Adapted from Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story, The Yellow Wallpaper is a feminist horror film about a young mother, Jane, driven mad after being holed up in a room adorned with patterned yellow wallpaper. Her husband, having prescribed her a "rest treatment", slowly backs out of the picture and Jane is left in isolation. This causes her to strike an unlikely obsession with the wallpaper, and she begins to form a story about a woman trapped behind it, desperate for releases.
Gilman's tale has cemented itself well into literature and feminist history, having sparked much-needed conversations about the patriarchy and mental illness. The gothic horror story has been adapted in numerous films, plays, and other forms of media — even finding itself referenced in The Twilight Zone. When filmmaking duo Alexandra Loreth and Kevin Pontuti revisited the short story, they knew it was something they had to work with for their debut feature film. Co-writer and actor Loreth told us, "We knew we wanted to take on a bigger project and step up our game a little. We were spending a lot of time trying to figure out what story we'd like to tell. I read this in school almost 10 years ago and it's stuck with me all of that time."
She continued to share, "I don't know exactly what sparked the idea, but it hit me one day, I was like, let's go back and reread that short story and see if this might be something. I had a feeling that everybody would be into it. I locked the team up in their office and was like, 'just read it, it's 17 pages. Read it, shut the door, come out and let me know what you think.' Right away, we thought, this fits exactly what we were hoping to do." Co-writer and director Pontuti chimed in with, "We know each other's tastes, and it was pretty clear, early on, that this was something that had a lot of opportunity for visualization"
The two whipped up a slow-burn gothic horror flick that clocks in at 100 minutes. It is filled with experimental sounds and an intense build-up, showcasing Jane's slow descent into mania as her husband and housekeepers insist that she must be locked away within the small room's four walls. They first started filming the project in 2019, taking on the landscape of Buff, Ireland. The Yellow Wallpaper then went on to premiere at many film festivals, including Kerry International Film Festival, Topanga Film Festival, and TOHorror Film Festival, before being released on digital platforms.
When it came to the filmmaker's biggest creative risk, they agreed that it was the film's score. They decided to ditch the old-styled classic sounds and go with something a bit more electronic— a decision that is a bit unconventional when it comes to the adaption of older works. "We decided to go with a very modernized score, super electronic and experimental. We found some old seventies electronic music that really inspired us throughout the editing and the post-production process," shared Loreth. "We knew it was risky going in and we did get pushback when the final edit was making the rounds. Many people questioned if that was a good idea. And we were like, 'well, we like it. This is like the thing that we really believe in.' I'm really glad we stood our ground, because that's something a lot of people bring up after they watch the film."
The director recalled, "We had originally wanted to add a dark classical music playing over in the opening and, I was editing and going through it, and it just everything felt like it was just missing something. Then, when I tapped into this electronic Buchla music that had these grating tones, it just obvious that this was the sound of the wallpaper, or this was the sound of her interacting with it. It just added this whole level that." He went on to share about his cinematic inspirations which included old European films and surrealist horror pictures like Jaromil Jireš's Week of Wonders. "I leaned into things that were a bit more experimental. This isn't the first time this story has been adapted to a movie. We knew we wanted to do something different from what had already been done. Some of the versions we had seen were pretty theatrical. We wanted something that was more visceral and got you into the mind of the main character."
While Pontuti was occupying the director chair, his collaborator was at the front of the camera, playing the famed leading character. She described balancing her dual roles as a producer and an actor as a challenge. She expressed, "It was really hard, especially once we got on location and onset to divide those two roles and focus on one and not the other. It was so stressful which was great for me in playing such a high anxiety role. With the psychological troubles that the character is going through, I think the anxiety worked in my favor. I started to see the project as my baby. It was hard to let go of the producing side of it."
The Yellow Wallpaper is currently streaming on digital platforms, including Google Play, iTunes, and Vudu.