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Welcome to another horrifying special interview episode of Bill and
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Ashley's Terror Theater. Today, we are honored to be joined
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by Jordan Downey to discuss his new film, The Cycle.
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All that after these ads we have no control over.
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Welcome back.
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I'm Ashley Coffin, joined as always by my co-host in terror,
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Bill Bria.
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Bill, darling, how are we today?
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I'm feeling a little hairy today, Ash, but in a
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good way.
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Coming through my cycle.
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No.
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Well, that's okay. You're doing good. We are honored to
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be joined by filmmaker, director, co-writer, bon vivant, if I
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do say so myself. I don't know him. It's Jordan Downey.
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Say hello, Jordan.
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Hello.
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Thank you guys for having me. Really appreciate it.
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Thank you so much for being here. Loved this film.
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I'm a big fan of Deborah M.
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Wills.
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I've watched True Blood. My other show is Marvel. So
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I've been following Daredevil forever. And it was really good
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to see her kind of going back to her little
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horror roots here. So I was very excited. I went
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in completely blind and I was really blown away.
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Yeah, no, it's really cool. So we were thinking we
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were going to generally discuss things and then we might
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give a spoiler warning for the listener so we can
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really you know, get into certain things in the, in
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the back half. But before we even get into the film,
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one thing we always ask our guests, especially if they're
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a first timer is what your earliest memory is of
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the horror genre for yourself. What really made you a
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horror fan? Would you say?
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My older brother, Mike, he was a producer on cycle
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as well. He he's 10 years older than me. So
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he had already sort of, you know, formed his, his
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interest in horror and his collection of, of horror VHS
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tapes and posters and things like that. So my first
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memories of the horror genre are going into his room
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and seeing his collection of all the movies that he
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would– he would tape stuff off of TV for anyone
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too young to remember. You could actually record on a
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VHS tape. And so he'd have like random– and it
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would be whatever. It would be like Field of Dreams,
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Friday the 13th, Part 2. Yeah.
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Exactly.
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And you get the great like little interlude, the little.
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Commercials of coming up next on TNT and Joe Bob
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and like so all of that kind of retro vintage
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TV was a big part of it.
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And he would clip out.
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Posters from the local newspaper and so there'd be full-size
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print ads.
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Of critters or whatever hell yeah.
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So he had this scrapbook and i still have it
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and uh it's it's amazing and it's filled with just
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like things that he would be like there's this one
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image that's seared into my mind of stan winston standing
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around all of his the predator and and in terminator
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and there was um invaders from mars like this big
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you know meatball looking monster head um So it was
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kind of like I came at it through just that.
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Like I didn't, I can't remember a time where I
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didn't have exposure to horror films, to be honest with
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you guys.
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Yeah.
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I mean, it comes through too.
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Stork on VHS Beyond was absolutely my favorite segment of
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that whole movie.
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It was so good.
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And I got very excited when I was like, I'm.
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So proud of Cycle, but Stork's my favorite thing that
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I've ever done. Really?
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I understand that.
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I often tell anyone who will listen that this dork
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is a close personal friend of mine. Just, you know,
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I don't want to I don't want to talk out
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of school. So, you know, if he's mad about that, please,
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my apologies to him. But your early love of horror,
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as you're just describing, in terms of, you know, having
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an exposure to it, as so many of us, you know,
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dyed in the wool horror fans do. Was that instrumental
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in leading to your filmmaking journey? Was it something that
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really was inspiring you to get into the business?
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Yeah.
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I mean, there wasn't like I don't remember exactly when
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I sort of decided to take that transition from watching
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movies to wanting to make them because we didn't have
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like a.
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Camcorder growing up. This is pre iPhone.
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So like getting making a movie was near impossible at
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that time if you didn't have a camera. So I
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didn't really have exposure to that until a certain point.
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But I definitely noticed that I was paying attention to
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the credits at a pretty early age and these names
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and production companies and the logos that I would start
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to see pop up. And kind of that gave me
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confidence that I was going to get a certain kind
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of movie. And, you know, I would seek out, you know,
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Charles Band movies because I liked Full Moon Pictures and
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I liked the logo of the Batman.
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Me too.
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Oh, yeah.
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Subspecies is like my favorite.
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Oh, yes.
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I mean, that was like, I would make a beeline straight.
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Anders Hov.
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I actually tried to reach out to him to be
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in a student film of mine because, well, because he's
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in Critters 4 as well.
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Critters is my favorite, my favorite movie.
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And favorite franchise. We could do a whole podcast on
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just Critters.
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Hey, you know, 40th anniversary this.
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Year, right? Yeah. It is.
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I know it is 1986.
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It came out a month before I was born. So
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I've been like tied at the hip to that movie.
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So where were we got off the track?
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Yeah, we were just getting into, you know, what started
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you on the filmmaking journey, you know? Oh, right.
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Well, so then what I do remember is there was
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a time I spent, I like did a hangout sleepover
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with some friends of mine and they had a camcorder
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and we shot like a little home movie that night.
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And I was probably in middle school or like early
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high school at this point. So I was already obsessed
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with movies, but making them wasn't really an option. And
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when we did that, made that little home movie just
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over the course of one night, stayed up all night.
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I was like, oh, my God.
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And the next day I was I had to find
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a way to get a camera. And so then I
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my grandma was having a garage sale and I sold,
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I think, my Super Nintendo and. other random things so
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that I could get, I think it was $ 220 to
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go to Best Buy and buy a high eight with
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eight millimeter digital, eight millimeter camcorder and, uh, bought that
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thing and just started making movies constantly every weekend.
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And they were usually horror films. Then it was like
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whatever I could buy.
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Like I had, I did a lot of stuff with
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like a scream mask because Scary movie was popular. Scream
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was popular. And I could buy that mask at the
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Halloween store.
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Oh, yeah.
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So then that, you know, then there was probably five
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years of that.
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And then eventually just escalated to thinking, OK, is this
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all I want to do with.
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The rest of my life?
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Oh, yeah. I love that. One thing that I'm really
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taken with by your work, especially so far, is like
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you seem to be one of these guys who obviously
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comes up, you know, being a lover of genre and
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also the horror genre in particular. And then really seems
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to be able to connect that with some really unique
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and innovative ideas. I mean, nobody would make the Thanksgiving
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movies if they were just a general horror fan. You know,
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this feels like somebody who really kind of gets it.
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And then I think through Stork and through certainly the cycle,
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you know, your imbibing of the genre really seems to
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be incisive. Was that something that you always had like
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a creative voice inside you to sort of You know,
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get out there. Was that something you defined or?
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I think kind of what you're getting at is like
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I'm always trying to look at what doesn't exist in
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the horror.
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Right. In the horror genre.
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And it's just like I would have wanted that when
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I was a kid going to the store to rent
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a movie. I was looking for the thing that was
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the most unique thing that I could find. oftentimes the
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covers of the 1980s and 90s, especially would be better
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than the movies themselves sometimes. Um, and, but you, you know,
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I'd always get hooked by that. So like Thanksgiving was
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the first example of this, where we had the goal
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simply of make a feature film, which in college at 19,
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20 years old, you know, when that's, when we were
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coming up with it, um, we, that was a huge
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challenge because we were just making short films and we
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were watching our peers spend a ton of money making
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these short films. And we just thought, making a feature
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was like the ultimate goal, but we immediately then reverted
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back to, okay, well, if we're going to do it,
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what would get distribution? What would end up on the
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shelves of, of a video store, which blockbuster was still.
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Barely hanging on at that time.
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Um, and, and I knew that because like, we're talking
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about subspecies and Charles band and full moon. Like I
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knew that the movies I rented is Jack Frost and
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uncle Sam and, Um, in the leprechaun films and child plays,
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I knew that if you put a talking puppet on
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the cover, you're going to sell that and that people
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would rent it. And it's what I would have wanted.
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And so we just thought, well, what's the, the, the
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puppet or the holiday that hadn't been done Thanksgiving. So
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point is that a kind of everything, including the cycle,
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like we'll come up with, I'm always coming up with ideas.
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I have a notes document, an iPhone that's filled with stuff,
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but I'll never make most of them. The ones that
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we end up sort of getting obsessed about making are
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the things that feel like don't exist and that no
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one else is doing. And then I feel a certain
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like excitement and responsibility, I suppose, to sort of make
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that happen and to sort of be the one to
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do something different and unique.
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Yeah.
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When you were thinking about this idea, when did you
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decide that you wanted it to kind of be a
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genre switch movie? Because it does feel like such a
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really grounded crime investigated movie. And then it turns into
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a supernatural horror without feeling like two unrelated films. And
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I mean, you had me going back and forth with
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what I thought was going on. And then when I finally,
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like when I got it, like, I don't know, towards
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the end, I was like, yes, because it's my favorite
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style of movie. We'll get there later. But I just
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thought you did a really good job with the genre switch.
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Was that a plan from the beginning?
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Well, I mean, we can get into the deep dive
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of it when we switch to our spoilery half of
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this conversation, but the spoiler of the film was the
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initial idea. That hook, that concept is what sold us
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on this is such a cool story we should we
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should turn this into a film um but it was
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always it always felt appropriate that you would put that
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idea into a into a crime procedural and i grew
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up i love the x-files like every sunday night you
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know go to the tv we'd sit around as a
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family watch the x-files I love David Fincher's work. I
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love True Detective, all of these things. But one thing
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that would sort of frustrate me at times through some
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of the crime procedurals, and the 90s were loaded with them,
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like Stir of Echo. I mean, Fallen, like Denzel was
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in like 10 of them.
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Oh, yeah.
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You go all the way back to Angel Heart in
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the late 70s. Right, oh, God, Angel Heart. Yeah, and
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it really started that trend.
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And I watched all of those and loved them all.
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But the one thing that none of them really ever
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did that I always kind of wished Is that like
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to your point, actually, that they would make a shift.
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They would always tease it, something coming. And then it's like,
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it's just a guy and it's a serial killer.
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He's a ghost.
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I always wanted it to go into like full 80s
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creature feature territory. So I think when we had this
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concept for Cycle, we thought, well, here's our opportunity to
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sort of do that thing that we always wanted, where
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you lean hard into the horror in the back half. Yeah.
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I was so impressed with the effects. I'm a practical horror.
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Like I will judge movies pretty hard when they go into,
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you know, the CGI effects. It kind of takes me
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out of it. This was so well done. Gushy is
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the word I kept using. It felt very gushy.
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But yeah, to your point, Jordan, like I had the
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same experience watching this for the first time as well,
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where I could see the X-Files in it in a
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big way. I mean, the Pacific Northwest kind of vibe
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and setting, like you're always going to be related to
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that too. But I do definitely feel in, in like,
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I felt like you, the filmmaker communicating to me like, Hey,
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I've seen the X-Files too. I know a lot of
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those episodes tended to end with, uh, in conclusion where
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it's like, you know, we, we think this guy might've
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been a creature, but we don't really see much, you know,
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maybe he was, maybe he wasn't sort of idea. And
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this really feels like, well, now we're going to show
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it to you now. Um, but, uh, but yeah, it
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doesn't work without the groundedness that you give that first
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half or two thirds, however long. Uh, and so was
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that something that really helped you, uh, you know, get
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this movie made, get it financed, get a cast, you know,
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because you have a fantastic cast, obviously starting with Debra,
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you know, was that sort of helping people sort of
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get into the vibe of like, yes, it's a creature
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feature eventually, but it also has like a real grounding in,
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you know, all this procedure and all this character and
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all that sort of thing.
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Yeah, I think so.
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I think there, I mean, there was never like a
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specific mandate because we sort of, we, when I pitched
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it originally to James Harris, who produced the film, he,
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his initial instinct, when I told him the concept, he said,
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withhold that that twist as long as possible. So right
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from before we even wrote a single line of, of
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a treatment or an outline for this film, that was
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the goal. That was the goal is to, to stretch
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it as long as you could right up to the
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breaking point and then make the, make the shift. And, uh, I,
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I think, I mean, you know, without, I think just
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from talking to Deborah and Jeffrey, yes, that makes a
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big difference because they're both huge fans of Jaws and, And, and,
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and of that belief that, you know, you don't show the,
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don't show the shark too soon, but how cool is
300
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it that you're in a shark movie in the case
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of cycle, you're in a shark movie, but you don't
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know you're in a shark movie. Um, so it's kind of,
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it was a very strange thing. There's not, there weren't
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a lot of references for us to look at of
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like what kind of monster movies have been made where
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you don't know you're watching that monster movie until a
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certain point. And what does that do to the viewing experience? Um,
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And we're about to find out, you know, as, as
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people get ahold of the cycle, but, but yeah, I
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think that, I think for, from the actor's standpoint for
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them to know that it's, they're coming into this supernatural
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situation with such grounded, developed characters by that point in time,
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that then it makes those, those heightened moments even more fun.
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And they weren't afraid of the W word or any
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of the, that, that, that aspect of the movie, because
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I think they felt that it was so earned and
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so interesting and ultimately just compelling that you don't know
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what's coming. And it's a mystery, but the mystery leads
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into something that belongs on Shudder instead of other places.
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sort of distributors and platforms.
321
00:14:20.710 --> 00:14:22.730
Well, and then the horrors that you had just in
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the first half, family trauma, everybody's, you know, you got it,
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you have it, that's its own thing. But the horror
324
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of the body, like forensic anthropology, decomposition, you know, remains,
325
00:14:33.769 --> 00:14:34.370
it's all.
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Unsettling as it is.
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00:14:35.419 --> 00:14:37.940
And the way that you really shot a lot of
328
00:14:37.980 --> 00:14:39.740
the scenes were so cool because it looks so real.
329
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I honestly felt like I was learning a lot. I
330
00:14:41.700 --> 00:14:43.639
was like, oh, wow, maggots don't, you know, grow on
331
00:14:43.659 --> 00:14:46.299
stuff that's not actually dead. But I wasn't putting it together.
332
00:14:46.330 --> 00:14:47.789
Like I was like trying to make a list. I'm like,
333
00:14:47.830 --> 00:14:49.789
where are we going with this? This is all very
334
00:14:49.929 --> 00:14:52.129
fascinating and it felt very real.
335
00:14:52.950 --> 00:14:53.269
Yeah.
336
00:14:53.360 --> 00:14:56.360
Well, that, I mean, that comes from a lot of research.
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We just, we've, we've, immediately started buying and reading forensic
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anthropology books and learning about the body farm and learning
339
00:15:02.830 --> 00:15:05.789
about that field i would while reading that then i'm
340
00:15:05.830 --> 00:15:08.330
listening to podcast there was a podcast called the absent
341
00:15:08.370 --> 00:15:11.049
father podcast which you know is it's heartbreaking and it
342
00:15:11.169 --> 00:15:13.580
gets dark at times to hear some people's stories but
343
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i wanted to sort of understand a little bit about
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what it would have been like to have had a
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father leave or not be a part of your life
346
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at a young age um so it We did a
347
00:15:23.409 --> 00:15:25.929
lot of research to try and make it feel as
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authentic as possible. And the reason for that was, one,
349
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just it feels like that I want to buy into
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the movie fully because I believe the characters believe what
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they're going through. And also the more professional and more
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of an expert you can build up Deborah's character, especially
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the more of a shift it'll be when that character
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cannot figure something out because this defies all logic and
355
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science that she's used to. So, yeah, I'm glad that
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I'm glad that it feels like that. Hopefully, you know,
357
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the trick was then never writing it to be too
358
00:16:00.850 --> 00:16:03.789
complex so that you couldn't just enjoy the viewing experience
359
00:16:03.850 --> 00:16:06.549
because you're being hit with terminology and things that are
360
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going over your head.
361
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So hopefully it was like.
362
00:16:09.049 --> 00:16:10.570
That's good to hear that you feel like you were
363
00:16:10.610 --> 00:16:12.509
learning a little bit, but you weren't sort of taken
364
00:16:12.570 --> 00:16:14.690
out of the movie because you weren't being asked to
365
00:16:14.730 --> 00:16:15.529
be a participant.
366
00:16:15.929 --> 00:16:18.129
Right. And I do understand the, uh, the care that
367
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you were taking with Debra's character, because I, I never
368
00:16:21.080 --> 00:16:23.840
knew my father and I really felt very close to
369
00:16:23.919 --> 00:16:25.840
her going through it. Cause I would have, I felt
370
00:16:25.860 --> 00:16:27.679
the same way. Like, I don't care about this. I
371
00:16:27.679 --> 00:16:28.779
don't want to be involved with this. I don't want
372
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anything to do with this. And then after a couple
373
00:16:31.240 --> 00:16:32.179
of days, you're like, of course I want.
374
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To be involved with this. I have to figure this out,
375
00:16:33.879 --> 00:16:37.129
you know? So I did, um, really enjoy what she
376
00:16:37.169 --> 00:16:37.610
was doing.
377
00:16:37.649 --> 00:16:40.769
And she, it's so good to see her doing something
378
00:16:40.789 --> 00:16:43.009
and being like the lead of, of a movie.
379
00:16:43.110 --> 00:16:44.710
Cause I know, you know, she has the talent. She's
380
00:16:44.730 --> 00:16:46.110
like our queen. I play D and D too. I
381
00:16:46.129 --> 00:16:52.360
love her so much. Um, the cinematography, did Kevin Stewart
382
00:16:52.399 --> 00:16:53.299
co-wrote this with you?
383
00:16:53.639 --> 00:16:53.940
Yeah.
384
00:16:53.960 --> 00:16:56.480
So Kevin and I are pretty much filmmaking partners through
385
00:16:56.940 --> 00:16:58.139
all projects.
386
00:16:58.220 --> 00:17:00.519
Yeah. We've been, do you find it's really helpful to
387
00:17:00.580 --> 00:17:04.119
have someone to write with and go like having a
388
00:17:04.160 --> 00:17:05.799
partner versus writing something by yourself?
389
00:17:06.210 --> 00:17:06.869
Yeah, it is.
390
00:17:06.890 --> 00:17:08.950
Uh, I mean, well, like in the case of us,
391
00:17:08.990 --> 00:17:11.150
we just have such shared taste. Like he grew up
392
00:17:11.190 --> 00:17:13.430
in Portugal. I grew up in Ohio, so we couldn't
393
00:17:13.450 --> 00:17:18.000
have been further apart geographically, but he was having a
394
00:17:18.220 --> 00:17:20.779
mirrored experience that I described in my own childhood of
395
00:17:20.819 --> 00:17:24.140
watching and renting horror movies and gravitating towards that kind
396
00:17:24.180 --> 00:17:27.400
of thing. Um, so we just always, we just clicked
397
00:17:27.440 --> 00:17:29.680
in college in film school and we're two of the
398
00:17:29.720 --> 00:17:31.750
people that were constantly just wanting to be on set,
399
00:17:31.809 --> 00:17:35.339
working on student films. And then that really formulated with
400
00:17:35.400 --> 00:17:37.619
a short film in college. And then of course, thanks killing.
401
00:17:38.359 --> 00:17:40.160
But yeah, it makes, it makes a big difference because,
402
00:17:40.940 --> 00:17:43.769
you know, we're here talking, celebrating the fun part of a,
403
00:17:43.920 --> 00:17:45.630
of a movie that we got it made and it's
404
00:17:45.650 --> 00:17:47.750
being released, but there's a lot of dark parts in
405
00:17:47.809 --> 00:17:50.890
between the, about in these moments. And I don't mean
406
00:17:50.910 --> 00:17:52.289
that to be a downer, just that like, there's a
407
00:17:52.309 --> 00:17:54.430
lot of times over the years where people don't respond
408
00:17:54.450 --> 00:17:56.210
to your emails or they don't want to, they don't
409
00:17:56.259 --> 00:17:58.660
want to talk to you. or it's hard to get
410
00:17:58.720 --> 00:18:02.900
things made. So yes, it's a very helpful to have
411
00:18:02.940 --> 00:18:06.759
a writing partner to just bounce ideas off of, but
412
00:18:06.799 --> 00:18:08.940
it's also helpful to have someone to sort of share
413
00:18:09.140 --> 00:18:12.210
in those down, those lower points of your career too, where,
414
00:18:13.009 --> 00:18:15.730
where you can both kind of share in that same frustration.
415
00:18:16.710 --> 00:18:19.170
So yeah, I don't, I haven't, I mean, I've written
416
00:18:19.210 --> 00:18:21.529
stuff on my own, but none of that stuff has
417
00:18:22.150 --> 00:18:25.700
been made because I always, loop Kevin into the process
418
00:18:25.740 --> 00:18:28.480
somehow or vice versa, just because we enjoy the doing
419
00:18:28.519 --> 00:18:29.039
this together.
420
00:18:29.180 --> 00:18:31.079
In terms of like that tone you were just talking
421
00:18:31.099 --> 00:18:33.099
about too, like the dark moments that you'd have, uh,
422
00:18:33.160 --> 00:18:36.160
just making the movie. This is a movie, uh, that
423
00:18:36.220 --> 00:18:40.329
really impressively has such a good, uh, you know, through
424
00:18:40.369 --> 00:18:43.769
line of tone without getting trivial, without getting, you know, goofy,
425
00:18:44.170 --> 00:18:46.410
which you could have succumbed to if you had wanted to,
426
00:18:46.470 --> 00:18:48.690
in terms of not just your, your past, you know,
427
00:18:48.769 --> 00:18:51.950
films that you've made, uh, but also just the creature
428
00:18:51.970 --> 00:18:54.470
feature in general, you could, let it become looser at
429
00:18:54.509 --> 00:18:56.450
that point, which you don't do. Was that something that
430
00:18:56.470 --> 00:18:57.750
you really had to keep an eye on or was
431
00:18:57.769 --> 00:19:00.150
it something that sort of flowed naturally from the characters
432
00:19:00.170 --> 00:19:00.619
and the premise?
433
00:19:01.319 --> 00:19:03.200
I think it flowed naturally, but yeah, you always got
434
00:19:03.240 --> 00:19:05.039
to keep an eye on, especially when you're putting like,
435
00:19:05.599 --> 00:19:09.759
you know, rubber on camera, just because that can, you know,
436
00:19:10.160 --> 00:19:12.640
you can have Thanksgiving or you could have hopefully the cycle,
437
00:19:12.680 --> 00:19:16.990
like polar opposites, same materials at the end of the day.
438
00:19:18.170 --> 00:19:20.809
But yeah, that was very purposeful just because the nature
439
00:19:20.890 --> 00:19:25.220
of this sub-genre and this movie and creature films in general,
440
00:19:25.460 --> 00:19:28.019
I like the ones that, that commit in that take
441
00:19:28.039 --> 00:19:31.539
themselves very seriously, whether that's the thing, the blob, the,
442
00:19:31.720 --> 00:19:33.559
I mean, the blobs kind of, you know, it's got
443
00:19:33.579 --> 00:19:36.650
something that 80s fun, the fly, another great example, one
444
00:19:36.670 --> 00:19:40.609
of my favorite monsters. Um, and I just, I just like,
445
00:19:41.029 --> 00:19:42.970
I don't, it's a little bit of a cop out.
446
00:19:43.390 --> 00:19:46.950
I think at times, even though I do love horror comedies.
447
00:19:47.519 --> 00:19:50.579
But for this specific subgenre, I think it has been
448
00:19:50.619 --> 00:19:52.839
kind of poked fun at a little bit too much
449
00:19:52.920 --> 00:19:57.140
over the years and or just not, you know, had
450
00:19:57.180 --> 00:19:59.920
very much resources or budget to make. And if you
451
00:19:59.960 --> 00:20:02.700
go on Tubi and, you know, you search, it's there's
452
00:20:02.839 --> 00:20:05.950
thousands of these movies. But there hasn't been that many,
453
00:20:06.029 --> 00:20:09.150
especially in recent years, that sort of, like, really committed to, like,
454
00:20:09.230 --> 00:20:12.190
let's make this really good. And let's try to make this,
455
00:20:12.380 --> 00:20:14.440
you know, as much as the word elevated is overused,
456
00:20:14.460 --> 00:20:18.480
let's try to, like, you know, give this the attention
457
00:20:18.539 --> 00:20:21.740
it deserves. Because I love that. this type of monster
458
00:20:21.920 --> 00:20:24.059
and wanted to celebrate it.
459
00:20:24.079 --> 00:20:27.519
Yeah. I can't hold back anymore. Yeah.
460
00:20:29.269 --> 00:20:32.670
So going in completely blind, I was very interested in
461
00:20:32.710 --> 00:20:35.410
what was going on. And I think maybe about 25
462
00:20:35.410 --> 00:20:37.009
minutes into it, I turned to my husband, I go,
463
00:20:37.069 --> 00:20:38.809
oh my God, is this a werewolf movie? Because werewolf
464
00:20:38.849 --> 00:20:43.200
movies are my absolute favorite. And then you did such
465
00:20:43.269 --> 00:20:46.430
a good job of convincing me that it wasn't. With
466
00:20:46.470 --> 00:20:49.450
the forensics, I kind of forgot about it. I had
467
00:20:49.470 --> 00:20:51.710
just watched Ravenous recently and I was like, is this
468
00:20:51.750 --> 00:20:55.150
a Wendigo? Especially because we're in the Pacific Northwest. I
469
00:20:55.190 --> 00:20:57.930
was really taken by the cinematography. Everything was really good.
470
00:20:58.349 --> 00:21:00.910
And it wasn't until the one character was like, my
471
00:21:00.950 --> 00:21:04.339
dad thinks that he got, you know, chewed on by
472
00:21:04.359 --> 00:21:04.740
a werewolf.
473
00:21:04.779 --> 00:21:07.000
And I was like, it is a werewolf movie. I'm
474
00:21:07.099 --> 00:21:08.009
so excited.
475
00:21:08.069 --> 00:21:10.910
And I was totally in, but it was such a
476
00:21:10.970 --> 00:21:13.920
good job because the bite marks being human, that's when
477
00:21:13.980 --> 00:21:16.170
I was like, okay, So they're not saying it's a
478
00:21:16.170 --> 00:21:16.650
beast anymore.
479
00:21:16.690 --> 00:21:17.369
It's not a bear.
480
00:21:18.009 --> 00:21:18.869
So it's not a wolf.
481
00:21:18.890 --> 00:21:19.710
I was like, damn.
482
00:21:20.230 --> 00:21:22.690
And I didn't even think about the title, which is
483
00:21:22.849 --> 00:21:25.509
kind of crazy for me. But yeah, you had me sold.
484
00:21:25.549 --> 00:21:26.250
I was like, what is.
485
00:21:26.450 --> 00:21:27.450
I don't know what we're doing here.
486
00:21:27.849 --> 00:21:29.650
And then when it was, it was like the payoff
487
00:21:29.670 --> 00:21:31.579
was even more exciting because that's kind of what I
488
00:21:31.640 --> 00:21:34.069
wanted it to be when I first started watching it.
489
00:21:34.400 --> 00:21:35.720
And I was thrilled.
490
00:21:36.539 --> 00:21:36.900
Oh, wow.
491
00:21:37.079 --> 00:21:39.380
That's... I mean, that is exactly what we hoped would
492
00:21:39.400 --> 00:21:43.059
be someone's experience when we were writing and talking about it, is.
493
00:21:43.019 --> 00:21:43.619
That you would.
494
00:21:44.509 --> 00:21:47.750
We figured most people are going to guess because that's
495
00:21:47.950 --> 00:21:49.609
the job of an audience is to try and get
496
00:21:49.670 --> 00:21:51.430
ahead of this story and try to figure out what's
497
00:21:51.470 --> 00:21:53.170
going on here, what's going on, especially when a movie
498
00:21:53.190 --> 00:21:56.130
like this is kind of has this like air of
499
00:21:56.190 --> 00:22:00.279
secrecy around its release that everyone's going to come in thinking, oh,
500
00:22:00.390 --> 00:22:02.500
I'm going to figure this out. And we figured, well,
501
00:22:02.519 --> 00:22:04.700
there's only so many movie monsters. You're going to run
502
00:22:04.720 --> 00:22:05.759
through that list pretty quick.
503
00:22:05.799 --> 00:22:07.259
Is it a zombie? Is it a wing? When to
504
00:22:07.279 --> 00:22:08.660
go vampire werewolf?
505
00:22:09.400 --> 00:22:11.619
But the hope was that you can guess all of them,
506
00:22:12.200 --> 00:22:14.039
but we're going to keep doing little things so that
507
00:22:14.099 --> 00:22:16.509
you never can commit to any one of those things
508
00:22:16.589 --> 00:22:19.109
because you'll get thrown off a little bit. Like you said,
509
00:22:19.150 --> 00:22:20.910
the human teeth and the fame.
510
00:22:20.950 --> 00:22:24.390
The dead body in general. I have never seen that before.
511
00:22:24.569 --> 00:22:26.589
So kudos for you that that was a very interesting
512
00:22:26.630 --> 00:22:27.430
take on a werewolf.
513
00:22:27.549 --> 00:22:30.990
It's one of the coolest takes. Let me say also
514
00:22:31.059 --> 00:22:33.960
from my perspective, Jordan, because I unfortunately had the opposite experience.
515
00:22:34.420 --> 00:22:36.559
I'm out here in L.A. I'm part of this whole,
516
00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:39.819
you know, L.A. community of cinephiles and like geeks and
517
00:22:39.839 --> 00:22:41.079
all that. So I had a lot of friends that
518
00:22:41.119 --> 00:22:43.900
went to Beyond Fest where this did play. I unfortunately
519
00:22:44.160 --> 00:22:45.880
had to miss it because I was at another screening,
520
00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:48.539
but I heard from them. And of course, they couldn't
521
00:22:48.559 --> 00:22:50.700
keep their mouths shut. So they said, werewolf, werewolf, werewolf.
522
00:22:50.740 --> 00:22:53.589
And I was going into this knowing eventually there would
523
00:22:53.630 --> 00:22:55.769
be a werewolf. And, you know, I had a film
524
00:22:55.789 --> 00:22:58.829
professor in college who, for better or worse, did shape
525
00:22:58.869 --> 00:23:01.930
a lot of my, you know, opinions on analyzing film.
526
00:23:01.970 --> 00:23:04.529
And he said, any great film worth its salt, it
527
00:23:04.549 --> 00:23:06.650
doesn't matter. It could be spoiled for you all top
528
00:23:06.670 --> 00:23:08.589
to tail and you'll still like it. And this is
529
00:23:08.670 --> 00:23:11.690
absolutely one of these great films because I knew going in,
530
00:23:11.809 --> 00:23:13.349
I could see all the clues being put together. I
531
00:23:13.390 --> 00:23:16.410
could put things in line and never was guessing in
532
00:23:16.450 --> 00:23:18.079
terms of like, what could this be? Because I already knew.
533
00:23:18.700 --> 00:23:20.559
And then the payoff of it in terms of not
534
00:23:20.579 --> 00:23:22.359
just the effects, but the set pieces.
535
00:23:22.380 --> 00:23:23.059
That transformation.
536
00:23:23.079 --> 00:23:25.480
That transformation is incredible. We'll get to that. But also
537
00:23:25.640 --> 00:23:29.000
just the character payoff of like how much this digs
538
00:23:29.039 --> 00:23:31.240
into what I think is such a core tenant of
539
00:23:31.279 --> 00:23:33.980
the mythos of the werewolf, which not many people in
540
00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:36.119
those other movies you were kind of hinting at recently
541
00:23:36.269 --> 00:23:39.549
have really capitalized on, which is the curse. You know,
542
00:23:39.569 --> 00:23:42.190
this idea of somebody who is not wanting to be
543
00:23:42.210 --> 00:23:44.880
this creature, not having any control over this creature. And
544
00:23:44.900 --> 00:23:47.299
in this case, in the cycle, not being able to stop,
545
00:23:48.140 --> 00:23:52.240
you know, themselves or be stopped. And so that pathos
546
00:23:52.380 --> 00:23:56.019
and that, you know, sort of really intense, you know,
547
00:23:56.440 --> 00:24:00.329
drama combined with the already built human drama of the
548
00:24:00.369 --> 00:24:02.910
father and the daughter and all that, it's just, it
549
00:24:02.950 --> 00:24:04.930
works so well, man. So like, you know, even people
550
00:24:04.970 --> 00:24:07.160
that might get spoiled on this, there's still a hundred
551
00:24:07.200 --> 00:24:08.700
reasons for them to watch it, you know?
552
00:24:09.099 --> 00:24:11.859
Well, that was, I mean, you know, that there's been
553
00:24:11.880 --> 00:24:15.240
a huge debate, of course, like internally for years with us,
554
00:24:15.539 --> 00:24:18.200
you know, with shutter and all of us collectively, just like,
555
00:24:18.240 --> 00:24:20.740
how do you market this movie? And there are two
556
00:24:20.799 --> 00:24:23.119
sides of it. And you guys are representing both of
557
00:24:23.180 --> 00:24:26.549
those sides. And I've heard those arguments both ways. We're
558
00:24:26.569 --> 00:24:29.789
going in blind is the ultimate pure way to experience
559
00:24:29.809 --> 00:24:32.829
this movie. But then also to your point, Bill, that, um,
560
00:24:33.750 --> 00:24:37.109
James Cameron was responsible for spoiling in Terminator 2 that
561
00:24:37.470 --> 00:24:39.069
Arnold is the good guy and not the bad guy
562
00:24:39.089 --> 00:24:41.210
because he believed you lead with your best– whatever you
563
00:24:41.250 --> 00:24:46.029
market with your best idea first. So yeah, that's– and
564
00:24:46.069 --> 00:24:49.130
we'll find out because in a couple weeks, this will
565
00:24:49.259 --> 00:24:51.779
be– eventually, this will be known as a werewolf movie.
566
00:24:51.839 --> 00:24:54.519
I don't think that people will– that twist is going
567
00:24:54.539 --> 00:24:56.539
to be– this will evaporate in a couple of weeks.
568
00:24:57.319 --> 00:25:00.039
And hopefully it makes werewolf movie lists and all that
569
00:25:00.079 --> 00:25:02.769
kind of stuff. And it gets, you know, put up
570
00:25:02.809 --> 00:25:04.490
there with some of the other ones that we all love.
571
00:25:04.970 --> 00:25:09.819
But I hope that people can enjoy it regardless of
572
00:25:09.880 --> 00:25:12.440
which experience you have. So it's good to hear that
573
00:25:12.640 --> 00:25:13.440
that worked for you.
574
00:25:13.829 --> 00:25:15.890
And there were surprises, like funny surprises.
575
00:25:15.950 --> 00:25:17.589
And no, it's not a horror comedy, but when that
576
00:25:17.650 --> 00:25:20.769
werewolf used the eye scan to get into the.
577
00:25:20.769 --> 00:25:22.730
Basement, I lost it.
578
00:25:22.750 --> 00:25:23.650
I lost it.
579
00:25:23.670 --> 00:25:25.009
That was so funny.
580
00:25:25.470 --> 00:25:27.279
And then just the colors that were being used, like
581
00:25:27.299 --> 00:25:30.019
the transformations, the blues, the reds, you know, very Brian
582
00:25:30.059 --> 00:25:32.059
De Palma kind of stuff going on there. It looked
583
00:25:32.099 --> 00:25:33.859
so good. And even to the point where I'm waiting
584
00:25:33.900 --> 00:25:34.960
to see what's going to happen.
585
00:25:34.759 --> 00:25:35.319
With the eyes.
586
00:25:35.779 --> 00:25:37.000
So I'm like, is it going to just be like
587
00:25:37.039 --> 00:25:39.529
this blind werewolf running around? But nope, they popped out.
588
00:25:39.549 --> 00:25:41.609
And I was like, oh, my God, this is so cool.
589
00:25:41.970 --> 00:25:44.529
And it was gushy. And it was just really, really
590
00:25:44.569 --> 00:25:47.450
well done. The kills were all really fun. I love
591
00:25:47.490 --> 00:25:50.200
the gore. And at one point I did not go like, oh,
592
00:25:50.220 --> 00:25:52.539
this is overdone or this and that. It was perfect
593
00:25:52.660 --> 00:25:53.599
for for the film.
594
00:25:53.720 --> 00:25:54.619
I really, really.
595
00:25:54.740 --> 00:25:56.559
So I guess we should ask, like, who led your
596
00:25:56.599 --> 00:25:58.519
effects team and how did you find them? And like,
597
00:25:58.539 --> 00:26:00.960
was there like an audition process for getting them on board?
598
00:26:01.410 --> 00:26:03.220
Like I was, I have to assume this was like
599
00:26:03.240 --> 00:26:06.140
a key element going into production. Like this has to
600
00:26:06.160 --> 00:26:08.740
be solved. So we know what we're doing with here. Yeah,
601
00:26:08.759 --> 00:26:09.059
it was.
602
00:26:09.119 --> 00:26:11.059
I mean, when we had the initial idea, we knew, okay,
603
00:26:11.339 --> 00:26:13.039
if we're going to set out to make a werewolf movie,
604
00:26:13.059 --> 00:26:16.319
we have got to nail the transformation rather than sort
605
00:26:16.359 --> 00:26:19.460
of looking at American world from London or the howling
606
00:26:19.519 --> 00:26:22.329
or company of woods, whatever you'd want to put in that,
607
00:26:22.509 --> 00:26:25.630
you know, that your ranking of your favorite transformation scenes.
608
00:26:26.230 --> 00:26:28.869
We didn't want to say, well, Rick Baker, uh, already
609
00:26:28.930 --> 00:26:30.710
did such a good job in the eighties. Let's not
610
00:26:30.750 --> 00:26:33.230
even bother. He did do not just such a good job.
611
00:26:33.250 --> 00:26:35.210
He did the best of all time and it's impossible
612
00:26:35.430 --> 00:26:38.349
to beat that, but let's not run from the challenge.
613
00:26:38.410 --> 00:26:40.769
Like let's try and do our own version of something.
614
00:26:41.369 --> 00:26:43.430
And the big, and the most compelling reason to do
615
00:26:43.490 --> 00:26:45.329
so is that no one has done that in 40 years.
616
00:26:45.589 --> 00:26:50.750
So you just by the nature of attempting it in 2026,
617
00:26:50.750 --> 00:26:53.890
shooting it on 4k with modern cameras and lenses, it's
618
00:26:53.990 --> 00:26:55.799
going to look, and we have a dead body, so
619
00:26:55.859 --> 00:26:58.700
it's not going to be the same anyway. It's going
620
00:26:58.740 --> 00:27:00.930
to give people something that they have not seen in
621
00:27:00.970 --> 00:27:04.650
a long time and young people that maybe don't know
622
00:27:04.690 --> 00:27:05.849
about American world from London.
623
00:27:06.269 --> 00:27:06.490
Yeah.
624
00:27:07.210 --> 00:27:09.130
So, yes, the effects were paramount.
625
00:27:09.910 --> 00:27:14.200
So I was introduced to Patrick McGee who did our
626
00:27:14.240 --> 00:27:17.480
creature to do VHS for Stork because he made all
627
00:27:17.500 --> 00:27:20.789
of the effects including the Stork monster for that VHS segment.
628
00:27:21.660 --> 00:27:23.940
And in that initial meeting, we had already had the
629
00:27:23.980 --> 00:27:26.299
script for cycle was done, ready to go. We pretty
630
00:27:26.339 --> 00:27:28.700
much knew it was green light, green lit, and we
631
00:27:28.720 --> 00:27:30.240
were going to make it, but we had about a
632
00:27:30.259 --> 00:27:34.019
year till we could shoot it. And we'd already storyboarded
633
00:27:34.059 --> 00:27:36.819
and previs the whole transformation scenes. We knew exactly shot
634
00:27:36.839 --> 00:27:39.099
by shot how we were going to do it. So
635
00:27:39.140 --> 00:27:41.759
when I met with Patrick, the first time to talk
636
00:27:41.799 --> 00:27:44.660
about the stork, this was around Christmas of 2023, I
637
00:27:44.660 --> 00:27:52.619
believe we then. I showed him that previs and I
638
00:27:52.680 --> 00:27:54.930
didn't know that he was a huge American werewolf in
639
00:27:54.970 --> 00:27:58.490
London fan. And that's like his, his favorite film and
640
00:27:58.750 --> 00:28:01.990
his dream project was to do a werewolf movie, his own.
641
00:28:02.250 --> 00:28:05.230
He'd been thinking about it his entire career, his entire life.
642
00:28:05.869 --> 00:28:08.150
And he had studied how Rick Baker did it. He knew, okay,
643
00:28:08.170 --> 00:28:11.089
well you're going to need six syringes for the face
644
00:28:11.109 --> 00:28:11.809
and you're going to need.
645
00:28:11.799 --> 00:28:13.339
All of, all of the components.
646
00:28:13.900 --> 00:28:15.400
And he had thought through how he would do his
647
00:28:15.460 --> 00:28:19.789
version of one. So it was just a, timing was
648
00:28:19.829 --> 00:28:21.910
perfect in the sense that I got to work with him.
649
00:28:21.970 --> 00:28:23.710
We got along great. I thought he did a great
650
00:28:23.750 --> 00:28:26.930
job on, on VHS. And there was, in my mind,
651
00:28:26.950 --> 00:28:29.259
there was no one else that was gonna do this
652
00:28:29.319 --> 00:28:32.640
and be right for it. So then I had made this, um,
653
00:28:32.920 --> 00:28:35.240
I'd made a coffee table book to pitch the cycle
654
00:28:35.279 --> 00:28:38.359
as well. It's like 300 page thing. It's lays out
655
00:28:38.420 --> 00:28:41.829
every location, every costume, the whole movie, like broken down.
656
00:28:42.630 --> 00:28:44.390
And I sent him that and a letter. And I
657
00:28:44.390 --> 00:28:47.250
was just like, you know, please say yes. Because what
658
00:28:47.289 --> 00:28:49.890
people also might not realize is Patrick does all of
659
00:28:50.069 --> 00:28:54.109
the Halloween horror nights at the, the, um, California and
660
00:28:54.170 --> 00:28:59.240
Orlando locations. So all the monsters, the mazes, he does that.
661
00:28:59.319 --> 00:29:01.640
And we were shooting at the exact same time as
662
00:29:01.740 --> 00:29:04.619
Halloween horror nights. So he was like, I don't know
663
00:29:04.660 --> 00:29:06.059
how I'm going to, I don't know if I can
664
00:29:06.099 --> 00:29:07.559
say yes. Like, I just don't know if I have
665
00:29:07.640 --> 00:29:11.109
the bandwidth to do this, but it was his dream project.
666
00:29:11.160 --> 00:29:14.430
And he said, yeah, okay, let me, let me do it. Um,
667
00:29:15.130 --> 00:29:19.119
And then we worked together on how to make that achievable,
668
00:29:19.180 --> 00:29:21.440
not only for the best results, but within his schedule.
669
00:29:21.519 --> 00:29:23.680
And so it was kind of like, okay, let's, we
670
00:29:23.720 --> 00:29:26.000
broke it down into, we got, he made us the corpse,
671
00:29:26.059 --> 00:29:28.119
the Peter Stump corpse first. So we shot for the
672
00:29:28.160 --> 00:29:30.680
first thing we had a one, we shot for the
673
00:29:30.720 --> 00:29:33.829
first week with no corpse, no wolf, just, just Deborah,
674
00:29:33.950 --> 00:29:37.170
you know, the more dramatic scenes. Then the corpse arrived
675
00:29:37.190 --> 00:29:39.509
and we shot some corpse stuff, but Patrick and his
676
00:29:39.569 --> 00:29:42.720
team stayed in LA working on the wolf. So we
677
00:29:42.740 --> 00:29:45.319
had the corpse up there with us for another two weeks.
678
00:29:45.440 --> 00:29:47.500
And then Patrick and his team came for the last
679
00:29:47.559 --> 00:29:51.289
week with Trevor Newland, who performed a werewolf and, and we.
680
00:29:51.230 --> 00:29:52.069
Did some wolf stuff.
681
00:29:52.869 --> 00:29:55.279
But the, the, the best decision that we made was,
682
00:29:55.859 --> 00:29:58.619
was to not try and shoot the transformation or all
683
00:29:58.640 --> 00:30:02.140
of like the retina scanner scene, all of the closeups
684
00:30:02.180 --> 00:30:04.859
of its mouth, its eyes, all of those reactions, even
685
00:30:04.920 --> 00:30:07.539
closeups of it on the beach. We didn't do any
686
00:30:07.559 --> 00:30:09.700
of that stuff during the main production. We sit, we
687
00:30:09.740 --> 00:30:14.079
waited five, six months later so that Patrick can continue
688
00:30:14.119 --> 00:30:15.880
to work on all of the stuff and build the
689
00:30:15.940 --> 00:30:18.609
hands and the feet and the spines, all the stuff
690
00:30:18.619 --> 00:30:21.950
for the transformation. We edited the movie together with the
691
00:30:21.970 --> 00:30:26.009
footage we had came back and then put a ton
692
00:30:26.029 --> 00:30:28.170
of werewolf stuff back in and shot for another week
693
00:30:28.250 --> 00:30:31.619
in Los Angeles, adding all that stuff in. So if
694
00:30:31.630 --> 00:30:34.519
you're going to do practical effects, you just have to
695
00:30:34.599 --> 00:30:36.859
approach it that the practical effects are going to dictate
696
00:30:36.880 --> 00:30:38.720
your schedule and budget to a degree. And you've got
697
00:30:38.740 --> 00:30:42.180
to listen to their needs. You cannot just force them
698
00:30:42.220 --> 00:30:44.599
into a box if you want them to turn out special.
699
00:30:45.700 --> 00:30:48.539
My favorite shot is the werewolf coming up from the water.
700
00:30:49.400 --> 00:30:51.079
on the, like the beach when the sun's coming up.
701
00:30:51.140 --> 00:30:53.220
And I was just like, this is so well done.
702
00:30:53.400 --> 00:30:55.819
And the werewolf looked so good, but I'm sure I
703
00:30:55.839 --> 00:30:57.680
was like, how many disgusting things did you have to
704
00:30:57.720 --> 00:30:58.460
look at and touch?
705
00:30:58.480 --> 00:30:59.359
And there's a point.
706
00:30:59.380 --> 00:31:01.400
So you're probably like, am I doing the right thing
707
00:31:01.420 --> 00:31:01.799
with this?
708
00:31:01.859 --> 00:31:03.440
But it's, that's so fun.
709
00:31:04.519 --> 00:31:04.700
Yeah.
710
00:31:04.740 --> 00:31:07.240
That water. I mean, that was our last day of shooting.
711
00:31:07.259 --> 00:31:08.200
I would hope so.
712
00:31:08.380 --> 00:31:08.740
Right.
713
00:31:09.119 --> 00:31:11.720
Yeah. Well, it was, it was twofold.
714
00:31:11.400 --> 00:31:14.880
Because we're, you know, this is November in, in Oregon
715
00:31:14.900 --> 00:31:18.039
and the water is cold. So we knew we're going
716
00:31:18.059 --> 00:31:21.140
to have Debra dive into the ocean or into the river.
717
00:31:21.160 --> 00:31:22.160
Go get it girl.
718
00:31:23.140 --> 00:31:25.079
And she was like, to her credit, she was like
719
00:31:25.119 --> 00:31:27.440
the thing that she was looking forward to the most.
720
00:31:27.460 --> 00:31:29.539
Cause she likes to be very, she loved the stuff
721
00:31:29.559 --> 00:31:31.539
where she's running, you know, jumping into the cage and
722
00:31:31.579 --> 00:31:32.579
like to be very physical.
723
00:31:32.839 --> 00:31:33.099
Yeah.
724
00:31:33.160 --> 00:31:35.059
But we saved that for the end, just in case
725
00:31:35.119 --> 00:31:37.569
like somebody got a cold cause they were in the
726
00:31:37.940 --> 00:31:40.890
water or or worse got injured or, and we just
727
00:31:40.910 --> 00:31:42.549
didn't want, we just figured that was the way you
728
00:31:42.589 --> 00:31:45.470
should go out on this. And then poor Trevor, it
729
00:31:45.509 --> 00:31:47.990
was freezing cold that day. And he's in that suit.
730
00:31:48.059 --> 00:31:51.099
And that thing is he's basically, you know, he's other
731
00:31:51.119 --> 00:31:53.559
than the torso, he's pretty much naked. His arms and
732
00:31:53.599 --> 00:31:57.119
legs are fully exposed. He just has prosthetics and some
733
00:31:57.160 --> 00:32:00.349
hair kind of on top of him. And, uh, So
734
00:32:00.380 --> 00:32:02.529
he's just out in that water and the foam latex
735
00:32:02.650 --> 00:32:06.230
soaks up the water really quick. So like he but
736
00:32:06.250 --> 00:32:08.750
he did it and it looked it looked incredible. And
737
00:32:08.769 --> 00:32:11.529
I love I love that moment. That was one thing
738
00:32:11.569 --> 00:32:14.390
that we also thought would be really cool that hopefully
739
00:32:14.430 --> 00:32:19.269
you guys would agree as werewolf fans. something about introducing
740
00:32:19.289 --> 00:32:21.990
an aquatic coastal element into a werewolf movie, I thought
741
00:32:22.039 --> 00:32:24.240
would be awesome because we'd never seen that as well.
742
00:32:24.259 --> 00:32:24.339
Nope.
743
00:32:24.640 --> 00:32:26.160
I was like, is she going into the water? I
744
00:32:26.160 --> 00:32:29.119
was like, what's the plan here, Meg? What's the plan?
745
00:32:30.640 --> 00:32:32.119
And then it was just so beautiful.
746
00:32:32.140 --> 00:32:34.779
It was great. Well, I mean, it sounds like you
747
00:32:34.799 --> 00:32:38.539
guys didn't have the rockiest experience making this because you
748
00:32:38.579 --> 00:32:41.200
had this mentality going in of like, let's give them
749
00:32:41.220 --> 00:32:43.349
the time and the space that they need. Let's, you know,
750
00:32:43.380 --> 00:32:46.019
adjust the schedule for them. let's, you know, really roll
751
00:32:46.059 --> 00:32:48.279
with the punches sort of thing. Uh, it sounds like
752
00:32:48.299 --> 00:32:50.140
you didn't have like a, the wolf broke down again,
753
00:32:50.180 --> 00:32:51.640
sort of situation like draws, you know?
754
00:32:51.660 --> 00:32:51.829
Right.
755
00:32:52.289 --> 00:32:52.750
No, no.
756
00:32:52.769 --> 00:32:55.009
We, in fact, like we had the best time ever
757
00:32:55.049 --> 00:32:55.710
making this movie.
758
00:32:55.730 --> 00:32:56.750
Like we, Oh, that's great.
759
00:32:57.250 --> 00:32:59.809
There it's always hard. I'm always stressed at night. Cause
760
00:32:59.849 --> 00:33:02.890
I have, I put so much responsibility on myself to
761
00:33:02.930 --> 00:33:05.170
make sure that not only we're making a good movie for,
762
00:33:05.789 --> 00:33:08.589
for you guys, for fans, for, for the, but I
763
00:33:08.630 --> 00:33:10.349
want the cast and crew to have a really good
764
00:33:10.390 --> 00:33:12.750
time while doing it and to try to, you know,
765
00:33:13.839 --> 00:33:15.819
enjoy that experience and look back on it as a
766
00:33:15.839 --> 00:33:19.369
very special time in their lives. And I'm most proud
767
00:33:19.609 --> 00:33:21.470
of the fact that I think we did that on
768
00:33:21.509 --> 00:33:23.910
this and everyone, you know, had such a nice time
769
00:33:23.990 --> 00:33:26.309
and we were all family and become friends with all
770
00:33:26.329 --> 00:33:29.470
the actors and everyone has just been, it was just
771
00:33:29.490 --> 00:33:32.289
a genuine joy. And, and no, there wasn't to your point,
772
00:33:32.509 --> 00:33:35.509
you know, and, and that's Patrick McGee credit to him
773
00:33:35.529 --> 00:33:40.210
because every single thing he made worked and And it did,
774
00:33:40.289 --> 00:33:43.250
it never broke. It's not like we, we, we, you know,
775
00:33:43.269 --> 00:33:45.079
broke the leg off the corpse at one point in time,
776
00:33:45.390 --> 00:33:48.740
hauling it around in the back of the art department van,
777
00:33:48.779 --> 00:33:51.980
but we fixed it. Um, but everything worked when we
778
00:33:52.019 --> 00:33:54.329
needed it to, there was never anything that we couldn't
779
00:33:54.380 --> 00:33:57.289
shoot around or, um, adapt to.
780
00:33:57.349 --> 00:33:59.509
And so, yeah, there was no Bruce, the shark moment
781
00:33:59.529 --> 00:33:59.809
for us.
782
00:34:00.190 --> 00:34:05.230
That's great. That's great. Um, And in terms of working
783
00:34:05.269 --> 00:34:07.970
with the actors in the ensemble, was this something that
784
00:34:08.030 --> 00:34:12.300
you guys had any time to talk about extensively, rehearse
785
00:34:12.340 --> 00:34:13.679
at all? Or was it sort of run and gun?
786
00:34:13.719 --> 00:34:16.340
Like we have these locations and we have you guys
787
00:34:16.360 --> 00:34:18.179
for this week. Let's just figure it out on the
788
00:34:18.219 --> 00:34:18.900
day sort of thing.
789
00:34:19.440 --> 00:34:22.219
No, I met Debra for the first time in January
790
00:34:22.239 --> 00:34:25.750
of 2024. And we shot it in October, started shooting
791
00:34:25.769 --> 00:34:26.329
in October 2024.
792
00:34:26.309 --> 00:34:26.550
Oh, wow.
793
00:34:26.570 --> 00:34:31.250
Yeah. we had, we had met up a few times
794
00:34:31.329 --> 00:34:34.409
before that. And in our very first meeting, she had some, um,
795
00:34:34.550 --> 00:34:36.400
script notes and was like, I just, you know, I'd
796
00:34:36.440 --> 00:34:38.360
love to know if you would be open to doing these.
797
00:34:38.380 --> 00:34:41.019
And I said, yeah, of course you're, you're a partner
798
00:34:41.059 --> 00:34:43.400
on this now. So yeah, like I, I'd be crazy
799
00:34:43.440 --> 00:34:47.010
not to listen to your ideas. Um, and so she, yeah,
800
00:34:47.050 --> 00:34:50.250
so we kind of did another draft or two before
801
00:34:50.369 --> 00:34:53.010
we got to shooting. And then, so yeah, Debra and
802
00:34:53.050 --> 00:34:55.739
I had met a few times in person. We'd Got
803
00:34:55.800 --> 00:34:57.840
on Zoom at one point for four or five hours
804
00:34:57.880 --> 00:35:01.539
and just went through every page of the script, tweaking things.
805
00:35:01.920 --> 00:35:04.460
We got on to another Zoom with Sue Black, who's
806
00:35:04.480 --> 00:35:07.719
a real forensic anthropologist, to give notes. And so Debra
807
00:35:07.739 --> 00:35:12.389
could kind of just ask her questions, just pick her brain,
808
00:35:12.750 --> 00:35:17.369
you know, to pull stuff for her character. And Jeffrey, yeah,
809
00:35:17.489 --> 00:35:20.849
you know, we got him a little bit probably that summer.
810
00:35:21.530 --> 00:35:21.989
I believe.
811
00:35:22.329 --> 00:35:25.329
And, um, you know, his big request was just, I
812
00:35:25.349 --> 00:35:28.409
just want to know that I have your time. Like,
813
00:35:28.469 --> 00:35:30.860
I don't, I don't want to show up a week
814
00:35:30.949 --> 00:35:33.000
before and running gun. Like I just, I want to
815
00:35:33.019 --> 00:35:35.739
have conversations and text and share pictures.
816
00:35:35.820 --> 00:35:37.219
And so it was very fluid.
817
00:35:37.239 --> 00:35:40.320
Like they were very, very, once they committed and said, yes,
818
00:35:40.440 --> 00:35:43.480
I was, um, I was ecstatic with how much they
819
00:35:43.559 --> 00:35:46.320
wanted to be involved in that process. And I would
820
00:35:46.980 --> 00:35:49.929
show them the pictures of the locations and, the cars
821
00:35:50.010 --> 00:35:52.329
and the wardrobe and all that stuff. Like they were,
822
00:35:53.050 --> 00:35:54.929
they were a big part of it. Um, some of
823
00:35:54.949 --> 00:35:58.409
the other actors had to come in, uh, Jack Doolin,
824
00:35:58.449 --> 00:36:01.449
who's awesome in the movie. He plays Lenny. He was
825
00:36:01.489 --> 00:36:05.719
the one that we had the hardest time casting that role. Yeah.
826
00:36:05.739 --> 00:36:08.059
And cause it diff it's different. Jack is different than
827
00:36:08.079 --> 00:36:10.360
what was written in the script. So Jack is the
828
00:36:10.460 --> 00:36:12.880
one that had to come in and like, just in,
829
00:36:12.980 --> 00:36:15.139
in figure it out the fastest, which he nailed.
830
00:36:15.239 --> 00:36:16.739
And it was awesome. He was a great guy.
831
00:36:16.760 --> 00:36:19.619
Um, but everyone else kind of had, had a nice,
832
00:36:19.659 --> 00:36:23.159
like comfortable ramp up other than, other than poor Jack.
833
00:36:23.199 --> 00:36:23.320
Yeah.
834
00:36:23.639 --> 00:36:25.380
Can I ask you too? I just really want to
835
00:36:25.400 --> 00:36:27.840
know this from watching the movie with working with David
836
00:36:27.880 --> 00:36:31.610
Myers Gregory as Peter. I mean, there's so many moments
837
00:36:31.679 --> 00:36:34.630
of like, uh, his videotapes, you know, and, and how
838
00:36:34.670 --> 00:36:37.289
many like different recordings he's made. Uh, how long did
839
00:36:37.309 --> 00:36:39.389
that process take? Because it seems like it could have
840
00:36:39.409 --> 00:36:40.809
been just a day or it could have been maybe
841
00:36:40.829 --> 00:36:41.230
a few days.
842
00:36:41.250 --> 00:36:43.610
It's a great, I'm glad you asked that. Like, um,
843
00:36:44.619 --> 00:36:45.559
David is amazing.
844
00:36:45.619 --> 00:36:48.659
Like I was editing a movie, uh, years ago and
845
00:36:48.800 --> 00:36:51.449
he was in, he was in it and I would
846
00:36:51.469 --> 00:36:54.369
see the footage come in and David scenes. And I'm
847
00:36:54.389 --> 00:36:56.670
just watching all the, you know, the raw stuff. And
848
00:36:56.829 --> 00:37:00.110
I'm like, who is this guy? He's so talented. He's
849
00:37:00.250 --> 00:37:03.130
so good. How am I going to edit this down?
850
00:37:03.150 --> 00:37:06.380
Because like he, there, there's 10 takes that I want
851
00:37:06.389 --> 00:37:09.650
to put into this movie. So I met him on
852
00:37:10.130 --> 00:37:11.969
that movie and stayed in touch with him and always
853
00:37:12.010 --> 00:37:13.630
wanted to find something to put him in because he's
854
00:37:13.690 --> 00:37:16.719
just one of the most talented actors I've ever seen.
855
00:37:17.030 --> 00:37:20.179
And he was perfect for this. So he came out
856
00:37:20.519 --> 00:37:22.980
and he was shot with us one day in the
857
00:37:23.039 --> 00:37:24.880
house when she has kind of the nightmare where he's
858
00:37:24.940 --> 00:37:26.739
on the phone call and says, it's coming for me.
859
00:37:26.820 --> 00:37:28.559
That was the first day of his shooting. And then
860
00:37:28.679 --> 00:37:29.739
all the tape stuff was.
861
00:37:29.659 --> 00:37:32.760
Done in one day. So it was just David and
862
00:37:32.940 --> 00:37:35.460
a full crew down in the basement shooting.
863
00:37:35.739 --> 00:37:37.869
And the way we did it is, We shot it
864
00:37:38.010 --> 00:37:42.769
all on the main production camera, 6K cameras. We did
865
00:37:42.809 --> 00:37:45.010
have like a little flip cam next to it just
866
00:37:45.269 --> 00:37:48.559
capturing like an analog version of it just in case
867
00:37:48.579 --> 00:37:54.610
we would use that. But we ended up– then we–
868
00:37:55.039 --> 00:37:57.960
so David wrapped. We edited the movie together and we
869
00:37:58.000 --> 00:38:00.119
came back and did a bunch of second unit stuff
870
00:38:00.679 --> 00:38:03.760
in that six months later time jump. And one of
871
00:38:03.800 --> 00:38:06.369
those things then that gave me time to basically pick
872
00:38:06.489 --> 00:38:09.130
like 45 minutes of the best takes of all of
873
00:38:09.190 --> 00:38:13.250
his tape stuff. And we transferred that to a real
874
00:38:13.309 --> 00:38:15.929
TV then and the old actual TV that you see
875
00:38:15.969 --> 00:38:18.969
in the movie. We ran that 4K footage through there.
876
00:38:19.010 --> 00:38:21.949
We didn't even need to actually apply any VHS filters
877
00:38:22.110 --> 00:38:25.199
onto the footage. just by the nature of that digital
878
00:38:25.219 --> 00:38:28.260
footage being converted to the analog signal and put on
879
00:38:28.280 --> 00:38:31.619
the TV. And then we shot the TV. So you
880
00:38:31.639 --> 00:38:34.340
get the real static and the fuzziness and all of that,
881
00:38:34.380 --> 00:38:37.949
because I hate bad TV comps. Like when you see
882
00:38:37.969 --> 00:38:39.829
a V effect, it just throws you out of it.
883
00:38:40.949 --> 00:38:42.909
And so our approach, not just with the werewolf was,
884
00:38:42.949 --> 00:38:46.849
but put everything in camera if you can. So, but
885
00:38:46.889 --> 00:38:48.329
it takes a ton of time to do that because
886
00:38:48.349 --> 00:38:49.909
you have to shoot the whole day with him. You
887
00:38:49.929 --> 00:38:52.550
have to then edit that stuff down. come back with
888
00:38:52.570 --> 00:38:55.769
the crew, run that signal to a TV. And then
889
00:38:55.809 --> 00:38:58.820
we had, then I had to edit what we shot
890
00:38:58.909 --> 00:39:02.320
of the TV to fill up what the final movie is.
891
00:39:02.659 --> 00:39:03.860
So it was a big process.
892
00:39:04.260 --> 00:39:04.460
Wow.
893
00:39:05.099 --> 00:39:07.539
But it's so much worth it, you know, the physicality
894
00:39:07.679 --> 00:39:10.320
of the effects and actually seeing that work so much
895
00:39:10.360 --> 00:39:12.340
better than, like, look at this tennis ball and just pretend,
896
00:39:12.360 --> 00:39:12.619
you know?
897
00:39:12.639 --> 00:39:14.090
It feels like for everybody.
898
00:39:14.429 --> 00:39:17.690
And just watching how his makeup was subtly changing and
899
00:39:17.730 --> 00:39:20.329
getting darker, it was just very well done.
900
00:39:20.510 --> 00:39:22.530
And, you know, that work pays off.
901
00:39:22.829 --> 00:39:23.050
Yeah.
902
00:39:23.150 --> 00:39:24.909
Well, and he shaved his head for real.
903
00:39:25.150 --> 00:39:26.320
I was going to ask.
904
00:39:26.510 --> 00:39:28.309
I was like, it looked like he did that, like, twice,
905
00:39:28.349 --> 00:39:30.719
but it's really cool how you... shot that and made
906
00:39:30.760 --> 00:39:32.360
it look like he has doing it over and over
907
00:39:32.380 --> 00:39:33.659
and over again. When I could tell that he was
908
00:39:33.699 --> 00:39:34.559
really shaving his head.
909
00:39:34.860 --> 00:39:37.929
Well, so yeah, funny story about that. Uh, he, so
910
00:39:37.989 --> 00:39:40.050
David had the idea. I would have never written in
911
00:39:40.070 --> 00:39:42.250
or asked him to shave your head. That would have
912
00:39:42.269 --> 00:39:44.989
just been like too crazy of an ask. But he
913
00:39:45.010 --> 00:39:47.909
was like, I think I should, I really think I
914
00:39:47.929 --> 00:39:50.690
want to shave my head because he had in the script,
915
00:39:50.710 --> 00:39:54.090
he understood that it was kind of this, he's becoming
916
00:39:54.130 --> 00:39:56.010
more and more sick and looking a little bit more
917
00:39:56.050 --> 00:39:59.590
and more like somebody who has cancer or is, you know,
918
00:39:59.610 --> 00:40:02.550
their body is failing them as he gets older and
919
00:40:02.610 --> 00:40:05.650
older in his life. So David wanted to shave his head.
920
00:40:05.690 --> 00:40:08.650
He wanted to be bald for that last, that last tape.
921
00:40:09.030 --> 00:40:10.989
And I thought, well, yeah, if you want to do it,
922
00:40:11.030 --> 00:40:15.539
that sounds amazing. But then Patrick McGee, meanwhile, in L.A.,
923
00:40:15.800 --> 00:40:19.659
is working on the corpse prop. And he is wanting
924
00:40:19.679 --> 00:40:23.250
to punch hair in the corpse because he believes, and
925
00:40:23.309 --> 00:40:25.510
rightfully so, like it's just going to look better. And
926
00:40:25.530 --> 00:40:28.710
then also his point was that you need to take
927
00:40:28.750 --> 00:40:31.269
this corpse and turn it into a werewolf. If we
928
00:40:31.329 --> 00:40:33.369
start with some hair on its head, then that can
929
00:40:33.429 --> 00:40:36.719
justify making this bigger mane. And we have a starting
930
00:40:36.760 --> 00:40:39.699
point to grow from rather than like it's bald and
931
00:40:39.840 --> 00:40:43.519
all hair has to sprout. Um, so then that's when
932
00:40:44.219 --> 00:40:45.929
I was like, okay, great. So we have one guy
933
00:40:45.949 --> 00:40:47.849
wants to shave his head. One guy wants there to
934
00:40:47.869 --> 00:40:48.130
be hair.
935
00:40:48.769 --> 00:40:49.349
What do we do?
936
00:40:50.230 --> 00:40:54.260
And, uh, and, and I had the idea of, okay,
937
00:40:54.300 --> 00:40:57.239
well then how about the character decides to shave his
938
00:40:57.280 --> 00:40:59.480
head because he's sick of the hair because he's a werewolf,
939
00:40:59.920 --> 00:41:00.860
but it keeps growing back.
940
00:41:01.190 --> 00:41:01.469
Yeah.
941
00:41:01.710 --> 00:41:05.510
And so that he would he would then that was
942
00:41:05.550 --> 00:41:06.690
the way to solve that problem.
943
00:41:06.730 --> 00:41:08.030
And then and then it just made.
944
00:41:07.929 --> 00:41:10.130
It is a great example of like, how do you
945
00:41:10.389 --> 00:41:12.389
sort of find this meeting in the middle that comes
946
00:41:12.469 --> 00:41:16.150
out with a better result, hopefully, than what either individual
947
00:41:16.190 --> 00:41:16.570
would have been.
948
00:41:16.869 --> 00:41:18.690
Very Claudia, an interview with a vampire.
949
00:41:18.710 --> 00:41:24.800
She's like, which one of you did it? So I
950
00:41:24.820 --> 00:41:26.340
know I don't want to put the cart before the horse,
951
00:41:26.489 --> 00:41:29.239
but this movie ends in a way that is perfect.
952
00:41:29.300 --> 00:41:33.570
I think it's great. And I know that it's really
953
00:41:33.630 --> 00:41:36.369
early days, but is there any interest on your part
954
00:41:36.659 --> 00:41:38.219
of maybe continuing the story?
955
00:41:38.739 --> 00:41:39.000
Yeah.
956
00:41:39.340 --> 00:41:39.579
Yeah.
957
00:41:39.780 --> 00:41:43.880
I mean, I don't know that I would do like,
958
00:41:43.900 --> 00:41:45.719
I don't know what you would do. I think it'd
959
00:41:45.760 --> 00:41:50.889
be really hard to do the same thing twice because now,
960
00:41:50.949 --> 00:41:51.190
you know.
961
00:41:51.210 --> 00:41:53.349
You're in a werewolf movie. So it's like, what, what
962
00:41:53.389 --> 00:41:53.889
do you do?
963
00:41:54.110 --> 00:41:57.300
And, and, you know, if this was the, 80s and
964
00:41:57.320 --> 00:41:59.199
we're just trying to crank out sequels you probably have
965
00:41:59.239 --> 00:42:01.320
the whole body farm start to come back from the
966
00:42:01.360 --> 00:42:01.760
dead or.
967
00:42:01.719 --> 00:42:05.099
You would get ridiculous.
968
00:42:04.510 --> 00:42:06.670
But then you're just switching tones and I don't know
969
00:42:06.730 --> 00:42:08.389
if I could wrap my head around like how you
970
00:42:08.409 --> 00:42:11.309
would do that and justify that but the idea is
971
00:42:11.429 --> 00:42:12.840
I think there's a few things that I think would
972
00:42:12.860 --> 00:42:15.289
be really cool we have a whole sort of prequel
973
00:42:15.369 --> 00:42:18.329
origin story of the werewolf that came he hints at
974
00:42:18.369 --> 00:42:19.670
it in his final tape over the.
975
00:42:19.610 --> 00:42:23.059
Few credits i love that it's over the credits if
976
00:42:23.079 --> 00:42:24.800
this was in the theater i'd be yelling at people
977
00:42:24.840 --> 00:42:26.139
sit down sit down listen.
978
00:42:28.019 --> 00:42:29.880
Yeah thank you that i thought that was kind of
979
00:42:29.920 --> 00:42:31.739
a cool way to sort of close out the movie
980
00:42:31.780 --> 00:42:34.050
with his the final thing you hear of him was
981
00:42:34.090 --> 00:42:36.849
the first tape that he ever made and yeah yeah
982
00:42:37.420 --> 00:42:40.639
But he talks about how this boat was trans this
983
00:42:40.699 --> 00:42:42.579
boat hit the oil rig that he was working on.
984
00:42:42.639 --> 00:42:45.219
He went down to investigate something in this cage, clawed
985
00:42:45.260 --> 00:42:48.400
him in, in that boat, you know, sank to.
986
00:42:48.340 --> 00:42:49.139
The bottom of the ocean.
987
00:42:49.219 --> 00:42:52.389
So we love the idea of exploring what that original
988
00:42:52.409 --> 00:42:55.489
werewolf was in this boat so that we could double
989
00:42:55.530 --> 00:42:57.409
down on the aquatic werewolf story.
990
00:42:57.829 --> 00:42:58.610
So you could do that.
991
00:42:59.550 --> 00:43:02.050
You could do, I think a TV series about the
992
00:43:02.090 --> 00:43:04.349
trials of Peter stump and all of the things he
993
00:43:04.409 --> 00:43:07.929
went through each, each week. And you still get Werewolf
994
00:43:07.949 --> 00:43:10.050
because he's in there, but then all the people he
995
00:43:10.090 --> 00:43:13.989
would have interacted with in this underbelly of sort of X-Files,
996
00:43:14.050 --> 00:43:15.130
Supernatural kind of guys.
997
00:43:15.590 --> 00:43:16.309
Wow.
998
00:43:16.630 --> 00:43:18.449
And then the other thing that I would be kind
999
00:43:18.489 --> 00:43:20.449
of interested in, I don't know where it would go yet,
1000
00:43:20.530 --> 00:43:23.199
but I like the idea of seeing a time jump
1001
00:43:23.260 --> 00:43:25.739
in Meg's life like 20, 30 years later, and she
1002
00:43:25.760 --> 00:43:28.550
has not figured this out. And she is about to
1003
00:43:28.639 --> 00:43:32.239
quit herself, just like her dad. And Mark's Jeffrey Donovan
1004
00:43:32.260 --> 00:43:35.880
is not around anymore. The cage is being overgrown. And like,
1005
00:43:36.000 --> 00:43:38.000
I like the idea of like, where would that character,
1006
00:43:38.039 --> 00:43:41.460
what would happen when that character is about to quit themselves? Yeah.
1007
00:43:41.659 --> 00:43:42.099
Yeah.
1008
00:43:42.420 --> 00:43:43.579
Can you make all of these tomorrow?
1009
00:43:43.860 --> 00:43:44.079
I know.
1010
00:43:44.139 --> 00:43:45.889
I'm like, this all sounds really good.
1011
00:43:46.219 --> 00:43:46.730
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1012
00:43:46.789 --> 00:43:47.030
Yeah.
1013
00:43:47.909 --> 00:43:51.070
I just like all the stuff going on in that basement.
1014
00:43:51.230 --> 00:43:54.150
Like him putting together the cage, putting together the door,
1015
00:43:54.230 --> 00:43:55.110
having to be doing all.
1016
00:43:55.050 --> 00:43:56.429
The different tests and stuff. Like I would watch a
1017
00:43:56.449 --> 00:43:58.389
whole thing on that. So that's great.
1018
00:43:58.409 --> 00:43:59.010
That's great.
