by Dov Kornits
“When you’re thinking about making your next film, you’re like, ‘okay, what resources have I got around me?’ I literally have the shed, which is 30 meters from my house. I knew that I had Mani [Shanks, lead actress in his previous film, Violett]. She follows direction, her listening skills, ability to remember things… She comes from a dance background as well. So, I thought ‘okay, that’s going to work well with this physical performance.
“You don’t always get to make the film that you really want to make as an indie filmmaker or any filmmaker really,” Mihaljevich continues. “You kind of have to look at the resources that you have around you and the budget.
“That said, I need to have a story that is going to come from a unique point of view, from a character or the way it’s told. It has to hit a criteria for me to be investing three or more years of my life into it.
“I’ve always been interested in this idea of transformation, a transformative experience for character. So, literally an ordinary 10 year old girl locked in a shed … She doesn’t have any special abilities. She’s an ordinary girl that’s very courageous in how she gets out of this horrifying circumstance. And I just thought that would be a really cool premise. It’s something that I’d want to see.
“It was always supposed to be a triumphant story about how much more resilient young people can be when pushed to the extreme.”
Shed is ultimately triumphant, both in the way that it is resolved and in the fact that it got made. But it’s also a horror show in terms of both aspects.
“Violett was an excruciating film to put together,” Mihaljevich admits about his previous film. “It was a pretty exhausting experience. But it got a cult following. A lot of horror influencers put it in their top 10 horror films of all time, up with Heretic and Long Legs and films with $20 million budgets. But Shed is a tighter film, a slicker film, more marketable.
“I see it as a survival thriller with horror elements,” he says about Shed. “In some territories, they’re marketing it more in the horror genre. And in other territories, like Australia, we’re pushing it more as a survival thriller. It’s a slow burn film. I just wanted to make a film that every second hits you. There’s not a moment where you’re bored.”
Even though Mihaljevich sees Shed as a survival thriller, there are numerous horror tropes to be found. “There was a conscious decision when I was writing the film that you never see the killer’s face clearly. My thought is that your imagination is always so much more powerful than what is shown. As soon as we see the boogeyman, as soon as we see the monster, we’re not as afraid anymore. Having less exposition and less context with the killer just makes it more confronting and jarring.”
Speaking of which, Australian cinema and horror icon John Jarratt also appears in shed. “I was writing and got to that part in the film where I was like, ‘You know what? We need a tonal change here, a bit of a shift. This has been so much claustrophobia and darkness for so long.’ I was just like, ‘There’s only one person, one actor that can pull this off and make it iconic.’
“I reached out to John Jarratt’s manager and said, ‘This is what I got,’ and sent him a script and John loved it. He was like, ‘I’m in. I love it.’ It was much easier than I thought. He was hooked. I think he liked the kind of sleight of hand … It wasn’t Mick Taylor, but it had Mick Taylorisms … There are going to be some people obviously that are going to watch it and think that he’s in the movie for a lot longer screen time than what he is. But what he does bring is a really iconic scene that is definitely going to go down well with the horror fans, particularly fans of Wolf Creek.”
Shed is in cinemas from 12 November 2026
