Say, how long can you hold your breath?
This film emerged from my night dreams.
„It Used to Be Different“ is a horror short set in two times and one place. In the first half, two women in vintage swimwear arrive at a strangely quiet indoor pool to deal with a peculiar, recurring problem, handled with the dry, weary efficiency of people who have been through this before.
In the second half, decades later, a group of teenagers cycles out to the same building, now overgrown and condemned, drawn by rumors of “something bad” that happened there. Their cocky ringleader pushes the dare further than the others, and the
abandoned pool slowly begins to remember what it used to be.
A story told with restraint and dry humor, following the uneasy logic of a bad dream.
Making films with the help of AI tools is such an inspiring journey to me. I have been dream-journaling for more than 15 years. Just recently, I started sorting through this huge collection of weird stories and situations, looking for hidden gems. I found so many! One of them was this: a strange woman hovering above a pool, a rope behind her. I tried recreating this image with AI tools and it immediately sparked ideas for a story, so I ended up writing this short film.