1019
00:43:59.550 --> 00:44:02.500
So I think like I sequels are, I'm not opposed
1020
00:44:02.539 --> 00:44:04.280
to sequels or remakes or any of that thing. It's
1021
00:44:04.300 --> 00:44:07.000
just like, but I don't like being repetitive. So I
1022
00:44:07.039 --> 00:44:10.320
think I understand that, you know, which is the tough conundrum,
1023
00:44:10.340 --> 00:44:13.179
because I think oftentimes fans, like you want, you want
1024
00:44:13.219 --> 00:44:16.139
that comfort blanket of like, oh yeah, but that's, I
1025
00:44:16.300 --> 00:44:18.250
want to watch the sequel because I liked the first one.
1026
00:44:18.269 --> 00:44:20.250
I just kind of want the same thing, but slightly different.
1027
00:44:20.269 --> 00:44:22.489
But then from the filmmaker's perspective, you're like, yeah, but
1028
00:44:23.190 --> 00:44:24.889
We just did that. And it's kind of hard to
1029
00:44:25.159 --> 00:44:28.280
do another four years of that is you want to
1030
00:44:28.300 --> 00:44:31.260
challenge yourself. So I think those three examples are ways
1031
00:44:31.300 --> 00:44:34.099
of like cycle-esque sequels without.
1032
00:44:33.860 --> 00:44:37.590
It being like, you know, picking up two minutes after
1033
00:44:37.610 --> 00:44:38.250
where this one ends.
1034
00:44:38.389 --> 00:44:40.409
I think it just speaks to how imaginative you are, man.
1035
00:44:40.469 --> 00:44:43.369
Like those ideas are all great pitches and not at
1036
00:44:43.469 --> 00:44:45.809
all what I would first think of when I think of, oh, yeah,
1037
00:44:45.829 --> 00:44:47.949
sequel to the cycle, you know, sort of ideas. but
1038
00:44:47.969 --> 00:44:49.829
in a way that feels satisfying and not just, Oh,
1039
00:44:49.849 --> 00:44:52.329
they're just changing, changing things and doing different, something different.
1040
00:44:52.369 --> 00:44:54.889
Like it really does feel like an extension of the experience.
1041
00:44:55.900 --> 00:44:57.760
Well, what would you guys want out of like, what
1042
00:44:57.780 --> 00:44:58.719
would you expect?
1043
00:44:58.800 --> 00:45:01.000
If you, someone said cycle two is announced, what would
1044
00:45:01.079 --> 00:45:03.039
you think like you would want as an audience?
1045
00:45:03.400 --> 00:45:04.559
I would want the prequel.
1046
00:45:04.619 --> 00:45:06.780
I would want to kind of know how it all started.
1047
00:45:06.800 --> 00:45:10.260
Cause it's such an interesting werewolf, you know, just to
1048
00:45:10.320 --> 00:45:13.369
have like the dead body to, to physically also be dead,
1049
00:45:13.389 --> 00:45:15.889
you know, everything be decomposing in its own weird way,
1050
00:45:16.050 --> 00:45:18.579
but yet, when the moon comes up, you still turn.
1051
00:45:18.920 --> 00:45:19.639
I think that's crazy.
1052
00:45:19.739 --> 00:45:20.440
Yeah. Yeah.
1053
00:45:20.559 --> 00:45:22.219
And I want to know more about that.
1054
00:45:22.519 --> 00:45:26.300
Yeah. I think as long as you are somehow very involved,
1055
00:45:26.780 --> 00:45:27.159
I'll be there.
1056
00:45:28.070 --> 00:45:28.300
Yeah.
1057
00:45:28.320 --> 00:45:28.949
With bells on.
1058
00:45:29.070 --> 00:45:31.789
Yeah, absolutely. So we do have to wrap, but we'll
1059
00:45:31.809 --> 00:45:34.369
just give our quick recommendations at the end here. Mine
1060
00:45:34.429 --> 00:45:36.610
is the monster squad, just because that was the first
1061
00:45:36.650 --> 00:45:39.889
time I saw a werewolf, not just traditional werewolf in
1062
00:45:39.909 --> 00:45:41.809
terms of he's cursed and all that, but also when
1063
00:45:41.829 --> 00:45:44.070
he gets blown apart and his body parts, you know,
1064
00:45:44.389 --> 00:45:47.010
get sucked back in, he's back to life. And that
1065
00:45:47.030 --> 00:45:49.780
watching the cycle felt to me like, oh, wow, how
1066
00:45:49.820 --> 00:45:52.440
do you kill this guy? And so I feel like
1067
00:45:52.559 --> 00:45:54.980
if you're a werewolf fan, it's a neat thing to see. Like, yeah,
1068
00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:57.300
this is an early idea of like how many different
1069
00:45:57.320 --> 00:45:58.949
things we could do with the werewolf mythos, but still
1070
00:45:58.969 --> 00:46:00.849
keep it kind of traditional. And the cycle is the
1071
00:46:00.889 --> 00:46:01.969
latest iteration of that, I feel.
1072
00:46:02.340 --> 00:46:03.619
I would go with Ginger Snaps.
1073
00:46:03.940 --> 00:46:08.039
I just really love the brutality in that, the transformation,
1074
00:46:08.079 --> 00:46:09.880
what it kind of stands for. It's a little different
1075
00:46:09.900 --> 00:46:12.670
than other werewolf movies, the female agenda with it.
1076
00:46:13.139 --> 00:46:15.199
It could also be a queer representation.
1077
00:46:15.340 --> 00:46:17.420
You know, it really talked to a lot of people
1078
00:46:17.480 --> 00:46:20.119
on a different level and had that like 90s grungy feel.
1079
00:46:20.760 --> 00:46:22.570
And with the practical effects, I really liked it. I
1080
00:46:22.590 --> 00:46:24.269
think the two of these would be really fun together.
1081
00:46:24.289 --> 00:46:24.849
Yeah.
1082
00:46:25.909 --> 00:46:26.630
Those are both great.
1083
00:46:27.449 --> 00:46:31.010
Yeah, like I said earlier, I've always changed up the answer,
1084
00:46:31.050 --> 00:46:33.409
but Bill, you just inspired me to do one that
1085
00:46:33.449 --> 00:46:34.630
I have not mentioned yet, which.
1086
00:46:34.550 --> 00:46:35.219
Is wax work.
1087
00:46:35.679 --> 00:46:39.320
Oh, because it has that great werewolf scene out in
1088
00:46:39.360 --> 00:46:40.039
the barn.
1089
00:46:40.119 --> 00:46:40.579
Yeah.
1090
00:46:40.900 --> 00:46:43.199
And that one, like some of those that was one
1091
00:46:43.239 --> 00:46:46.059
of those werewolf. It's not a werewolf movie, but, you know,
1092
00:46:46.139 --> 00:46:49.659
just like Monster Squad, a werewolf in a horror movie
1093
00:46:50.139 --> 00:46:53.900
that was seared into my mind in in that in
1094
00:46:53.920 --> 00:46:54.920
that one cabin sequence.
1095
00:46:54.960 --> 00:46:56.800
So that's great. Yeah.
1096
00:46:56.820 --> 00:46:59.579
That's awesome. Let's go. Jordan, we have to go, but
1097
00:46:59.699 --> 00:47:01.349
thank you so much for doing this today, man. It
1098
00:47:01.369 --> 00:47:03.389
was really special. It was such a treat. Thank you.
1099
00:47:03.469 --> 00:47:05.849
Being so open with your process and we wish you
1100
00:47:05.869 --> 00:47:08.030
all the best on this release. We hope people love
1101
00:47:08.050 --> 00:47:08.650
it as much as we do.
1102
00:47:08.869 --> 00:47:10.630
Well, thank you both. I'd do this anytime.
1103
00:47:10.670 --> 00:47:14.219
You guys are a blast to talk to and I
1104
00:47:14.260 --> 00:47:15.639
really appreciate it. Yeah.
1105
00:47:15.659 --> 00:47:17.199
You should be very proud of this film and I
1106
00:47:17.239 --> 00:47:20.500
cannot wait. I cannot wait to see. Everybody else is
1107
00:47:20.519 --> 00:47:21.800
going to love it too. Don't even worry about it.
1108
00:47:21.800 --> 00:47:24.039
Well, thank you.
1109
00:47:24.059 --> 00:47:24.280
All right.
1110
00:47:34.760 --> 00:47:36.360
Thank you all for joining us for this episode of
1111
00:47:36.400 --> 00:47:40.900
Bill and Ashley's Terror Theater. Part of the Stranded Panda Network.
1112
00:47:41.019 --> 00:47:42.659
You can find my work in the show notes links below.
1113
00:47:43.119 --> 00:47:44.570
Check us out on social media. You can find this
1114
00:47:44.610 --> 00:47:47.010
show at strandedpanda.com and everywhere else you get your podcasts.
1115
00:47:47.389 --> 00:47:50.449
Join our Patreon at patreon.com slash billandashterrortheater. If you have
1116
00:47:50.489 --> 00:47:52.130
questions or comments, please feel free to write to us
1117
00:47:52.210 --> 00:47:55.489
at billandashterortheater at gmail.com. We're dying to hear from you.
1118
00:47:55.739 --> 00:47:56.679
See you in your nightmares.
1119
00:47:56.699 --> 00:47:56.769
Bye.
1
00:00:27.550 --> 00:00:31.030
Welcome to another horrifying special interview episode of Bill and
2
00:00:31.109 --> 00:00:35.130
Ashley's Terror Theater. Today, we are honored to be joined
3
00:00:35.149 --> 00:00:38.039
by Jordan Downey to discuss his new film, The Cycle.
4
00:00:38.280 --> 00:00:40.299
All that after these ads we have no control over.
5
00:00:41.210 --> 00:00:41.729
Welcome back.
6
00:00:41.789 --> 00:00:44.909
I'm Ashley Coffin, joined as always by my co-host in terror,
7
00:00:44.990 --> 00:00:45.670
Bill Bria.
8
00:00:45.770 --> 00:00:47.100
Bill, darling, how are we today?
9
00:00:47.420 --> 00:00:49.759
I'm feeling a little hairy today, Ash, but in a
10
00:00:49.759 --> 00:00:50.100
good way.
11
00:00:50.539 --> 00:00:51.380
Coming through my cycle.
12
00:00:51.500 --> 00:00:51.640
No.
13
00:00:51.719 --> 00:00:56.539
Well, that's okay. You're doing good. We are honored to
14
00:00:56.600 --> 00:01:02.009
be joined by filmmaker, director, co-writer, bon vivant, if I
15
00:01:02.030 --> 00:01:04.590
do say so myself. I don't know him. It's Jordan Downey.
16
00:01:05.079 --> 00:01:06.109
Say hello, Jordan.
17
00:01:06.159 --> 00:01:06.329
Hello.
18
00:01:06.590 --> 00:01:08.379
Thank you guys for having me. Really appreciate it.
19
00:01:08.400 --> 00:01:11.719
Thank you so much for being here. Loved this film.
20
00:01:11.799 --> 00:01:13.019
I'm a big fan of Deborah M.
21
00:01:13.019 --> 00:01:13.319
Wills.
22
00:01:13.500 --> 00:01:16.459
I've watched True Blood. My other show is Marvel. So
23
00:01:16.579 --> 00:01:18.920
I've been following Daredevil forever. And it was really good
24
00:01:19.060 --> 00:01:20.980
to see her kind of going back to her little
25
00:01:21.019 --> 00:01:23.680
horror roots here. So I was very excited. I went
26
00:01:23.719 --> 00:01:26.730
in completely blind and I was really blown away.
27
00:01:26.969 --> 00:01:29.189
Yeah, no, it's really cool. So we were thinking we
28
00:01:29.230 --> 00:01:30.989
were going to generally discuss things and then we might
29
00:01:31.030 --> 00:01:32.709
give a spoiler warning for the listener so we can
30
00:01:32.750 --> 00:01:35.590
really you know, get into certain things in the, in
31
00:01:35.609 --> 00:01:37.950
the back half. But before we even get into the film,
32
00:01:38.549 --> 00:01:40.530
one thing we always ask our guests, especially if they're
33
00:01:40.549 --> 00:01:43.810
a first timer is what your earliest memory is of
34
00:01:44.230 --> 00:01:46.290
the horror genre for yourself. What really made you a
35
00:01:46.310 --> 00:01:47.329
horror fan? Would you say?
36
00:01:48.849 --> 00:01:52.250
My older brother, Mike, he was a producer on cycle
37
00:01:52.280 --> 00:01:54.719
as well. He he's 10 years older than me. So
38
00:01:54.739 --> 00:01:57.780
he had already sort of, you know, formed his, his
39
00:01:57.840 --> 00:02:00.900
interest in horror and his collection of, of horror VHS
40
00:02:00.920 --> 00:02:04.150
tapes and posters and things like that. So my first
41
00:02:04.209 --> 00:02:06.969
memories of the horror genre are going into his room
42
00:02:07.049 --> 00:02:09.360
and seeing his collection of all the movies that he
43
00:02:09.419 --> 00:02:13.080
would– he would tape stuff off of TV for anyone
44
00:02:13.120 --> 00:02:16.400
too young to remember. You could actually record on a
45
00:02:16.460 --> 00:02:20.159
VHS tape. And so he'd have like random– and it
46
00:02:20.180 --> 00:02:21.860
would be whatever. It would be like Field of Dreams,
47
00:02:22.080 --> 00:02:23.539
Friday the 13th, Part 2. Yeah.
48
00:02:26.240 --> 00:02:26.719
Exactly.
49
00:02:27.039 --> 00:02:30.189
And you get the great like little interlude, the little.
50
00:02:30.030 --> 00:02:32.590
Commercials of coming up next on TNT and Joe Bob
51
00:02:32.629 --> 00:02:36.949
and like so all of that kind of retro vintage
52
00:02:37.210 --> 00:02:39.180
TV was a big part of it.
53
00:02:39.689 --> 00:02:40.569
And he would clip out.
54
00:02:41.229 --> 00:02:44.870
Posters from the local newspaper and so there'd be full-size
55
00:02:44.990 --> 00:02:45.770
print ads.
56
00:02:45.650 --> 00:02:48.219
Of critters or whatever hell yeah.
57
00:02:48.289 --> 00:02:50.099
So he had this scrapbook and i still have it
58
00:02:50.319 --> 00:02:52.879
and uh it's it's amazing and it's filled with just
59
00:02:53.060 --> 00:02:55.300
like things that he would be like there's this one
60
00:02:55.340 --> 00:02:57.680
image that's seared into my mind of stan winston standing
61
00:02:57.740 --> 00:03:01.379
around all of his the predator and and in terminator
62
00:03:01.500 --> 00:03:04.409
and there was um invaders from mars like this big
63
00:03:04.590 --> 00:03:07.800
you know meatball looking monster head um So it was
64
00:03:07.819 --> 00:03:10.860
kind of like I came at it through just that.
65
00:03:10.900 --> 00:03:13.639
Like I didn't, I can't remember a time where I
66
00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:16.280
didn't have exposure to horror films, to be honest with
67
00:03:16.300 --> 00:03:16.599
you guys.
68
00:03:16.840 --> 00:03:17.080
Yeah.
