"Bring Them Down" is a story of wounds that never quite heal, mistakes that can't be undone, and grief so heavy that it threatens to bring everyone it touched down. Directed by Christopher Andrews, in his feature debut, this dark tale takes place in the equally harsh and beautiful Irish countryside, where a simple shepherd is left to wrestle with the consequences of an unspeakable sin — one that sets off a chain of events he can no longer escape.

The film stars Barry Keoghan, Christopher Abbott and Nora-Jane Noone, and is a tale of fathers and sons, where manhood is not measured by wisdom or kindness, but by the pain passed down like a cursed heirloom.

We spoke with Andrews about his use of gore, and the trials of bringing such an intimate yet chaotic vision to life. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

This film explores themes of disfigurement. Was there an intentional commentary you were hoping to convey with these drastic physical transformations?

CA: It wasn’t at the front of my mind. I think a lot of these things come through the writing process. I was much more concerned or interested in these internal disfigurements. The scars of pain inflicted emotionally. The trauma of incidents that have happened, but mostly about these relationships. Certainly between fathers and sons, and men, and their inability to communicate.

And the scars they leave on one another, the pain they feel but are too ashamed to share or express. The women in the world, for example, are kind of collateral damage to these men and their inability to communicate, to control their rage.

Was there a core idea or message about masculinity and fatherhood you hoped audiences would walk away with?

CA: When it takes so long to make a film, there has to be something you’re wrestling with, something you can’t solve immediately, so you stick with it. For me, it was about my own relationship with my father and grandfathers. Unpicking that, thinking about the good and bad things that seeped into me over the years.

As a child, you’re porous. You absorb and learn how to be a man from the people around you. And, by the time I was writing the second or third draft, I had become a father myself. Suddenly, I was really concerned about not passing on the bad stuff. I wanted to hold that back but still pass on the good.

What's one idea you had for the film that you really wrestled with, but ultimately decided against?

CA: There was one. A physical sequence in the script until the week before we shot. Where Michael rescues the lost sheep. In the script, the sheep is stuck in a bog, which you get up on the mountains in Ireland. He strips down to his boxers, wades in, and saves the sheep. Nearly drowning in the process. It was a biblical sort of moment.

I fought for it for years, but, the week before the shoot, it was just too expensive and problematic. I had to bite the bullet and let it go.

Speaking of the livestock scene, which is one of the film’s most intense moments, what was the biggest challenge in bringing that scene to life?

CA: We had a really small budget, about two million pounds. Night shoots are expensive because they’re essentially two days of work for one. Initially, it was scheduled for five nights, but by the time we got to shooting, it had been whittled down to three split days. That meant stopping before midnight. We shot in January and February, so in the UK and Ireland, it gets dark around 3:30 pm, but for real darkness, you have to wait until six or seven. That gave us really short windows.

Part of it was track work. We laid one track and moved everything around it to avoid resetting. And, then the sheep. We had puppets, which were great but didn’t always feel like real animals. So in post, we enhanced things. Added breath, a slight bellowing in the stomach, life in the eyes, and embellished wounds on the puppet. We had an amazing puppetry and VFX team that pulled it together. But you always wonder. Will people suspend their disbelief? Will they buy into it?

Paul Mescal was originally cast in this film. Did his recasting require any script rewriting, or did shift in the story?

CA: No rewrites. I never rewrite based on casting. But casting is like an equation. You add one person, and the whole balance shifts. It’s about understanding what they bring and how they interact with others.

It would’ve been a very different film with Paul. He’s an extraordinary actor. But Barry is equally extraordinary, and in the end, it became the film it was meant to be with Chris and Barry. It was a privilege to have them both.

Speaking of Barry — he often carries an air of boyish innocence in his roles. Did you see that as a strength in creating the ambiguity of his character, or were you pushing for him to subvert that perception?

CA: We leaned into that. Barry has this incredible youthful quality that’s really evocative and disarming. It allows audiences to feel for him in a way they might not with another actor. He can pull you in and take you with him through some truly heinous, disturbing, or challenging things. But he never loses you.

That’s partly who he is, but also his skill as an actor. He grounds his characters in reality, so no matter how far they push, they always feel real.

Any behind-the-scenes stories you can let the audience in on?

CA: One funny moment, it was mostly about the sheep. We had real sheep, hero sheep puppets, and then others made of chicken wire, fleece, and milk cartons. We placed them deep in the frame, and they looked convincing.

Right before a take, this gust of wind came through, and suddenly, they were rolling all over the place. Like tumbleweeds. So 20 people were running through a field at 11:30 pm, chasing these sheep puppets.

Chris and I just stood there watching. He turned to me and said, 'This is so surreal. They’re all doing this just because you wrote something down on a piece of paper.' It was a funny moment.

"Bring Them Down" is now playing in theaters. Check out the official trailer below.