When asked about how does he do it, his answer is simply, “I just focus on making something that I’m going to be really happy with because I never know when I’m not going to be able to ever do it again.”
It shows in works he’s executive produced too, like The Void, where he helped shape someone else’s vision. He’ll support and guide when needed, but when he’s in the captain’s chair, there’s a lot more to be aware of.
When comparing his past work in television and independent film to what he’s making now, he noted, “There’s definitely a bit of horror in everything I do. As for comedy, I think they’re very interlinked. I love the levity that comes with it, so it’s like the scary stuff and the relief through the humour has always attracted me to the things I’ve made. So yeah, they’re kind of synonymous.”When it comes to fusing genres together, there’s just that je ne sais quoi genre fans can find in a lot of his work. He admits he always gravitates toward sci-fi, but he’s got a few favourites in other genres too, except for Texas Chainsaw, he joked.
He’s spent the last decade working in both the TV and film industries, and he believes what he learned on one side works just as well on the other. Like a true maverick, he simply went by his own code for how to make a movie. He admits he never really had a style. “I’m not even sure if I have one now,” mused Walker.
As for his latest effort, which sees him back in the director’s chair, he says making every movie still feels like a dream, because he never expected to keep doing it this long. On Home Bodies, he said, “This one, though, is particularly special because myself and 25 people just locked ourselves up in an old newspaper building and built a crazy set, dragged two kids and a contortionist circus performer into the space, and we created for 25 days without anyone getting in our way. So it was fun.”
The story was written by Adrian Murray and Marcus Sullivan, but what Walker found in it was something more ominous. Without the full world he built in his head during his first read, the finale wouldn’t be what it is. The film screens next at FrightFest 2026 in London, where more people can weigh in on his take.
Walker explained, “I was sent this screenplay by my good friend Todd Brown. He knew Murray from another project and said they didn’t know how to make it because it’s a little crazier than what they normally do. And it kind of went from there. These two originally envisioned it in a normal house and stuff.”
In the original screenplay, neither character would get out of the house. It was claustrophobic. The writers built on the idea that no matter what room you were in or what hallway you were going down, you didn’t know what was around the corner. But they didn’t really have a proper ending in mind, and when Walker read it, ideas started forming. “I just saw a much bigger world,” he revealed, “and after I did a couple passes with the guys, I kind of took over and made it my own after that.”
With a ton of detailed documents and layouts on hand, especially for set design, the real hurdle was finding a place that met the requirements, testing the idea out in a software tool called SketchUp, and hoping the CrossFit gym attached to the studio where they filmed wouldn’t make too much noise, Walker revealed. Jokes aside, development wasn’t too long, and once they landed the cast they wanted, it was smooth sailing.
“The easiest thing a director can do is cast well, because after that, I can just count on them to do it. Ian and Emma Ho are super talented. I worked with Ian on a sitcom right after I got the script, but back then, he was a little too young, though he really impressed me with his work ethic. Emma had worked with friends of mine on a movie, and she was holding her own against Ron Perlman, which got my notice. It was only a year later that I found out they were twins. I probably should’ve paid attention to the last names,” mused Walker.
“They aged into the roles, and it was the perfect storm for them to show up, especially since they didn’t have as much life experience to pull from as other actors. I could push either one of them in a pretty strong direction, a very emotional direction, because they knew they had each other and felt safe taking those risks. And Ess Hödlmoser is such a beautiful person; the kids had no problem gravitating to him. They bonded quickly.”
And with Walker knowing Ess for almost a decade, choosing him to play that “really, really strange, non-verbal yet incredibly physical character,” as he called him, was never really in question.
Although the world they lived in was a microcosm of a grander concept, no one really knew what lay beyond the door, should anyone decide to leave. That’s all in Walker’s head, and there it’ll stay. He even admitted to leaving a lot of the cast and crew in the dark about certain things, and the team abided by that. It was frustrating at times, because it meant doing another take when something didn’t happen the way this filmmaker had hoped.
“And sometimes you back yourself into a corner and you’re like, oh, I wish I hadn’t done that. But we had to stick to those choices, and I’m really glad we did. If this movie is well received, it’ll help me expand the world I’ve been envisioning for a couple of years now. And I have either two more movies or a whole TV series in my head that I’d love to get out, but at the same time [with Fantasia] it’s just such a joy to be able to bring this one out and see what audiences think of it.”
As for how it went over at the Montreal-based genre film festival, everyone loved it. Walker described opening night: “You could hear a pin drop half the time in the room. It felt like the whole audience took a breath at the same time, or when there’d be a big jump scare, you could just feel that energy in the room move. It was very gratifying. It seems like everyone’s response since then has been pretty positive in general.
“When I finished the movie, I was incredibly happy. Even if it never went anywhere, I’d be like, I made that thing and it turned out the way I wanted it to. That, at the end of the day, is the most gratifying part.”
When pressed on whether there’ll be more story, his response was simple: you’ll have to wait.
It’s a tale set during the fur trade of Canada, where the isolated inhabitants of a remote trading outpost enlist Cole Franklin (Luke Hemsworth), an American mercenary haunted by his past, to investigate the silence that has fallen over a nearby Indigenous settlement. What he discovers is a scene of unimaginable terror and an overwhelming sense of something ancient still lingering in the wilderness.
It’s a haunting tale of isolation, folklore and psychological dread, where, Walker revealed, “The landscape is not a backdrop, and I would fight anyone who lit it like one. A thousand miles from anything, ringed by boreal forest, frozen half the year. Snow absorbs everything—sound, colour, blood—until what’s left is simply exposed.”
He also said that this work is “a cautionary tale with no heroes in it,” and that there is no real exit in store in what’s about to happen. As for whether this idea is based on the more popularized version made famous by H.P. Lovecraft, he does not say. Here merely teased, “I wanted [a story] that keeps [our protagonists] out in the cold for a while, with the knowledge that the cold was never weather. It has always been there. It is there now. The only question the film really asks is what you are prepared to call it.
And in terms of finally getting this story out, as it was in development for a long time, and when it could be released, he’s simply happy to have the world premiere happening.
“I’m excited,” Walker said, “Because that one’s been in my head for 14 years, and like Home Bodies, it’s just nice to finally have it out of my head.”
Casey Walker Interview
on Second Act Actors (One Year Ago)
