WRITTEN & Directed by Ricky Allen
produced by Lindsay Fraser
Nine-year old Jacob has a vivid imagination, spending hours engrossed in his toys. When he’s disturbed by a stranger’s knock at the door, his world is plunged into uncertainty and his home threatened. With emotions too overwhelming to understand, Jacobs' mind quickly spirals as he grapples to hold on to the people and possessions he loves most.
ABOUT THE FILM
WOLF AT THE DOOR was a Semi-Finalist at our BIFA qualifying Kino London Short Film Festival & Flickers Rhode Island International Film Festival, and an Honorable Mention at the Beeston Film Festival.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKER
Ricky Allen is an award-winning comedy writer & director who turns the quiet and bizarre rhythms of everyday British life into the absurd. Finding comfort in TV shows such as Father Ted and Spaced from a young age, these early obsessions transported him away from the monotony of eating mince every night, being asked if Ricky is short for Richard (it's not) and waiting for the dial-up modem to connect. His latest comedy short DEATH WISH, about a young girl’s dying wish for her mummy to join her in heaven, won Silver at the Young Director Award in Cannes. Ricky is currently writing a TV pilot about a dysfunctional parish choir and a micro short comedy series 'First in the World'.
READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH Ricky
Welcome to our Short of the Week series. Tell us a bit about yourself and your filmmaking background.
Hi, I’m Ricky Allen, a filmmaker currently living in London.
My interest in film stems back to my childhood with my dad, where Sunday afternoons were filled with Bruce Lee, Jean-Claude Van Damme and dodgy sci-fi films bought from Poundland. The films were equal parts fascinating and terrifying as I hid behind the couch, peeping over when the blood-curdling screaming had stopped.Making films wasn’t on my radar until my mid-twenties. I dropped out of school at an early age and before I knew it, I was 19, working at the local Odeon, microwaving hotdogs for customers late for their film. But it was great, I made lifelong friends and got to watch a lot of movies.
Fast forward past a few existential ‘I can’t serve Pick ‘n’ Mix all my life, can I?’ moments and I managed to get a place at college studying music. Suddenly, I was at uni. In my final year, I took a real interest in film after studying The Work of Michel Gondry DVD. For my final project, I made a short film about my dad’s struggles with alcoholism.
But after my education ended, so did the filming. It took a couple of years, and my dad’s passing, before I felt the fleeting fragility of life again. I spent most days in libraries reading about filmmaking, fascinated by directors such as Kurosawa. I shot a skateboard film (Whatever the Weather) that got me onto BBC News and cut my teeth making lots of low-budget music videos. I later moved to London and got a job at Sony Music as one of their in-house directors, making videos for all sorts of artists. I then got a place at NFTS studying Directing Commercials - this is where I met Lindsay Fraser (Creative Producer), who was an integral part of making Wolf at the Door, my first funded short, along with the majority of the crew.
This year (2025) I won Silver at the Young Director Award in Cannes for my comedy short Death Wish, and I’m currently writing a TV pilot about a dysfunctional choir.
Tell us about the genesis of WOLF AT THE DOOR. Where did the idea come from and how did you develop that idea into the short that's now made its way out into the world?
WOLF AT THE DOOR would still just be a bullet-point note on my laptop if it wasn’t for Lindsay. She’d found a short film competition funded by a company in Manchester called Doodledo and asked if I had any stories. No stories, but a bunch of incoherent musings.
At the time, I was jobless and finances were becoming critical, which had a big impact on my mental health. So the opportunity to write was cathartic and came as a great distraction.
WOLF AT THE DOOR is like one of those core memories that shapes who you are as a person. You don’t necessarily understand why, but it’s there in the background.
It started when my parents were facing one of many financial struggles, and the family home began to attract a lot of intimidating men showing up at the door. Dad would say, “If anyone asks for me, say I’m not in,”. Being ten years old, that just went in one ear and straight out the other. I would have panic attacks and nightmares about men coming to take away our possessions. I really thought it would be all my fault if I slipped up and said my dad was in
After some research, I was disturbed to find this was an issue happening up and down the country, scaring young children when councils send round bailiffs. There was even a research paper that named it WOLF AT THE DOOR.
From there, I spent many months writing and rewriting my experience, trying to capture the isolation of being at home all the time, and how that home could suddenly feel invaded, both by strangers and by my own nightmarish thoughts.
I’d like to give a special thank you to Doodledo, James Torry, Lucy Smith, Duncan Howsley, Joe Spademan and the rest of the team who helped make this film possible. They were amazing with their continued support throughout the whole process.
What were some of the main obstacles you experienced when making WOLF AT THE DOOR and how did you overcome them?
The main obstacle was definitely the child actor. That was our main concern from the start. How do we find a child actor who can give a mature performance? Luckily, we found Blake Williams, who had featured in a short I had seen from a fellow NFTS student. It was one of those things where it was always going to be him. The film was really blessed to have him in it.
Tell us about the journey of getting your film to audiences and some of the festival circuit highlights and/or online release.
We premiered at the London Lift Off Film Festival, which was great to be a part of. The film has come very close to some really brilliant festivals, but just missed out, which is a bittersweet feeling - gaining recognition as a semi-finalist at Rhode Island, Kino London and Beeston Film Festival. It’s hard to get noticed and make people love the film you made as much as you do, so when we were told it was going to be on Kino’s short of the week, me and Lindsay were over the moon.
What advice or hacks would you give to other short filmmakers?
I would say - just write as much as possible, even if it’s just a few words of an idea, or something you hear in conversation. You’ll be amazed how much inspiration is out there once you start actively engaging with what you experience in life.
Any film recommendations that we should add to our watchlist?
Not quite a film, but a series of shorts - Tales of Terror from Tokyo Vol 1. You’ll find a story in there that helped shape Wolf at the Door.
