Brussels IFFF: Hello Stranger (Paul Raschid, 2024)

Hello Stranger, which will have its Belgian premiere on Saturday evening as part of this year's Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, is a new psychological horror-thriller interactive film from Paul Raschid (The Complex, Five Dates, Ten Dates, The Gallery).  Coming to Valve's PC service Steam next month, Hello Stranger tells the chilling story of a man trapped in his smart home by a masked stranger who forces him to play three games to survive.  Hello Stranger boasts a cast including Sir Derek Jacobi, George Blagden, Danny Griffin, Christina Wolfe, Kulvinder Ghir, Laura Whitmore and Yasmin Finney.

The film centres on Cam, who conducts life exclusively from his smart home—work, shopping, entertainment and, most notably, socialising.  Cam interacts with strangers on the Hello Stranger platform, a randomised video chatting application.  Eventually, he encounters a masked stranger with an altered voice.  Unnerved, Cam leaves the call only to find the stranger has hacked his smart home and locked him in.  The stranger tells Cam that he must win three rounds of games, or it is ‘game over’.  Viewers must make decisions and play the three games for Cam to survive—but one wrong move could lead to a grisly end.

Paul Raschid wrote and directed Hello Stranger—which features over four hours of filmed content and 10 possible endings—and is one of the world’s most prolific interactive filmmakers.  Before focusing on interactive films, Raschid was a linear feature filmmaker; his most notable credit is as writer-director of sci-fi thriller White Chamber, for which Shauna Macdonald won Best Actress at BAFTA Scotland 2018.  It was released on Netflix following selection for 10 film festivals worldwide, including Brussels IFFF, Edinburgh IFF, BiFan (South Korea), FrightFest (London), Sitges IFFF, and Mumbai FF.

Source/images: Polymath PR