69
00:03:17.219 --> 00:03:18.479
I mean, it comes through too.
70
00:03:19.039 --> 00:03:23.460
Stork on VHS Beyond was absolutely my favorite segment of
71
00:03:23.539 --> 00:03:24.680
that whole movie.
72
00:03:24.819 --> 00:03:25.879
It was so good.
73
00:03:25.919 --> 00:03:34.460
And I got very excited when I was like, I'm.
74
00:03:31.219 --> 00:03:33.469
So proud of Cycle, but Stork's my favorite thing that
75
00:03:33.490 --> 00:03:34.909
I've ever done. Really?
76
00:03:35.150 --> 00:03:35.849
I understand that.
77
00:03:36.300 --> 00:03:38.699
I often tell anyone who will listen that this dork
78
00:03:39.259 --> 00:03:41.000
is a close personal friend of mine. Just, you know,
79
00:03:41.199 --> 00:03:42.159
I don't want to I don't want to talk out
80
00:03:42.180 --> 00:03:44.639
of school. So, you know, if he's mad about that, please,
81
00:03:45.189 --> 00:03:49.110
my apologies to him. But your early love of horror,
82
00:03:49.169 --> 00:03:51.509
as you're just describing, in terms of, you know, having
83
00:03:51.550 --> 00:03:53.590
an exposure to it, as so many of us, you know,
84
00:03:53.849 --> 00:03:56.689
dyed in the wool horror fans do. Was that instrumental
85
00:03:56.729 --> 00:03:59.490
in leading to your filmmaking journey? Was it something that
86
00:03:59.530 --> 00:04:01.430
really was inspiring you to get into the business?
87
00:04:01.770 --> 00:04:02.030
Yeah.
88
00:04:02.129 --> 00:04:05.189
I mean, there wasn't like I don't remember exactly when
89
00:04:05.919 --> 00:04:09.319
I sort of decided to take that transition from watching
90
00:04:09.560 --> 00:04:11.979
movies to wanting to make them because we didn't have
91
00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:12.259
like a.
92
00:04:12.240 --> 00:04:14.520
Camcorder growing up. This is pre iPhone.
93
00:04:14.560 --> 00:04:17.589
So like getting making a movie was near impossible at
94
00:04:17.610 --> 00:04:20.529
that time if you didn't have a camera. So I
95
00:04:20.550 --> 00:04:23.319
didn't really have exposure to that until a certain point.
96
00:04:23.339 --> 00:04:25.959
But I definitely noticed that I was paying attention to
97
00:04:25.980 --> 00:04:28.720
the credits at a pretty early age and these names
98
00:04:28.759 --> 00:04:31.120
and production companies and the logos that I would start
99
00:04:31.290 --> 00:04:33.990
to see pop up. And kind of that gave me
100
00:04:34.050 --> 00:04:35.750
confidence that I was going to get a certain kind
101
00:04:35.790 --> 00:04:39.009
of movie. And, you know, I would seek out, you know,
102
00:04:39.029 --> 00:04:41.089
Charles Band movies because I liked Full Moon Pictures and
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I liked the logo of the Batman.
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Me too.
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Oh, yeah.
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Subspecies is like my favorite.
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Oh, yes.
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I mean, that was like, I would make a beeline straight.
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Anders Hov.
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I actually tried to reach out to him to be
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in a student film of mine because, well, because he's
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in Critters 4 as well.
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Critters is my favorite, my favorite movie.
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And favorite franchise. We could do a whole podcast on
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just Critters.
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Hey, you know, 40th anniversary this.
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Year, right? Yeah. It is.
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I know it is 1986.
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It came out a month before I was born. So
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I've been like tied at the hip to that movie.
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So where were we got off the track?
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Yeah, we were just getting into, you know, what started
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you on the filmmaking journey, you know? Oh, right.
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Well, so then what I do remember is there was
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a time I spent, I like did a hangout sleepover
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with some friends of mine and they had a camcorder
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and we shot like a little home movie that night.
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And I was probably in middle school or like early
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high school at this point. So I was already obsessed
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with movies, but making them wasn't really an option. And
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when we did that, made that little home movie just
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over the course of one night, stayed up all night.
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I was like, oh, my God.
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And the next day I was I had to find
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a way to get a camera. And so then I
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my grandma was having a garage sale and I sold,
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I think, my Super Nintendo and. other random things so
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that I could get, I think it was $ 220 to
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go to Best Buy and buy a high eight with
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eight millimeter digital, eight millimeter camcorder and, uh, bought that
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thing and just started making movies constantly every weekend.
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And they were usually horror films. Then it was like
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whatever I could buy.
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Like I had, I did a lot of stuff with
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like a scream mask because Scary movie was popular. Scream
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was popular. And I could buy that mask at the
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Halloween store.
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Oh, yeah.
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So then that, you know, then there was probably five
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years of that.
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And then eventually just escalated to thinking, OK, is this
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all I want to do with.
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The rest of my life?
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Oh, yeah. I love that. One thing that I'm really
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taken with by your work, especially so far, is like
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you seem to be one of these guys who obviously
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comes up, you know, being a lover of genre and
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also the horror genre in particular. And then really seems
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to be able to connect that with some really unique
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and innovative ideas. I mean, nobody would make the Thanksgiving
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movies if they were just a general horror fan. You know,
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this feels like somebody who really kind of gets it.
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And then I think through Stork and through certainly the cycle,
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you know, your imbibing of the genre really seems to
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be incisive. Was that something that you always had like
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a creative voice inside you to sort of You know,
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get out there. Was that something you defined or?
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I think kind of what you're getting at is like
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I'm always trying to look at what doesn't exist in
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the horror.
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Right. In the horror genre.
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And it's just like I would have wanted that when
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I was a kid going to the store to rent
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a movie. I was looking for the thing that was
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the most unique thing that I could find. oftentimes the
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covers of the 1980s and 90s, especially would be better
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than the movies themselves sometimes. Um, and, but you, you know,
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I'd always get hooked by that. So like Thanksgiving was
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the first example of this, where we had the goal
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simply of make a feature film, which in college at 19,
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20 years old, you know, when that's, when we were
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coming up with it, um, we, that was a huge
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challenge because we were just making short films and we
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were watching our peers spend a ton of money making
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these short films. And we just thought, making a feature
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was like the ultimate goal, but we immediately then reverted
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back to, okay, well, if we're going to do it,
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what would get distribution? What would end up on the
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shelves of, of a video store, which blockbuster was still.
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Barely hanging on at that time.
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Um, and, and I knew that because like, we're talking
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about subspecies and Charles band and full moon. Like I
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knew that the movies I rented is Jack Frost and
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uncle Sam and, Um, in the leprechaun films and child plays,
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I knew that if you put a talking puppet on
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the cover, you're going to sell that and that people
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would rent it. And it's what I would have wanted.
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And so we just thought, well, what's the, the, the
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puppet or the holiday that hadn't been done Thanksgiving. So
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point is that a kind of everything, including the cycle,
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like we'll come up with, I'm always coming up with ideas.
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I have a notes document, an iPhone that's filled with stuff,
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but I'll never make most of them. The ones that
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we end up sort of getting obsessed about making are
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the things that feel like don't exist and that no
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one else is doing. And then I feel a certain
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like excitement and responsibility, I suppose, to sort of make
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that happen and to sort of be the one to
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do something different and unique.
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Yeah.
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When you were thinking about this idea, when did you
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decide that you wanted it to kind of be a
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genre switch movie? Because it does feel like such a
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really grounded crime investigated movie. And then it turns into
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a supernatural horror without feeling like two unrelated films. And
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I mean, you had me going back and forth with
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what I thought was going on. And then when I finally,
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like when I got it, like, I don't know, towards
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the end, I was like, yes, because it's my favorite
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style of movie. We'll get there later. But I just
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thought you did a really good job with the genre switch.
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Was that a plan from the beginning?
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Well, I mean, we can get into the deep dive
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of it when we switch to our spoilery half of
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this conversation, but the spoiler of the film was the
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initial idea. That hook, that concept is what sold us
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on this is such a cool story we should we
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should turn this into a film um but it was
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always it always felt appropriate that you would put that
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idea into a into a crime procedural and i grew
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up i love the x-files like every sunday night you
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know go to the tv we'd sit around as a
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family watch the x-files I love David Fincher's work. I
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love True Detective, all of these things. But one thing
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that would sort of frustrate me at times through some
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of the crime procedurals, and the 90s were loaded with them,
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like Stir of Echo. I mean, Fallen, like Denzel was
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in like 10 of them.
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Oh, yeah.
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You go all the way back to Angel Heart in
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the late 70s. Right, oh, God, Angel Heart. Yeah, and
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it really started that trend.
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And I watched all of those and loved them all.
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But the one thing that none of them really ever
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did that I always kind of wished Is that like
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to your point, actually, that they would make a shift.
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They would always tease it, something coming. And then it's like,
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it's just a guy and it's a serial killer.
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He's a ghost.
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I always wanted it to go into like full 80s
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creature feature territory. So I think when we had this
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concept for Cycle, we thought, well, here's our opportunity to
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sort of do that thing that we always wanted, where
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you lean hard into the horror in the back half. Yeah.
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I was so impressed with the effects. I'm a practical horror.
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Like I will judge movies pretty hard when they go into,
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you know, the CGI effects. It kind of takes me
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out of it. This was so well done. Gushy is
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the word I kept using. It felt very gushy.
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But yeah, to your point, Jordan, like I had the
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same experience watching this for the first time as well,
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where I could see the X-Files in it in a
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big way. I mean, the Pacific Northwest kind of vibe
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and setting, like you're always going to be related to
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that too. But I do definitely feel in, in like,
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I felt like you, the filmmaker communicating to me like, Hey,
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I've seen the X-Files too. I know a lot of
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those episodes tended to end with, uh, in conclusion where
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it's like, you know, we, we think this guy might've
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been a creature, but we don't really see much, you know,
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maybe he was, maybe he wasn't sort of idea. And
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this really feels like, well, now we're going to show
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it to you now. Um, but, uh, but yeah, it
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doesn't work without the groundedness that you give that first
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half or two thirds, however long. Uh, and so was
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that something that really helped you, uh, you know, get
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this movie made, get it financed, get a cast, you know,
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because you have a fantastic cast, obviously starting with Debra,
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you know, was that sort of helping people sort of
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get into the vibe of like, yes, it's a creature
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feature eventually, but it also has like a real grounding in,
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you know, all this procedure and all this character and
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all that sort of thing.
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Yeah, I think so.
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I think there, I mean, there was never like a
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specific mandate because we sort of, we, when I pitched
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it originally to James Harris, who produced the film, he,
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his initial instinct, when I told him the concept, he said,
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withhold that that twist as long as possible. So right
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from before we even wrote a single line of, of
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a treatment or an outline for this film, that was
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the goal. That was the goal is to, to stretch
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it as long as you could right up to the
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breaking point and then make the, make the shift. And, uh, I,
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I think, I mean, you know, without, I think just
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from talking to Deborah and Jeffrey, yes, that makes a
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big difference because they're both huge fans of Jaws and, And, and,
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and of that belief that, you know, you don't show the,
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don't show the shark too soon, but how cool is
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it that you're in a shark movie in the case
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of cycle, you're in a shark movie, but you don't
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know you're in a shark movie. Um, so it's kind of,
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it was a very strange thing. There's not, there weren't
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a lot of references for us to look at of
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like what kind of monster movies have been made where
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you don't know you're watching that monster movie until a
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certain point. And what does that do to the viewing experience? Um,
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And we're about to find out, you know, as, as
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people get ahold of the cycle, but, but yeah, I
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think that, I think for, from the actor's standpoint for
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them to know that it's, they're coming into this supernatural
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situation with such grounded, developed characters by that point in time,
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that then it makes those, those heightened moments even more fun.
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And they weren't afraid of the W word or any
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of the, that, that, that aspect of the movie, because
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I think they felt that it was so earned and
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so interesting and ultimately just compelling that you don't know
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what's coming. And it's a mystery, but the mystery leads
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into something that belongs on Shudder instead of other places.
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sort of distributors and platforms.
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Well, and then the horrors that you had just in
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the first half, family trauma, everybody's, you know, you got it,
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you have it, that's its own thing. But the horror
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of the body, like forensic anthropology, decomposition, you know, remains,
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it's all.
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Unsettling as it is.
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And the way that you really shot a lot of
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the scenes were so cool because it looks so real.
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I honestly felt like I was learning a lot. I
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was like, oh, wow, maggots don't, you know, grow on
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stuff that's not actually dead. But I wasn't putting it together.
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Like I was like trying to make a list. I'm like,
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where are we going with this? This is all very
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fascinating and it felt very real.
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Yeah.
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Well, that, I mean, that comes from a lot of research.
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We just, we've, we've, immediately started buying and reading forensic
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anthropology books and learning about the body farm and learning
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about that field i would while reading that then i'm
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listening to podcast there was a podcast called the absent
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father podcast which you know is it's heartbreaking and it
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gets dark at times to hear some people's stories but
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i wanted to sort of understand a little bit about
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what it would have been like to have had a
345
00:15:17.820 --> 00:15:19.879
father leave or not be a part of your life
346
00:15:19.919 --> 00:15:23.389
at a young age um so it We did a
347
00:15:23.409 --> 00:15:25.929
lot of research to try and make it feel as
348
00:15:26.009 --> 00:15:29.289
authentic as possible. And the reason for that was, one,
349
00:15:29.330 --> 00:15:32.129
just it feels like that I want to buy into
350
00:15:32.169 --> 00:15:35.309
the movie fully because I believe the characters believe what
351
00:15:35.330 --> 00:15:40.509
they're going through. And also the more professional and more
352
00:15:40.529 --> 00:15:43.600
of an expert you can build up Deborah's character, especially
353
00:15:44.120 --> 00:15:46.600
the more of a shift it'll be when that character
354
00:15:46.679 --> 00:15:50.080
cannot figure something out because this defies all logic and
355
00:15:50.120 --> 00:15:54.039
science that she's used to. So, yeah, I'm glad that
356
00:15:54.159 --> 00:15:57.750
I'm glad that it feels like that. Hopefully, you know,
357
00:15:57.769 --> 00:16:00.789
the trick was then never writing it to be too
358
00:16:00.850 --> 00:16:03.789
complex so that you couldn't just enjoy the viewing experience
359
00:16:03.850 --> 00:16:06.549
because you're being hit with terminology and things that are
360
00:16:06.590 --> 00:16:07.269
going over your head.
361
00:16:07.330 --> 00:16:08.210
So hopefully it was like.
362
00:16:09.049 --> 00:16:10.570
That's good to hear that you feel like you were
363
00:16:10.610 --> 00:16:12.509
learning a little bit, but you weren't sort of taken
364
00:16:12.570 --> 00:16:14.690
out of the movie because you weren't being asked to
365
00:16:14.730 --> 00:16:15.529
be a participant.
