Filmmakers and long time friends Bryan Woods and Scott Beck were huge found footage movie fans but like many horror lovers found themselves facing an unavoidable truth: the found footage style was becoming stale. So the two directors, friends since they were 11, decided to take the leap and create a project that brought unique aesthetics to the space and a bold single point of view style. That project became NIGHTLIGHT, a thrill ride that breaths life into found footage and hits theaters and VOD tomorrow.

“We wanted to take what was so great about found footage, that limited point of view and hopefully evolve it into something that hasn’t been seen before,” Woods said when speaking to The Crypt in an exclusive interview for Crypt and The Crypt affiliate network.

While the single POV style set NIGHTLIGHT apart, the filmmakers went to great lengths to create several unique elements before and during production to give NIGHTLIGHT a viewing experience makes the viewer feel like they are watching things unfold behind a flashlight.

“There was no real handbook for this,” Woods explained. “We didn’t have any instincts to go off of because there is no movie with the point of view of a flashlight.”

“We spent lots of time at Panavision creating rigs that haven’t been made, creating prototypes…we built our RED camera as small as it could possibly go and built roll cages so the camera could roll like a flashlight. It felt like we were kids making our first movie again,” Woods said.

Woods and Beck’s innovations help conjure up scares for NIGHTLIGHT and the setting could make the experience unique for VOD viewers watching on a small screen in a dark room.

“I remember watching Blair Witch for the 17th time at my house by myself and I knew I had to walk to bed and I thought ‘how the hell am I going to get off this couch,” Beck said.

“The fear of having to watch at home might actually bring the experience closer,” Woods added.

But NIGHTLIGHT is about more than just what’s on the surface. The movie explores teen depression and fitting in, issues the filmmakers faced together growing up as friends in Iowa. As 11 year olds the boys would play a game they, fittingly, called ‘Nightlight’ and those unique experiences as well as the special connection between the directors help make NIGHTLIGHT the movie a film worth watching.

We Chat With NIGHTLIGHT Director’s Bryan Woods and Scott Beck