“Let’s flex our trash muscles”: Peter Webber, James Paxton and Franz Drameh on their 80s-inspired survival thriller DRAGN

For a director who launched his feature career with the lush, high-art aesthetics of period drama Girl with a Pearl Earring and the dark psychological musings of Hannibal Rising, a survival thriller full of AI, blood and gore might seem like a departure. But Peter Webber wanted to “flex his trash muscles” on DRAGN, a no-holds-barred homage to the low-budget, 80s VHS horrors he watched as a teenager, back when a Friday night meant heading to Blockbuster to find the most lurid cover possible while “drinking cans of cider having a little cheeky smoke”. Shot over two mental weeks in the Serbian forests on a shoestring budget, the film ditches classic action heroes to follow ordinary office workers on a corporate retreat that quickly descends from a satirical look at team-building into a fight for survival when they find themselves hunted by a rogue, learning military drone.

The Upcoming caught up with the filmmaker and his stars to dive into the chaos of a shoot that included (spoiler alert!) Franz Drameh (Attack the Block, Legends of Tomorrow) spending an entire day covered in blood and impaled on a giant spike. The group discussed building suspense by keeping the threat hidden early on, playing into the classic cinematic language of Jaws and Alien, where fear lives strongest in the imagination. Opting for an analogue “real” monster because “acting is reacting”, the actors reflected on how a tactile creature drew out a much better performance than working solely with green screen. James Paxton (Twisters, Eyewitness) also joked about the ultimate poetic justice of his role – getting a touch of “generational revenge” for his father, the late, great Bill Paxton, who was famously killed on screen by the Predator, the Alien, and the Terminator. While the film certainly plays on modern anxieties around technology, especially by featuring AI that actively learns from humans, Webber warned against an over-intellectualised reading into the plot, pointing out: “This isn’t a learned, serious film about drone warfare, and nothing is too high-brow here”. Instead, he explained that the project is all about delivering a cinematic ride designed above all to be “pure entertainment” that’s “as visceral as possible”.

Sarah Bradbury

DRAGN is released for home viewing on 6^th July 2026.

Watch the trailer for DRAGN here: