Interview With Paul Etheredge, Writer And Director Of ‘The Other’

The Other, written and directed by Paul Etheredge (Hellbent), produced by Jeffrey Reddick (Final Destination creator) and Lisa Normand (Satanic Panic – read our interview with them HERE), and starring Avangeline Friedlander (Harold and the Purple Crayon), Olivia Macklin (A Family Affair), Dylan McTee (Wrong Turn 2021), Lily D. Moore (Never Have I Ever series), and Shawnee Smith (Saw 1, 2, 3, 6, X; The Blob 1988) is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. What started out as a movie about a nonverbal foster kid who can’t explain the strange things that happen around her when she enters a new foster home morphs into a batshit crazy wtf did I did just watch movie. It’s best to go into this supernatural horror film completely blind.

Unable to conceive, a couple seeks to build a family with a young orphan, survivor of tragic childhood. But their act of love turns to horror when they realize the violence in their foster’s past has returned to destroy the new family.

To celebrate the release of the film, I chatted with Paul about the nightmare that inspired the film, casting, horror movies, and more!

PopHorror: I had a lot of fun with The Other, so I’m excited to hear more about it.

Paul Etheredge: Good!

PopHorror: What sparked the idea for the film and how did the project come about?

Paul Etheredge: I had a nightmare when I was in my 20s about being a new father to an infant that was horrible, and me struggling to rise to the challenge of being a good father, shepherding the kid and taking care of it. It would chew on me and just be destructive and horrible and awful. That new parent anxiety I felt viscerally and carried with me for a long time. I don’t have kids now. And then when producer Jeffrey Reddick reached out to me and said, “I have potentially some money for a small film.” The Other’s story, because it centers around a family in a home, it’s so contained, and I gravitated towards that. I was like, okay, this I can see how we could do this potentially for this money. So I wrote it out and that’s how that one came about. We found producers with the will to back it and here we are.

PopHorror: Was there anything that you were adamant about keeping in the film, no matter what?

Paul Etheredge: Sure. We never really had to have that conversation, thankfully. Everyone was on board, but I absolutely would have fought for the multi-cultural aspect. I felt like that was important. And for Fiona to be a special needs kid. It was very important for me for both of the children to somehow be at a disadvantage in this story, but still heroic and overcome all of that. There’s such a power dynamic between adults and children and to convince adults that shit’s going on we need to pay attention to is hard. Especially when it’s wild.

PopHorror: The casting for Fiona and Kathelia was phenomenal. They were just like… Avangelina Friedlander is just so expressive and was able to really nail a silent role.

Paul Etheredge: Yeah!

PopHorror: I can see her going really big places in the future.

Paul Etheredge: I hope she does! She is amazing. Funny thing, once the cameras stopped rolling, she was very much a kid.

PopHorror: I hope so!

Paul Etheredge: She and Lily were like throwing dolls around, having a great time and jumping in the pool. The joke with the adult actors was, if we ever screw up, you just cut to Avangeline because she’s got it. She nails it. She’s always got something on her face that you can use.

PopHorror: I’m glad to hear that they found time to have fun and goof around because this is a pretty heavy film and they go through a lot. You kind of have to have that fun and lighten it up a little bit because you’re dealing with a lot of stuff in there.

Paul Etheredge: Yes! Thankfully, making a horror film is so silly when you’re actually shooting it. You cut it together and it becomes a very different animal but at the time, it’s like, you’ve got people off camera squirting you with blood and you’re rolling around. It is fun, you just have to keep a more serious expression.

PopHorror: Just one last question for you today. What’s your favorite scary movie?

Paul Etheredge: Oh, this is easy! There is only one film that has ever scared me and that is Alien. I saw it in the theater when I was nine years old and it scared me so much, I had to go into therapy for it. I had weekly nightmares for 14 years, so it did a number.

Thank you so much to Paul for taking the time to chat with us. The Other is on Digital and On Demand now!