The director of photography behind the upcoming action-thriller Manhunt is pulling back the curtain on one of the film’s most audacious creative choices: reimagining the underworld not as a realm of fire and brimstone, but as a hyper-saturated, unnervingly cheerful landscape of confectionery. In an exclusive conversation, cinematographer Jonathan Glendon explained the reasoning and the technical heavy lifting required to make a "colorful candy world" feel like a true vision of damnation.
According to Glendon, the conceptual pivot was born from a desire to subvert audience expectations. "We've all seen the classic version of Hell - dark caverns, lava, despair," he said. "We wanted something that felt more psychologically unsettling. The idea was to create a place that looks inviting on the surface, almost beautiful, but where that sweetness becomes overwhelming and sickly. It’s a trap for the senses, and that felt far more terrifying to us than a cliché."
The film, which follows a relentless hunter navigating a supernatural descent, uses this sugary Hades as the primary backdrop for its second act. Glendon’s task was to make the vibrant palette feel hostile rather than welcoming. He described the approach as "weaponized joy," noting that every visual choice was calibrated to create a sense of wrongness. The team leaned into extreme color contrast, using blistering pinks, electric blues, and acidic yellows in ways that clash rather than harmonize, preventing the eye from ever settling comfortably.
One of the biggest challenges, Glendon admitted, was lighting the set in a way that kept the candy aesthetic without making actors look like they were standing in a commercial for sweets. He and the production designer worked meticulously to ensure textures played a key role. "You need the surfaces to feel slightly off - glossy in the wrong places, matte in others," he explained. "We used a lot of practical neon sources that we would normally avoid on a thriller, but we gelled and diffused them to create a hard, unforgiving light. It’s the same light you’d see in a fast-food restaurant at 2 a.m., and that alone carries a feeling of unease."
The color grading process was equally intensive. Glendon revealed that the post-production team pushed the saturation to levels typically reserved for animation, then pulled it back just enough to maintain a live-action grit. The goal was to avoid the "fantasy epic" look and instead ground the candy world in a hyper-realism that feels like a fever dream. Shadows, he stressed, were the secret weapon. Despite the brightness, the frame is never fully lit, with deep, impenetrable pockets of darkness lurking in corners to remind the viewer of the danger beneath the playful surface.
The inspiration for this radical departure came from an unexpected source: his own childhood memories of visiting a local amusement park during a gray, overcast winter. "The colors were so loud and cheerful, but the place was empty - just me and a few maintenance workers. It was eerie and lonely," Glendon recalled. "That feeling of being surrounded by artificial happiness that is completely indifferent to you is what we tried to bottle. Hell is a place of isolation, so putting a character in a sea of candy that offers no comfort is the ultimate alienation."
This philosophy extends to the practical effects on set. Glendon praised his crew for constructing enormous, edible-looking props that would have looked cartoonish under normal conditions. By using specific lens choices - like anamorphic lenses with heavy flare characteristics - they were able to create a dream-like halo around the bright objects, making them feel intangible and ephemeral, as if any touch would cause them to dissolve into dust.
For Glendon, the success of the sequence hinges on the audience buying into the contradiction. He wants viewers to feel a visceral pull toward the beauty of the environment while simultaneously experiencing a deep, instinctual dread. "We are conditioned to trust vibrant colors in movies; we think a bright scene means safety or celebration," he noted. "When you weaponize that trust, the unease hits on a much more primal level. It’s not a monster jumping out of the dark, it’s the slow realization that the light itself is the lie."
As Manhunt nears its release, the early buzz suggests that this candy-coated damnation is on track to become a signature visual sequence. Glendon, for his part, is excited for audiences to see a version of Hell that doesn't rely on screams and ash. "It’s a challenge to the idea that darkness is always depicted as black or red," he concluded. "Sometimes, the most profound darkness is the kind you never see coming because it’s glittering and bright on the outside. That’s the horror we’re building." For fans of genre filmmaking, the promise of a Hell made of sugar and neon is one of the most intriguing visual propositions of the year.
Source: Hollywood Reporter