really talismanic and important in a sort of mythical way. I remember around the time that there were terrorist threats in London, and they were closing the tubes, and I couldn’t get home. I remembered that I had a key to an office that I used to work at – I didn’t actually have to go and let myself in, but that sparked the thought of ‘oh, I could go and stay there every night, and who would know?’ and what else have I got keys for? So I knew there was a story there, and then it was a question of who had these keys.

I worked with this psychoanalytic psychotherapist who was telling me about people at opposite ends of the emotional spectrum being quite well suited for each other. So, a sociopath and an empath can weirdly make up for each other’s lacks. I thought ‘oh, that’s very interesting’, particularly in these times of extremities. What if we put two very different people together in this situation?

Then it all happened quite quickly and sprang to life. I kind of knew who Lena and Daniel were as soon as they started talking. They’re very dynamic characters, particularly Lena. So once she’s decided what she’s going to do with him and his keys, then you’re off to the races.

So the story came quite quickly, but then, as always, it’s a matter of how you get it made. I came up with it to be quite makeable – you could make it in your friends’ homes – but because it was high concept and commercial, the original producers were like ‘oh, set it in the States and make it bigger’. So it went on this whole development hell journey where it had American producers, and it was going to be a kind of $10 million version. I just reached a point where I’d start directing, and I could see that version just disappearing. I was like ‘no, that’s my film. I’m taking it back, and I’m retooling it for Emma and Billy the way it was meant to be done, and make it, in that micro project British way’.

I felt every moment on set like that was the destiny of it, and that’s why I’d been on that journey.

Billy Postlethwaite and Emma McDonald are great as Daniel and Lena. Can you tell us about the casting process to find them?

Emma was in a play that I wrote about Victorian lady boxers in 2019. She just came in to audition for it and from that moment I had this reaction, which was that kind of ‘who the fuck, is that?’. She’s really mercurial and makes strong choices, which is what you want. Then I met Billy through her. Again, I didn’t know who he was when I first saw him, but even in a bar, when you see him, there’s something about him. Then I saw them both in Macbeth where they were Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. I was like: I have to have them.

So I sneakily did a short film with them, so that I’d worked with both of them and was used to them on set. Then I messaged Emma when she was back from Moonhaven. It wasn’t an official casting process, I just wanted to hear her and Billy read it. But she read it and texted me: ‘We must make this film’. That’s the sort of dream response you want!

It’s wonderful when you have actors who are real collaborators, and you can evolve the script together. The script was quite far along, but they definitely brought their intelligence and their talent to it and made those characters their own.

How would you describe Daniel and Lena’s relationship?

In a way, it is people at different ends. Lena, to start with, seems like the wild card and the crazy one, and the one who is pushing the envelope, while he’s very shy and locked up. It’s like the dance of the seven veils, where they’re peeling the different layers off and meet in the middle, where they’re totally open and equal with each other, but then keep going beyond each other. I think Lena learns to reveal her vulnerability and gains strength from that.

What I love about Daniel is that there are a lot of films that just have a guy who seems to be nice, but then he’s got this dark secret, and that is all you’re watching the movie for. But actually, that’s just a stopping point along the way for Daniel because it’s like, okay, but now, can he be redeemed? So it’s really an excavation of different layers of emotion in men and women and it’s quite hopeful for all the darkness in there.

There are seven keys in the movie, which represent seven places. Do you have a favourite?

Like a lot of people, I’m really obsessed with property and Right Move and Location, Location, Location. Ever since I was a girl – you’ve got this thing about little houses, Wendy Houses, and making a room into your own little house. I think there’s a deep-seated fear in there about homelessness and your place in the world. So I’ve definitely got that obsession to start with.

In the writing of this, I was sort of eyeing up some friends… So key two is my friend’s flat on the top of that massive tower block and key four is actually one of the producers’ house. It’s really interesting in London now, how places are often in that middle space, but it’s actually very hard to get. You don’t know people who’ve got a penthouse or you don’t know people who’ve got a flat like Lena starts out in so those were the most difficult ones to find.

Key six is my favorite because that’s the most horror. I just went downstairs and found that cellar and went ‘I could chain somebody up in this cellar’. So that was an absolute gift.

I also love that each key is a bit of a different genre and a different space. And [key six] is the most pure horror. It also has almost no dialog in it. So I feel like that’s the most cinematic. I love that we can tell the story just through images there.

What are you most looking forward to audiences seeing in 7 Keys when they watch the movie at FrightFest?

Well, at FrightFest, there’s a definite moment in key six where Lena does something. That’s my FrightFest love letter.

That’s been in the script since day one and never changed. I just feel like it’s such a ‘her’ thing to do, and I love that the thing that gets her out of trouble is the same thing that gets her into trouble. So it’s not really about changing her nature, it’s just about her learning about herself. That her deviance is actually a good thing as well as a dangerous thing.

I just love things that you haven’t seen before, and that feel surprising. Those are the things that don’t blow the budget, they’re just original, unique things to that film…

7 Keys will have its UK Premiere at Pigeon Shrine FrightFest on 24th August. Watch the trailer here…