Conditioning

Initially, I was presented with the opportunity to make a gory horror film, but creating bloody effects and torture sequences wasn't anywhere near as appealing to me as, in some small way, exploring the roots of prejudice and the reality of having to live in fear of being yourself.
I hadn't seen many, if any, horror films where the victims were being persecuted for being themselves, despite this being an on going problem in the real world. Most victims in horror films are simply people who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or people having revenge exacted upon them for past crimes either perpetrated by themselves or their relatives.
Everyday people have to deal with horrific consequences dealt out to them simply because of their sexuality, race, gender identity or any other factor that may place them in a minority, and at the mercy of other people's intolerance.
With Conditioning, I also wanted to explore the limits of peoples enjoyment of the horror genre, which is often a crowd pleasing medium, where the more inventive the death, seemingly the more entertainingly it's received, with audiences championing the deaths of the main characters. With real world horror elements at the core and opening up a conversation about the influences of people's actions and beliefs is it possible to take the genre in a much darker, different, thought provoking direction?