CREATOR INTERVIEW
Otto Baxter: Not A F***ing Horror Story brings a unique new voice to the screen
“WHENEVER I TELL people I have been working with my friend who’s got Down Syndrome, helping him write and direct a film about his life, they all give me this sort of sad, condescending look,” says Peter Beard. “But when I say it’s a horror/comedy/musical set in Victorian London their faces light up because they weren’t expecting it!
“We were keen to embrace that because it’s so typical of Otto – what you think you’re getting isn’t what you’re getting at all. He’s not asking for sympathy, he just wants to make his own film, and it will be funny and scary and everything else in-between.”
Made for Sky Documentaries, Otto Baxter: Not A F***ing Horror Story follows the 35-year-old movie lover as he writes and directs “The Puppet Asylum”, a short film – released alongside the documentary – that retells his life in macabre, allegorical fashion, from birth in a bloody morgue to imprisonment in the bizarre asylum that gives the story its title.
“I like lots of different types of film but I love horror,” says Baxter, an advocate for disability rights as well as an actor and performer. “My favourite films are the Nightmare On Elm Street series. Horror films always have the best characters in them – the best baddies – and as I was going to appear in the film, I knew I wanted to play someone ‘evil’ as they had the most fun.
“I got to use other actors who have Down Syndrome too, like Ruben [Reuter] who plays me as a teenager in the film and is brilliant and we became good friends. I hope more people with Down Syndrome get to do this.
“Making this film has been totally mind-blowing. Everyone made me feel welcome and listened to.”
It’s the first time a major British broadcaster has commissioned a project of this scope from a filmmaker with Down Syndrome. And, crucially, it’s one that gives Baxter an unmediated voice, bringing his anarchic imagination to the screen intact. “It was a real lesson for us,” says Beard, a producer on “The Puppet Asylum” and co-director with fellow BAFTA winner Bruce Fletcher of Otto Baxter: Not A F***ing Horror Story. “If you say you want to hear from people that have different perspectives on life, who quite literally think differently, then you’ve got to back them and listen to them and not try to make it fit into ‘our’ world.
“I think the film is important because, while more and more actors with Down Syndrome are appearing on TV – which is great, because visibility is important – often their words are written by others. But this put Otto front and centre.
“All the best bits are Otto’s!” Beard reveals. “We had this really basic rule, which was
