Willem Dafoe is a legend of the screen, the kind of actor you see pop up in anything and everything. He’s appeared in over one hundred films, each drastically different from the last — but even with so many projects under his belt, he’s still finding stories that surprise him.
The Legend of Ochi is one such surprise. Distributed by A24 and helmed by music video director Isaiah Saxon, the film is a Millennial update on the family-friendly creature films that dominated the ‘80s. Think E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial spliced with Planet of the Apes and rendered with visuals so dreamy, most assumed it’d been created with AI. In reality, Saxon spent years crafting the world of Ochi — and the eponymous, ape-like creatures in it — with a mixture of puppetry, CGI, and matte paintings. Even after its hands-on, “down and dirty” production in Romania, Dafoe still can’t believe a project of this caliber found him.
