Interview with THE ONLY ONE’s Saphira Moran, Mel Jarnson, and Michael Schwarz

"Ten years after moving to LA and failing to launch an acting career, Zoe returns home to small town Australia to attend a high school friend's wedding where she's awkwardly confronted by a flurry of old flames. When these exes are suddenly being murdered one by one, suspicion falls on Zoe and it's up to her and a ragtag team of old friends to prove her innocence and figure out the identity of the masked Prince Charming killer."

An ode to slashers from the early aughts, The Only One will have its world premiere at Brooklyn Horror Film Festival on October 8th, and we caught up with co-stars Saphira Moran and Mel and director Michael Schwarz to learn all about the new horror film:

The film takes the "final girl trope" and kind of turns it on its head, focusing instead on the power of female friendship. How did it feel to first read this relationship in the script and then bring it to the screen?

Saphira Moran: The female friendship is the heart and redemption of The Only One. Piper’s forgiveness and love of Zoe shines no matter the carnage going on around them, that’s what I saw when I first read the script. It’s a testimonial to girl power, to the strength of the sisterhood that I love, making it easy to bring to the screen. To have two really strong females bouncing off each other, evolving together through love, histories, care and empathy. It gave us as both so much to work with.

On that note, why did you want to focus on the women's friendship in the film? It's something we haven't necessarily seen before, and it adds a layered emotional element to the film that I think brings female relationships to the forefront of the genre. Can you tell us about this process?

Michael Schwarz: It was really about anchoring the Zoe character. A big part of this is film is the hook that Zoe has a lot of ex’s and every one of them still harbours some kind of broken heart. We need to care and empathise with her for the story to work, and the best way to show her as a real, living and breathing person is to see her through the perspective of her best friend, Piper. Someone who brings out the best in her and doesn’t have any selfish intentions towards her. Focusing on their friendship humanises Zoe in a way that would be really difficult if we only ever saw her interacting with former flames and lovers.

The film is such a great homage to slashers of the early aughts. How much did filmmakers like Wes Craven, John Carpenter or Tobe Hooper factor into your creative process for THE ONLY ONE? 

Michael Schwarz: John Carpenter formed so much of who I am as a person, not just a filmmaker. His approach to the craft, almost workman like, but always knowing exactly how much humour to inject, how much to reveal about a character and when to reveal it. He’s in my blood and I’ll always be chasing the feeling I get watching his films. I also spent a lot of time looking at Tobe Hooper frames with my cinematographer, Thomaz, and we had frames from Texas Chain Saw Massacre up in our office during preproduction. The way the lights looked during the night scenes. We tried to emulate that during a basement scene in our movie where everything was lit with flash lights and phone lights. And with Wes, I always turn to him when I’m looking at set piece. He really is the master of the set piece. How to build the suspense, adding elements and building to a crescendo. I love working with references, so it didn’t stop with those three. I forced the crew to watch Argento, Fulci, Bob Clarke and anything where Tom Savini did the kills.

Were there any practical effects that stood out to you, or perhaps kill scenes that were technically challenging or fun? 

Michael Schwarz: All of the kills we shot were practical. It was really important to me that the weapons felt like they were tangible and interacted with the world around them. They get stuck in bodies. Some of them clumsier to use than others. They have weight to them. That was more important than going too over the top with the gore. I mean the last thing I want to do is try to top the Terrifier films or In A Violent Nature. I just wanted to go for a tangible feeling of a blade making contact with flesh.

The kill scene that ended up being my favourite though, came about because it became clear during prep that it could only be achieved by creating a CGI samurai sword blade emerging from a chest as someone was stabbed from behind. We got to the point where we just didn’t have the time or the money to build the elements that we needed to shoot it practically. I accepted that we would have one CGI kill in our movie, and tried to justify in my mind why it would be fine. And I just couldn’t do it. So I decided to approach the kill in a more stylistic way. The weapon in the scene was a samurai sword. I love samurai films. I love the way when someone is killed with a perfect strike that a geyser of blood sprays into the air. It felt right to embrace that. So that was the solution. It would involve no prosthetics, just a pressurised hose. My production designer came up with the idea of adding a plastic sheet into the scene, that we watch the kill through, thereby giving us the perfect canvas for the blood to spray onto. And I got to have a memorable and stylistic kill scene that didn’t require any CGI.

There is a distinctive element of camp and fun in THE ONLY ONE. How did you ensure you found the balance between thriller and comedy? Was there anything you did on set, behind the scenes, to keep things light?

Saphira Moran: We all worked so well together, which made it fun. Every time we weren’t filming a scene we’d all just be hanging out which helped build the rapport between us all elevating the whole film. I have to say the most I laughed was with Ben O’Toole’s improvised character names he had for us, giving us all a good laugh. Mike the Director was loved by cast and crew making the whole production special.

