On Sept. 11 Radius TWC will release the Austrian Oscar selection "Goodnight Mommy" in limited release, marking the company's second horror film of the year following the success of "It Follows."

On the occasion of the release, the Film Society of Lincoln Center held a preview screening with a Q&A with the directors Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz. "Goodnight Mommy," which premiered in 2014 at the Toronto and Venice Film Festivals, tells the story of twin boys who move to a new home with their mother after she has face changing cosmetic surgery. However, under her bandages is someone the children don't recognize.

The film has been described as the scariest movie of the year and while it is definitely a terrifying film, the movie is different from what American audiences will expect. For one thing, the movie was shot on 35mm film, a format that is being used less and less in Hollywood especially in the horror genre.

In recent times horror movies have become cheaper to make due to the fact that unknown actors are cast and they are shot on such low budgets. As a result, filmmakers have adapted the digital formats to make the movies quicker and more efficiently.

But Fiala and Franz opted for film as they preferred the look and the feel. During the press conference, Fiala said, "We always wanted to do it on 35 mm because we love how it looks. We knew we would like it better than all digital formats and we did some tests because everyone advised us to do it digitally. They told us you're shooting with children and it's going to take a long time. When we did tests, we watched it with our cinematographer, and when the 35mm came up we were like 'that's so beautiful. That's how we want it to look.'"

Franz added that "we just love the look of film stock." The movie's look also subverts what audiences expect from a horror film. The movie is made up of sunny exteriors and dark interiors but unlike most horror films, which take place at night and always use empty houses to create thrills, the directors of this film make sure to create tense scenes at any part of the day with the use of the camera movement.

"We wanted to tell the story in the beginning from the perspective of the children and we chose to make it look like a fairy tale look," Franz noted.

"Then we wanted it to change it when the story changes. We used handheld cameras to make it more real. The coldness of the house and the atmosphere was about telling something about the mother at the start of the film because it was from the perspective of the children. We used the house as a protagonist to enlarge her personality. "

The movie also differs from most horror movies in America as its use of set direction and locations is important to the story. One of the spookiest aspects of the film that audiences will definitely notice is the use of artwork and the way it creates a horror environment. The artwork that is decorated throughout the film is blurred black photographs that look like shadows.

Regarding that artwork, Fiala noted, "We actually did look for a lot of creepy art. We knew that we couldn't know too much about the mother's character because children don't know and it's all a mystery. But we had to find means to tell about the mother's character. One of the means was the house. How was the house and how did the art reflect the mother's story?"

Fiala added, "It's from an Austrian artist who actually makes this out of focus photography from TV personalities and people like the person in our film."

Finally another difference that audiences will definitely notice is the lack of music. For most part the film the uses the atmospheric sounds of the wind, grass, rain and the house are used. Never do the directors use music to tell the story or heighten the emotions of the film. Instead it is used sparingly and the effect is quite haunting and creepy.

Fiala said, "The composer who did the score is quite famous in Austria and we like her music a lot. We approached and asked her if she wanted to make the music for our film. We showed her a rough cut of the film and she watched it and said, 'I think there is no music in film. It doesn't need a lot of music.'"

He added, "Of course she did compose a lot of music and then she was angry at us because we ended up not using it. So she was right at the beginning. I think it's a very silent film and you want to balance how much music you use. If you use too much it can ruin the film.

Franz added, "Actually we kind of worked it out in the editing process. We knew in certain scenes that we really needed music to be there. And we knew we did not need it in any other place. We knew it from editing the film."