Fantastic Fest ’26: Director Nikias Chryssos Strings Together Horror in “Bloody Tennis”
The pursuit of excellence is often violent. That’s especially true in the realm of athletics. Not only must you compete against yourself, but against others who are vying for the same limited spots in the upper echelons of the sport. Nikias Chryssos’ Bloody Tennis brings that violence to the forefront at a prestigious training academy. Sophie (Sandra Guldberg Kampp) is the latest young girl to arrive at Mary’s (Elina Löwensohn) mysterious elite facility. Once there, Sophie learns that Mary’s methodology is anything but normal. From leeches to blood-red morning smoothies, Sophie will have to battle more than just her competitors to reach her dreams.
Courtesy of Viktor Richardsson
During the screening of Bloody Tennis at the 2026 Fantastic Fest, director Chryssos sat down with Beyond the Cinerama Dome to talk about capturing the beauty of the sport, learning its brutal history, and the gnarly soundscape of the film.
Beyond the Cinerama Dome: As a part-time tennis instructor…
Nikias Chryssos: Oh, my God, I’m nervous now.
Do you feel there’s something inherently more violent about tennis than other sports? Is that why you chose it as the subject for this movie?
What I find interesting about tennis is that it’s a duel situation, but without physical contact. It’s only two people fighting against each other. You don’t have the support of any other team members.
Also, I don’t know how it is in the US, but in Germany, it’s an upper-class thing. It’s not a working-class sport. There’s a certain etiquette, especially at Wimbledon, where you have certain rules, how the players dress, the people that go there, etc. I thought it would be interesting to send someone from a different background into that academy and into that place.
The tennis looked pretty good. My biggest pet peeve as a tennis instructor and as a long-time player is when the points don’t feel like they make sense. How the points are edited together, I mean. There’s a very, very famous tennis movie from a few years ago that I feel like did not do that well, but you captured points that made sense.
Okay, cool! We didn’t have many shooting days on the court, and tennis is actually quite difficult to shoot because you never see the players together. You have to have a lot of crosscutting unless you have great players who can maybe play long points. It was definitely a challenge. On the other hand, I mean, it’s a little bit of a fantasy world of tennis. It’s not the most grounded tennis movie ever made, but if we achieved that then I’m happy about it.
Courtesy of Shudder. A Shudder Release
Do you play tennis at all?
No, not really. I’ve held a racquet in my hand a few times. I was quite impressed that the sport is not so easy. It’s not super intuitive. If you don’t hold it the right way, it kind of fucks with your hand. There’s a certain way that just doesn’t work.
But the feeling when you hit the ball the right way…there’s something very, very satisfactory about it. This also reflects for me in the sounds tennis makes. You hit the ball in the right spot of the racquet and the sound of it is already nice in itself.
As somebody who doesn’t play tennis, I think it’s really cool that you highlighted the brutal aspects of it, especially the gut that’s used to make string. Can you talk a little about how you learned about that and why you wanted to make it like a huge part of the story?
There are little things in the movie, like the leeches, that suddenly become more incorporated into a bigger part of the film. Something I learned about tennis was that it was played by monks with a bare hand. I don’t have that in the movie, but this is all part of the little bits and pieces you learn when you research certain things.
The thing with the gut was also something I learned that I found so fascinating, especially in a film that’s so much about the body and the physicality of the match. It’s also slightly disgusting. You have the theme of death in the movie, but part of it is grounded in reality. I mean, gut string doesn’t come from cats, but other animal gut is used to make strings. It’s a fascinating thing because it also reflects this archaic aspect that I was interested in. You have the young players coming in from our modern world, from today, but they come to a place that feels timeless.
Courtesy of Shudder. A Shudder Release
The location is stunning. Where did you find it?
When I found the production company I would do the movie with, they’d recently shot some films on the Canary Islands. The film was actually written for Spain. I wanted something in southern Europe, where it’s a dry landscape with the heat, along with the feeling of something red or earthy. Also the feeling of isolation. Someone coming from far away and suddenly being in this new environment.
We started scouting in the different Canary Islands, and on Gran Canaria we found this old place that’s now used as a hotel. It’s a family property but it’s a hotel, and it has this feeling of something very old. It’s beautiful and it’s a little bit stuck in time.
When I first saw the house, I was like, oh, it’s so red. It’s very Suspiria, you know? It fit so well with the court and it just tied it all together visually. Even during the shoot, the cinematographer and I were living a little bit above this mansion. I was quite connected to this place for a while.
Was the tennis court actually part of the whole complex?
No. We were thinking at the beginning that we could build a tennis court on that property and basically gift the hotel a tennis court. That would have been a bit too expensive and I’m quite happy that we didn’t go down that route. It was a tennis court also on the island, and we built those bigger walls around it to connect it more to the world of the Academy.
You mentioned a little about how great it sounds and feels when you hit the tennis ball perfectly. The sounds of the film are fantastic, especially the really unnerving bodily function sounds. Can you talk about why you wanted to highlight those, and then how you created that soundscape?
I would say the sound design is not really subtle. The sounds are exaggerated sometimes. For example, the first time Sophie has a medical examination, you hear her body, and it’s these kinds of sounds that you normally try to suppress.
As Mary says, let out your primal urges, like your hunger. Even food is associated with shame sometimes. Devouring food. Part of the design was to make the things that may be suppressed or hidden come to the surface.
I wanted to have a sound design that’s there and not only gives it a realistic level, but at the same time with the leeches, they’re making smacking sounds. Just makes it also a little bit more unpleasant.
Thank you so much for your time and thank you for bringing tennis to horror. I never thought this would happen. It’s awesome.
Thank you so much. Very happy to hear that from you. Thank you.
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