A pair of heinous crimes 10 years ago, planned by a spoiled British Columbia teenager who knew way too much about Caligula, set the scene for Sturla Gunnarsson’s latest feature, Scorn.

The crimes were the killings of Doris Leatherbarrow and Sharon Huenemann, grandma and mother, respectively, of Darren Huenemann, who was later convicted of planning their murders.

To make the film they wanted, director, producer and writer needed to understand the workings of Darren’s mind – they didn’t want just to ‘rip the story from the headlines.’ So they had to uncover all the details of the crime from Darren, now serving a sentence which offers virtually no hope of parole for 25 years.

While Gunnarsson doubts he’ll ever really understand the ‘why’ behind these chilling murders, he felt the film would succeed if their research could uncover the ‘how.’ He says while he, producer Maryke McEwen and writer Andrew Berzins often dissected Hollywood’s look at the premeditated killing of a family member in To Die For, even that didn’t help explain the Huenemann case. The psychiatrist’s description of Darren as a narcissistic anti-social unable to empathize with other people wasn’t sufficient rationale, either.

Instead, the production’s principals focused on how Darren convinced his peers to do the killings, and how they carried out the plan.

The main facts of the case were well-documented in Lisa Hobbes Birnie’s non-fiction book Such a Good Boy, which McEwen optioned, but Gunnarsson says Birnie ‘hadn’t interviewed the principals’ in the crime. When the director and colleagues began trying to arrange to interview Darren some four years ago, he was denying guilt. After about nine months of negotiating with Darren and his lawyer, writer Berzins organized a week’s worth of day-long, audio-taped interviews with Darren, who eventually confessed to being the mastermind.

After that, Berzins wrote a first draft of the script for what would be a $3.1-million film; three more drafts ensued before they were ready to shoot.

Everyone had approved an actor to play Darren in the film – a young man Gunnarsson describes as ‘the boy of the moment’ – but friction around the shoot schedule and other things sent the expected cost of that actor soaring.

Gunnarsson had had an audition tape sitting on his desk for weeks and, on the spur of the moment one day, with McEwen, Berzins and co-exec producer Laszlo Barna in his office, popped the tape into his vcr. All were quickly riveted to the performance given by Edmontonian Eric Johnson (the young Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall). Johnson’s agent arranged to have him in Toronto the next day and Scorn had its lead.

Shot in Vancouver over 20 days, beginning last October, Scorn was originally envisioned as a tv movie for cbc – but Gunnarsson says it was made with a theatrical release in mind. He calls it a horrifying film, depicting a young, charismatic if deluded man and the havoc he wrought when his followers wanted too badly to be part of his Caligula mythology. Gunnarsson says the story reveals ‘a very austere world. There is no faith. It’s without hope.’

Alliance Atlantis is distributing internationally except in the u.s. Scorn Films holds u.s. rights and is looking for a theatrical release there. Scorn is expected to air on cbc next March. Financing came from cbc, B.C. Film, Telefilm Canada, Rogers Telefund, the ctf, federal and b.c. tax credits and the Cogeco Program Development Fund.

Christian Bruyere is exec producer along with Barna. Tony Westman is dop, Jeff Warren edited and Jonathan Goldsmith wrote the score. *