“A woman struggles with little things that build to mammoth proportions.”

This is the short synopsis of Fear, a 14-minute-long exploration of this most basic and relatable of human emotions, in which something mundane strikes a chord of illogical fear in the protagonist, sending things spinning wildly out of control.

I spoke to American writer/director Steve Kahn about his film, which will make its debut at the Malta Horror Film Festival this weekend.

Fear embodies a very compelling, effective and ultimately accurate portrayal of the emotion that gives it its name. What was it that inspired you to focus on this particular emotion?

Truth be told, it was me. My fears inspired me. The germ of the film started out in a completely self-centred way. In my mind, a pimple on my face could turn into skin cancer; a vague look from a stranger could signify an unfounded hostile intention.

Even, as in the film, an unexplained thump late in the night could send terror running down my spine, freezing me solid, paralysed with fear, as thoughts of demonic possession and evil creatures from hell hid in the shadows ready to jump out at me.

I realised I wasn’t alone. Everyone seemed to be susceptible to those jolts of terror. From anthrax to aliens to fears of our neighbours or of those with different accents or religions or race … everyone seemed at risk of the fear spiral cascade. I saw it happening all the time and everywhere.

The media don’t make things better, but often worse. In the media fear stories sell. They are emotional. They get our hearts beating and get under our skin.

I would see again and again how thet media would interlace mundane stories with irrational fears to create powerful pieces that would play on the hearts of an audience who would have to tune in to see how they could be saved.

Once they take hold our fears are never logical

Once they take hol,d our fears are never logical and we lose sight of the rational mind.

Shorn of our modern-day reasoning powers all threats – real and imagined, big and small, the more hyperbolic the more effective – become possible as our ungoverned thoughts send our hearts spinning wildly out of control.

Ultimately, it’s not the perceived threats that end up doing harm but rather our reactions, or over-reactions, to them. In Fear what my protagonist is afraid of doesn’t hurt her, but ultimately what does is her reaction to that very fear.

Was it easy to translate your ideas onto the screen?

Fear was quite a technically difficult project to direct. In such cases, as an artist it is easy to lose sight of one’s way.

It is easy to become myopic where one doesn’t know if the project makes sense anymore, or has emotional impact anymore, or strikes at the human truth that was once envisioned.

In the year that went into making Fear, when such times of uncertainty arose I would return to the same questions again and again: Is this something worth saying? Is there a universal truth here? Am I staying on course in exploring this truth? These questions alone helped propel me along.

What and who are your influences?

I feel that my work is valid when it can embody a universal theme in a poetic way. Thinking about human ideas and finding their core and then distilling them in a poetic fashion is fascinating to me.

I think it is the work of an artist to observe the way the world works, then question why it works that way and then finally use those questions and answers as a foundation of a poetic final piece of work.

In film, Stanley Kubrick was a master at this. I look to great poets and song writers as well who can say so much about us by saying so little.

Fear will be screened as part of the Malta Horror Film Festival, which runs between Thursday and next Sunday.

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