Mel Jarnson: It’s so challenging for me, specifically, to separate comedy from horror. I think that’s still very much a work in progress, and I don’t know that I fully mastered it on that set. It was kind of my first time dancing between horror and comedy, so definitely still a work in progress. But I think having a director who made you feel safe and could bring levity to what would otherwise feel like a very serious situation, and an incredible crew who were really funny, you know, dedicated, but also very respectful of when you had to drop in—that was the trick. And, you know, a little crash-out here and there to Mike, our director, about not knowing what I was doing definitely helped as well!

OBSESSION has dominated the genre conversation as of late, bringing a real resurgence back to the category. Audiences and award organizations becoming more aware of the nuance these performances require. Do you feel like the challenges that actors face in the genre is finally getting its recognition?

Saphira Moran: Absolutely. Actors are finally getting recognition for horror. Horror is as serious as any other genre. It’s intense, high stakes and emotional. If you’re not exhausted by the end of the shoot, you’re not delivering a ‘who done it’ slasher film. You have to be on point everyday. You have to be fully immersed as with any genre in your character, your surroundings, the stakes and your body and mind. It’s also escapism yet provoking, which is why I think genre is booming at the moment. Actors and the teams behind them are getting the recognition they deserve. When the audience is on edge or having fun with you then that’s how you know it’s landed. 

Mel Jarnson: I don’t think it’s getting the recognition that it fully deserves yet. Horror, especially comedy-horror, you’re dancing between selling a bit and a trick, while also selling that you’re horrified in a really scary situation. It’s also extremely physically taxing. You’re doing stunts, you’re crying, screaming a lot of the time, and while that can be cathartic, it’s also, you know, take after take, often on a very tight budget with very little time. So, the cortisol levels are at an all-time high. And, yeah, with that in mind, it’s beautiful to see all that’s happening with Obsession and Inde Navarrette’s incredible performance. It’s great, but we still have a long way to go.

Michael Schwarz: Horror has always had really great performances that never received the credit they deserved from the industry, going all the way back to Lon Chaney and Boris Karloff. But I think what might be different now, is that the recognition is coming from a much younger audience, and in a time where it really feels like we’re hitting a new beginning in the industry. Also, I think it's fair to note that here in Australia we might be a little ahead of the curve, we awarded Talk to Me and Bring Her Back with AACTA awards, our highest honours, and rightfully so, including Sophie Wilde as best actress. And so at least down here we are recognising a good horror performance as good performance.

So who is 'THE ONLY ONE'? Can you give us any hints as to who Prince Charming really is? 

Michael Schwarz: It’s not me, I can say that.

Saphira Moran: I don’t know… I think I have a pretty trustworthy face ;)

And finally, what is your go-to Halloween movie or candy?

Mel Jarnson: My go-to Halloween movies are really wholesome. It’s like The Mummy or Disney’s The Haunted Mansion. Like, very much PG.

Michael Schwarz: I get very seasonal during October when it comes to movie watching. I’ve got a lot of things I try to hit each year. At least one Vincent Price movie. And Italian horror film. A classic Universal horror. Some 70’s horror. Some 80’s slashers. But there’s a few individuals films I’ll always save for the last couple of nights of October. Halloween III: Season of the Witch really scratches my Halloween season itch. I love it, cause the whole movie has that feeling of watching something late at night, and drifting in and out of sleep. But for a perfect Halloween night, I have a set double feature I always try to go for. Return of the Living Dead, which is hands down the most fun a zombie movie can be, followed by John Carpenter’s The Fog, which is far from his best film, but the vibes are so perfect for October 31. The score, the coastal setting, the jazz tunes coming from the lighthouse radio station, Dean Cundy’s cinematography, the killer sailor ghost vibe. It really doesn’t get any better.

Saphira Moran: My favourite Halloween candy would be an Australian trick in ‘Trick or Treat’. As a kid receiving a carrot when trick or treating, I was disappointed to say the least, yet it’s the one ‘candy’ memory that never left me. Go figure. 

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"Ten years after moving to LA and failing to launch an acting career, Zoe (Mel Jarnson, MORTAL KOMBAT, the upcoming STREET FIGHTER) returns home to small town Australia to attend a high school friend's wedding where she's awkwardly confronted by a flurry of old flames. When these exes are suddenly being murdered one by one, suspicion falls on Zoe and it's up to her and a ragtag team of old friends to prove her innocence and figure out the identity of the masked Prince Charming killer. Celebrating its World Premiere at Brooklyn Horror, THE ONLY ONE plays out a twisted reverse-Scott Pilgrim scenario in joyfully throwback fashion, with debut director Michael Schwarz calling back to the early aughts slasher canon. —Joseph Hernandez"

Screening Info:

Sun, Oct 18th, 4:15 PM @ Dark Sky Films Theater (Nitehawk Cinema Williamsburg Screen #1)

Featuring a Post-Screening Q&A with director Michael Schwarz, producer John Schwarz, cast members Mel Jarnson, Saphira Moran, and more TBD.

https://brooklynhorror2026.eventive.org/films/6aa8034b5821886a4aeb1ed7