Variety reports that the supernatural horror film Encircled is looking to go into production in Australia, at a time when almost all other movie shoots are suspended due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Australia’s nationwide lockdown is set to be in place for many more months, but the Encircled producers have no intention of breaking the country’s stay-at-home directives. Interestingly, they aim to make use of their team’s visual effects skills and to reverse part of the film-making process, adds the site.
The film takes place in the aftermath of an occult ritual gone wrong in which six strangers are caught in a protective circle and must “escape through Hell.”
Encircled is scripted by successful Aussie writer duo, Shayne Armstrong and S. P. Krause. It was scheduled to go into pre-production this month. Instead, director Christian Debney will do more pre-visualization than originally intended and start work on the VFX.
The production pulls together Tribal Ape’s Lawrence Lim, Howden of ScreenLaunch, Australian genre film creator Michael Robertson, Josh Pomeranz of Spectrum Films and Los Angeles-based Epic Pictures’ Patrick Ewald.