Interview: Carl Sundström talks about The Waiting Man and what went into found footage's newest legend
- Jonathan
- 17 hours ago
- 6 min read
Earlier this year, I had the pleasure (and fortune) to view an early screener of Carl Sundström's The Waiting Man, a found footage horror about a mysterious entity that appears outside a popular streamer's apartment one night. What follows is a deadly game of stalking and the uncovering of a global supernatural legend.
The Waiting Man was picked up by PUFA (Pucela Fantástica) for its 2026 lineup, with its world premiere scheduled for July 9th.
Ahead of the release, we recently had the opportunity to speak with Carl Sundström about The Waiting Man and its eponymous entity.
This interview was edited slightly for clarity.
The Horror Lounge: After much anticipation, The Waiting Man is finally getting its festival premiere at PUFA. Tell me, how was the original idea for the film conceived?
Carl: The Waiting Man—the phenomenon Alikabiha—has been an idea that has been developed over many years. It stems from when I was a teenager (I’m 34-years-old now). Me and a childhood friend were often recording short films with a camcorder. At that time, Slender Man was the big thing, and we wanted to do a short film about that character. The idea was that the protagonist noticed a man from his window and his first thought was that it must have been someone who was waiting for the bus. But in reality, it was Slender Man.
The short film never materialized, but the thought stayed with me. Every time I looked out of the window of my childhood room, I started to think about how chilling it would be if a shadowy figure would be standing at the edge of the forest across the street.
About 15 years later, I had directed two features that were on streaming services; Documenting the Witch Path and Reportage November. I wanted to write something new. The concept of an entity observing you from outside your window was still with me and that’s where it started.
The Horror Lounge: What was the process like drawing up the lore surrounding The Waiting Man as an entity?
Carl: I started creating The Waiting Man with the single thought of an entity watching its victims from outside their homes before it takes them. In my mind, I was comparing the phenomenon to a terminal disease. First, you notice it. You tell yourself it’s nothing. You notice it again and get a bit more worried. More symptoms start to appear, and you decide to Google it. You see stories from other people that have experienced the same thing as you, and then you are down in the rabbit hole.
I loved the idea, but I needed more to make it a solid idea that could engage viewers for 90 minutes. That’s when I decided that the closer The Waiting Man comes, the more haunted you get. It would expand the possibilities to create terror beyond the entity outside the victim's house.
Over the years, I had written numerous horror scenes that I could now apply to this film. Several of the scenes you see in the film were actually written between 2018 and 2021. In the summer of 2025, me and Nathaniel Pellikka Erlandsson started to write the feature film script. We took an 18-page draft that I had written in early 2024 and started working with that. Together, we developed the entity further and put the final touches to it. We changed the timeline of how long it haunts you and Nathaniel came up with the great idea of an ongoing theme that appears in TOMNI's home each and every night.
The Horror Lounge: What legends or mythos did you take inspiration from, if any?
Carl: As I mentioned earlier, the original fragment of an idea stems from Slender Man. But the biggest inspiration for the entity would be the early 2000s Asian horror films such as JU-ON and Ringu. The concept that when you have been cursed, you really can’t do anything to stop your inevitable fate. You’ll just be left with the dread of waiting and knowing that it’ll just get worse.
The Horror Lounge: There are a few breath-taking shots in the film, which is something of a rarity in horror, especially found footage. You have an established background in photography—in what ways did your scenic eye influence your cinematic eye?
Carl: Aside from photography, I am also a huge horror video gamer. They usually scare me more than horror films and it's one of the main reasons I enjoy POV-horror. The audience sees what the characters see, and neither of us knows what is behind the next corner. But of course, in the found footage genre you have your hands tied when it comes to creative freedom in the shots.
Both me and Nathaniel are avid found footage fans, but at the same time we feel that the shaky cam can be a bit too much sometimes. So, we wrote the film to have as little of that as possible, and we packaged it as an episode of a Japanese horror TV show. In that way, we could get a bit more creative when it came to the cinematography. We were able to edit it in a more cinematic way without losing its authenticity. We could build the mood with a strong intro, with pictures and videos that are appealing to the viewer. Also, the decision to film it in the middle of a snowy winter adds appeal to the shots and builds up a sense of isolation.
The Horror Lounge: Do you think folklore told (or retold) in the digital age has affected the subject for better or worse?
Carl: There’s a lot to say about this. But mainly I think it really depends on the story you want to tell. For found footage films, I think it expands the possibilities, especially the reasons why the characters keep their cameras or phones recording. Although the technology of this age has also made it much harder to put someone in an isolated situation. It has affected the subject in many ways, but it is both good and bad.
The Horror Lounge: I personally thought the film had some subtle comments on the culture surrounding content creators—were those conscious points you were trying to convey, or is that just one guy’s interpretation?
Carl: Since I first started to plan the film, I knew that I wanted it in English. So, to make it centered around a streaming group was the natural choice. Then I had a reason for the characters to be speaking English and recording most of their days.
But there are absolutely some comments on the streaming culture interwoven in the film's story. Before me and Nathaniel started to write the script, we watched a lot of vlogs and streaming to have a better understanding of the that world. How much people are sharing their lives online can be really fascinating.
The Horror Lounge: What were the biggest changes from the original script to the final product?
Carl: That’s a tough question. Because the final product is almost exactly what I saw in my head when me and Nathaniel were writing the script. The only thing I can really think of is that a few scenes had a different length in my mind compared to the end product. But it doesn’t hurt the rhythm of the film, and I can say that this is the first film I’ve been involved in that I don’t want to go back and change a single frame in.
The Horror Lounge: What can we expect next from you and Spying Moth?
Carl: What to expect is more horror films written and produced together with Nathaniel Pellikka Erlandsson.
We make a great team and complement each other from pre-production to post-production. If The Waiting Man is as well-received among broader streaming audiences and among test audiences and reviewers, we will most likely be looking at a sequel in one way or the other. I don’t want to say too much, but there are a lot of great horror scenes that weren’t used in this film that would be applicable in a sequel.
Me and Nathaniel also have a synopsis we wrote from scratch together. It is a folklore horror story with a strong theme of isolation. That would also be really fun to explore.
The least likely, but still possible, is a sequel to Reportage November. The film's small fanbase has been asking for a sequel, and we are also intrigued to get back to a Reportage December. We have a few really solid ideas how to explore the story further.
The only thing that is certain, is that the next film will be another found footage feature.
The Waiting Man will premiere at PUCA July 9th, 2026
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