PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Hot Spot, the new dystopian detective thriller by Agnieszka Smoczyńska (The Lure) and written by Robert Bolesto (The Lure), is one of the most unique and creative futuristic movies I’ve ever seen. It’s set in a world where AI is required and those who don’t fall in line with it are shoved to the fringes of society and treated like outcasts until they surrender. I mean, they communicate by their thoughts without speaking out loud and you can request permission to infiltrate the minds of other people. How scary is that?
As a private eye investigates a murder in a future world of sentient A.I., his identity and marriage suffer a hypnotic meltdown.
To celebrate the release of the film, I chatted with director Agnieszka and stars Noomi Rapace (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – 2009) and Andrzej Konopka (The Lure) about what drew them to the film, how to experience Hot Spot, and more!
PopHorror: I really enjoyed Hot Spot so I’m super excited to talk to you all about it today. My first question is for all of you. What intrigued you about the script and made you want to be a part of the project?
Agnieszka Smoczyńska: What I liked very much was the script captured the feeling of our time, which is the fear but also the way how it was told, because I think it’s told in a very unique way. Also, I liked the theme that when you fear the fear, what can save you is love. I also loved that the whole script captures the anxieties and fears of our time like global warming, global unrest, AI, war, but also the fear of our loved ones, close ones, and also that you can’t use the logic that you’re used to using when are you watching Hot Spot and when I was reading Hot Spot. You can also be in a dream state and you can experience the world and you can watch the world that resonates with us. Of course, I loved the idea of what the future could look like.
Noomi Rapace: For me, I read it and I was completely blown away. Never read anything like that. It was wild, and so unique, and disturbing, and funny, so funny. I was laughing out loud when I was reading it. I was a huge fan of Agnieszka’s movies, so I was getting all these flashes in my head and seeing The Lure, and seeing her extreme, wild imagination and playfulness. Even in the darkest moments there’s always a ray of light, so I just saw it come to life and I was like, I need to be part of this. It really felt like it was a collective responsibility and somehow, we were all entangled and a part of something. Sometimes you come in on a movie and it’s like this is where I begin and this is where I end. I felt like this was very much an ensemble. We were all moving as one sometimes in a strange way, so it was quite different. It was amazing to be part of this.
Andrzej Konopka: When I read the script, I understood that it could be a form of a modern-day fairy tale where the high-tech kind of took over the function of modern magic, just like in the stories of the Grimm brothers. They were really cruel and dark sometimes, they also allowed for the fears, the subconscious fears of little children, to become a little more pacified or exorcised. I think the attempt that Hot Spot has as a movie is to pacify some of the anxieties of modern society but at the same time it’s just a wild, crazy story that takes you through and combines many different movie genres.
PopHorror: Agnieszka, you’ve said that Hot Spot is not about following the plot but it’s about immersion and dreaming. Can you elaborate on that a little bit for us?
Agnieszka Smoczyńska: Hot Spot is a murder detective story on the surface but in the dystopian future ruled by AI. Hot Spot is not about following the plot and that is what I was interested in the most because also what I loved in this movie and in the script, is that the film is not meant to provide answers but rather to inspire more questions. I like that when you start the story, you think that you are watching a detective story and it totally turns, and you understand that you are watching rather a movie about a falling apart detective because he met a witch of the future, a cyber witch, and I liked very much the meltdown of his perception of the world. I liked that Hot Spot is rather the portrayal of a human being in a crisis and that’s what is happening to him when he meets a woman who he probably falls in love and is fascinated by, and how we elaborate on his relationship with his wife and his kid. I also like that now in our times, usually when you are watching movies on Netflix or another platform, you just follow the plot but another way is to follow the plot when you watch a criminal or maybe horror. But what will happen when you have to immerse into the world, when you have to start to feel, and you don’t know what’s happening next not because of this tension which you know from the genre but because it’s so unpredictable.
Thank you so much to Noomi, Andrzej, and Agnieszka for taking the time to chat with us! Hot Spot is only in theaters now!
