Horror Obsessive
Anthology horror lives or dies on a single design question: do the segments actually talk to each other, or are they just three short films wearing a shared marketing poster? The Hours That Keep Us, a psychological horror anthology now set to begin shooting in Massachusetts this August, is staking its identity on the harder answer. Writer-director Tommy Jay Dwyer has built three interconnected stories around grief, obsession, and the things people do when they cannot let someone go, and the film has just added a collaborator whose own work leans the same direction.
Cinematographer and producer Justin Brooks, who shared the 2023 Chainsaw Award for Alone With You with Emily Bennett, has joined the project as director of photography. Brooks and Bennett’s follow-up, the folk horror feature Blood Shine, has already drawn a strong festival response and is headed for North American release through Dark Sky Films. Both films share a specific register: horror built from emotional disturbance rather than shock delivery, which is exactly the register The Hours That Keep Us is reaching for.
A Visual Language Built for Dread, Not Gore
Brooks describes his own instincts plainly: his films tend to reach toward dread more than jump scares or spectacle, though he is careful to note there will be plenty of the red stuff for genre fans who want it. That balance, dread as the operating principle with gore as a tool rather than the point, is a harder line to hold than it sounds, and it puts Brooks in the same lane as Dwyer’s stated approach to the anthology’s connective tissue.
What stands out in how Brooks talks about the project is the reference point he reaches for: not the desaturated, digitally graded look that dominates a lot of current indie horror, but an 80s and 90s sensibility of deep, dark shadows and rich color, the same palette that made VHS-era slashers feel lived-in instead of sterile. That is a specific, deliberate choice, and it suggests the film is aiming for texture over trend.
A Cast Built From Unconventional Corners
The ensemble reflects a similar willingness to look outside the usual casting pool. Paige VanZant and Mickey Gall, both known first for mixed martial arts, join Zack Ward, the cult character actor recognizable from Freddy vs. Jason, alongside Devin Petry, Vinny Pacifico, Chelsea Brea, Avori Strib, James J. LaBonte, Jordan Tofalo, April Baker, and Dwyer himself. That is an unusual mix for an anthology built on quiet, sustained dread rather than star power, and it tracks with Brooks and Dwyer’s history: the two first worked together on the 2013 supernatural action film R.I.P.D., playing minor characters killed off early, long before either had a project like this to build together.
“I truly do love to explore the darkness within all of us. Dread has always been the keyword for me, and I feel like Tommy lives in the same space with this film,” Brooks says.
Anthology horror has a well-documented tendency to feel like a grab bag, three ideas that never quite justify sharing a runtime. A film built specifically around connective grief and obsession, shot by a cinematographer whose stated priority is dread over spectacle, at least gives itself a real shot at avoiding that trap. Whether the connective tissue holds together on screen will not be clear until August wraps, but the intent behind it is unusually specific for a project this early.
Quick Takes
- Cinematographer Justin Brooks, co-creator of Alone With You and Blood Shine, has joined The Hours That Keep Us as producer and director of photography.
- The psychological horror anthology is written and directed by Tommy Jay Dwyer and is set to begin shooting in Massachusetts in August.
- The cast includes Paige VanZant, Zack Ward, Mickey Gall, Devin Petry, Vinny Pacifico, Chelsea Brea, Avori Strib, James J. LaBonte, Jordan Tofalo, April Baker, and Dwyer.
- Brooks and Dwyer previously worked together on the 2013 film R.I.P.D. before reconnecting for this project.
- Brooks describes the anthology’s visual approach as drawing on an 80s and 90s sensibility of deep shadow and rich color.