366
00:16:15.929 --> 00:16:18.129
Right. And I do understand the, uh, the care that
367
00:16:18.149 --> 00:16:21.059
you were taking with Debra's character, because I, I never
368
00:16:21.080 --> 00:16:23.840
knew my father and I really felt very close to
369
00:16:23.919 --> 00:16:25.840
her going through it. Cause I would have, I felt
370
00:16:25.860 --> 00:16:27.679
the same way. Like, I don't care about this. I
371
00:16:27.679 --> 00:16:28.779
don't want to be involved with this. I don't want
372
00:16:28.820 --> 00:16:31.220
anything to do with this. And then after a couple
373
00:16:31.240 --> 00:16:32.179
of days, you're like, of course I want.
374
00:16:32.120 --> 00:16:33.840
To be involved with this. I have to figure this out,
375
00:16:33.879 --> 00:16:37.129
you know? So I did, um, really enjoy what she
376
00:16:37.169 --> 00:16:37.610
was doing.
377
00:16:37.649 --> 00:16:40.769
And she, it's so good to see her doing something
378
00:16:40.789 --> 00:16:43.009
and being like the lead of, of a movie.
379
00:16:43.110 --> 00:16:44.710
Cause I know, you know, she has the talent. She's
380
00:16:44.730 --> 00:16:46.110
like our queen. I play D and D too. I
381
00:16:46.129 --> 00:16:52.360
love her so much. Um, the cinematography, did Kevin Stewart
382
00:16:52.399 --> 00:16:53.299
co-wrote this with you?
383
00:16:53.639 --> 00:16:53.940
Yeah.
384
00:16:53.960 --> 00:16:56.480
So Kevin and I are pretty much filmmaking partners through
385
00:16:56.940 --> 00:16:58.139
all projects.
386
00:16:58.220 --> 00:17:00.519
Yeah. We've been, do you find it's really helpful to
387
00:17:00.580 --> 00:17:04.119
have someone to write with and go like having a
388
00:17:04.160 --> 00:17:05.799
partner versus writing something by yourself?
389
00:17:06.210 --> 00:17:06.869
Yeah, it is.
390
00:17:06.890 --> 00:17:08.950
Uh, I mean, well, like in the case of us,
391
00:17:08.990 --> 00:17:11.150
we just have such shared taste. Like he grew up
392
00:17:11.190 --> 00:17:13.430
in Portugal. I grew up in Ohio, so we couldn't
393
00:17:13.450 --> 00:17:18.000
have been further apart geographically, but he was having a
394
00:17:18.220 --> 00:17:20.779
mirrored experience that I described in my own childhood of
395
00:17:20.819 --> 00:17:24.140
watching and renting horror movies and gravitating towards that kind
396
00:17:24.180 --> 00:17:27.400
of thing. Um, so we just always, we just clicked
397
00:17:27.440 --> 00:17:29.680
in college in film school and we're two of the
398
00:17:29.720 --> 00:17:31.750
people that were constantly just wanting to be on set,
399
00:17:31.809 --> 00:17:35.339
working on student films. And then that really formulated with
400
00:17:35.400 --> 00:17:37.619
a short film in college. And then of course, thanks killing.
401
00:17:38.359 --> 00:17:40.160
But yeah, it makes, it makes a big difference because,
402
00:17:40.940 --> 00:17:43.769
you know, we're here talking, celebrating the fun part of a,
403
00:17:43.920 --> 00:17:45.630
of a movie that we got it made and it's
404
00:17:45.650 --> 00:17:47.750
being released, but there's a lot of dark parts in
405
00:17:47.809 --> 00:17:50.890
between the, about in these moments. And I don't mean
406
00:17:50.910 --> 00:17:52.289
that to be a downer, just that like, there's a
407
00:17:52.309 --> 00:17:54.430
lot of times over the years where people don't respond
408
00:17:54.450 --> 00:17:56.210
to your emails or they don't want to, they don't
409
00:17:56.259 --> 00:17:58.660
want to talk to you. or it's hard to get
410
00:17:58.720 --> 00:18:02.900
things made. So yes, it's a very helpful to have
411
00:18:02.940 --> 00:18:06.759
a writing partner to just bounce ideas off of, but
412
00:18:06.799 --> 00:18:08.940
it's also helpful to have someone to sort of share
413
00:18:09.140 --> 00:18:12.210
in those down, those lower points of your career too, where,
414
00:18:13.009 --> 00:18:15.730
where you can both kind of share in that same frustration.
415
00:18:16.710 --> 00:18:19.170
So yeah, I don't, I haven't, I mean, I've written
416
00:18:19.210 --> 00:18:21.529
stuff on my own, but none of that stuff has
417
00:18:22.150 --> 00:18:25.700
been made because I always, loop Kevin into the process
418
00:18:25.740 --> 00:18:28.480
somehow or vice versa, just because we enjoy the doing
419
00:18:28.519 --> 00:18:29.039
this together.
420
00:18:29.180 --> 00:18:31.079
In terms of like that tone you were just talking
421
00:18:31.099 --> 00:18:33.099
about too, like the dark moments that you'd have, uh,
422
00:18:33.160 --> 00:18:36.160
just making the movie. This is a movie, uh, that
423
00:18:36.220 --> 00:18:40.329
really impressively has such a good, uh, you know, through
424
00:18:40.369 --> 00:18:43.769
line of tone without getting trivial, without getting, you know, goofy,
425
00:18:44.170 --> 00:18:46.410
which you could have succumbed to if you had wanted to,
426
00:18:46.470 --> 00:18:48.690
in terms of not just your, your past, you know,
427
00:18:48.769 --> 00:18:51.950
films that you've made, uh, but also just the creature
428
00:18:51.970 --> 00:18:54.470
feature in general, you could, let it become looser at
429
00:18:54.509 --> 00:18:56.450
that point, which you don't do. Was that something that
430
00:18:56.470 --> 00:18:57.750
you really had to keep an eye on or was
431
00:18:57.769 --> 00:19:00.150
it something that sort of flowed naturally from the characters
432
00:19:00.170 --> 00:19:00.619
and the premise?
433
00:19:01.319 --> 00:19:03.200
I think it flowed naturally, but yeah, you always got
434
00:19:03.240 --> 00:19:05.039
to keep an eye on, especially when you're putting like,
435
00:19:05.599 --> 00:19:09.759
you know, rubber on camera, just because that can, you know,
436
00:19:10.160 --> 00:19:12.640
you can have Thanksgiving or you could have hopefully the cycle,
437
00:19:12.680 --> 00:19:16.990
like polar opposites, same materials at the end of the day.
438
00:19:18.170 --> 00:19:20.809
But yeah, that was very purposeful just because the nature
439
00:19:20.890 --> 00:19:25.220
of this sub-genre and this movie and creature films in general,
440
00:19:25.460 --> 00:19:28.019
I like the ones that, that commit in that take
441
00:19:28.039 --> 00:19:31.539
themselves very seriously, whether that's the thing, the blob, the,
442
00:19:31.720 --> 00:19:33.559
I mean, the blobs kind of, you know, it's got
443
00:19:33.579 --> 00:19:36.650
something that 80s fun, the fly, another great example, one
444
00:19:36.670 --> 00:19:40.609
of my favorite monsters. Um, and I just, I just like,
445
00:19:41.029 --> 00:19:42.970
I don't, it's a little bit of a cop out.
446
00:19:43.390 --> 00:19:46.950
I think at times, even though I do love horror comedies.
447
00:19:47.519 --> 00:19:50.579
But for this specific subgenre, I think it has been
448
00:19:50.619 --> 00:19:52.839
kind of poked fun at a little bit too much
449
00:19:52.920 --> 00:19:57.140
over the years and or just not, you know, had
450
00:19:57.180 --> 00:19:59.920
very much resources or budget to make. And if you
451
00:19:59.960 --> 00:20:02.700
go on Tubi and, you know, you search, it's there's
452
00:20:02.839 --> 00:20:05.950
thousands of these movies. But there hasn't been that many,
453
00:20:06.029 --> 00:20:09.150
especially in recent years, that sort of, like, really committed to, like,
454
00:20:09.230 --> 00:20:12.190
let's make this really good. And let's try to make this,
455
00:20:12.380 --> 00:20:14.440
you know, as much as the word elevated is overused,
456
00:20:14.460 --> 00:20:18.480
let's try to, like, you know, give this the attention
457
00:20:18.539 --> 00:20:21.740
it deserves. Because I love that. this type of monster
458
00:20:21.920 --> 00:20:24.059
and wanted to celebrate it.
459
00:20:24.079 --> 00:20:27.519
Yeah. I can't hold back anymore. Yeah.
460
00:20:29.269 --> 00:20:32.670
So going in completely blind, I was very interested in
461
00:20:32.710 --> 00:20:35.410
what was going on. And I think maybe about 25
462
00:20:35.410 --> 00:20:37.009
minutes into it, I turned to my husband, I go,
463
00:20:37.069 --> 00:20:38.809
oh my God, is this a werewolf movie? Because werewolf
464
00:20:38.849 --> 00:20:43.200
movies are my absolute favorite. And then you did such
465
00:20:43.269 --> 00:20:46.430
a good job of convincing me that it wasn't. With
466
00:20:46.470 --> 00:20:49.450
the forensics, I kind of forgot about it. I had
467
00:20:49.470 --> 00:20:51.710
just watched Ravenous recently and I was like, is this
468
00:20:51.750 --> 00:20:55.150
a Wendigo? Especially because we're in the Pacific Northwest. I
469
00:20:55.190 --> 00:20:57.930
was really taken by the cinematography. Everything was really good.
470
00:20:58.349 --> 00:21:00.910
And it wasn't until the one character was like, my
471
00:21:00.950 --> 00:21:04.339
dad thinks that he got, you know, chewed on by
472
00:21:04.359 --> 00:21:04.740
a werewolf.
473
00:21:04.779 --> 00:21:07.000
And I was like, it is a werewolf movie. I'm
474
00:21:07.099 --> 00:21:08.009
so excited.
475
00:21:08.069 --> 00:21:10.910
And I was totally in, but it was such a
476
00:21:10.970 --> 00:21:13.920
good job because the bite marks being human, that's when
477
00:21:13.980 --> 00:21:16.170
I was like, okay, So they're not saying it's a
478
00:21:16.170 --> 00:21:16.650
beast anymore.
479
00:21:16.690 --> 00:21:17.369
It's not a bear.
480
00:21:18.009 --> 00:21:18.869
So it's not a wolf.
481
00:21:18.890 --> 00:21:19.710
I was like, damn.
482
00:21:20.230 --> 00:21:22.690
And I didn't even think about the title, which is
483
00:21:22.849 --> 00:21:25.509
kind of crazy for me. But yeah, you had me sold.
484
00:21:25.549 --> 00:21:26.250
I was like, what is.
485
00:21:26.450 --> 00:21:27.450
I don't know what we're doing here.
486
00:21:27.849 --> 00:21:29.650
And then when it was, it was like the payoff
487
00:21:29.670 --> 00:21:31.579
was even more exciting because that's kind of what I
488
00:21:31.640 --> 00:21:34.069
wanted it to be when I first started watching it.
489
00:21:34.400 --> 00:21:35.720
And I was thrilled.
490
00:21:36.539 --> 00:21:36.900
Oh, wow.
491
00:21:37.079 --> 00:21:39.380
That's... I mean, that is exactly what we hoped would
492
00:21:39.400 --> 00:21:43.059
be someone's experience when we were writing and talking about it, is.
493
00:21:43.019 --> 00:21:43.619
That you would.
494
00:21:44.509 --> 00:21:47.750
We figured most people are going to guess because that's
495
00:21:47.950 --> 00:21:49.609
the job of an audience is to try and get
496
00:21:49.670 --> 00:21:51.430
ahead of this story and try to figure out what's
497
00:21:51.470 --> 00:21:53.170
going on here, what's going on, especially when a movie
498
00:21:53.190 --> 00:21:56.130
like this is kind of has this like air of
499
00:21:56.190 --> 00:22:00.279
secrecy around its release that everyone's going to come in thinking, oh,
500
00:22:00.390 --> 00:22:02.500
I'm going to figure this out. And we figured, well,
501
00:22:02.519 --> 00:22:04.700
there's only so many movie monsters. You're going to run
502
00:22:04.720 --> 00:22:05.759
through that list pretty quick.
503
00:22:05.799 --> 00:22:07.259
Is it a zombie? Is it a wing? When to
504
00:22:07.279 --> 00:22:08.660
go vampire werewolf?
505
00:22:09.400 --> 00:22:11.619
But the hope was that you can guess all of them,
506
00:22:12.200 --> 00:22:14.039
but we're going to keep doing little things so that
507
00:22:14.099 --> 00:22:16.509
you never can commit to any one of those things
508
00:22:16.589 --> 00:22:19.109
because you'll get thrown off a little bit. Like you said,
509
00:22:19.150 --> 00:22:20.910
the human teeth and the fame.
510
00:22:20.950 --> 00:22:24.390
The dead body in general. I have never seen that before.
511
00:22:24.569 --> 00:22:26.589
So kudos for you that that was a very interesting
512
00:22:26.630 --> 00:22:27.430
take on a werewolf.
513
00:22:27.549 --> 00:22:30.990
It's one of the coolest takes. Let me say also
514
00:22:31.059 --> 00:22:33.960
from my perspective, Jordan, because I unfortunately had the opposite experience.
515
00:22:34.420 --> 00:22:36.559
I'm out here in L.A. I'm part of this whole,
516
00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:39.819
you know, L.A. community of cinephiles and like geeks and
517
00:22:39.839 --> 00:22:41.079
all that. So I had a lot of friends that
518
00:22:41.119 --> 00:22:43.900
went to Beyond Fest where this did play. I unfortunately
519
00:22:44.160 --> 00:22:45.880
had to miss it because I was at another screening,
520
00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:48.539
but I heard from them. And of course, they couldn't
521
00:22:48.559 --> 00:22:50.700
keep their mouths shut. So they said, werewolf, werewolf, werewolf.
522
00:22:50.740 --> 00:22:53.589
And I was going into this knowing eventually there would
523
00:22:53.630 --> 00:22:55.769
be a werewolf. And, you know, I had a film
524
00:22:55.789 --> 00:22:58.829
professor in college who, for better or worse, did shape
525
00:22:58.869 --> 00:23:01.930
a lot of my, you know, opinions on analyzing film.
526
00:23:01.970 --> 00:23:04.529
And he said, any great film worth its salt, it
527
00:23:04.549 --> 00:23:06.650
doesn't matter. It could be spoiled for you all top
528
00:23:06.670 --> 00:23:08.589
to tail and you'll still like it. And this is
529
00:23:08.670 --> 00:23:11.690
absolutely one of these great films because I knew going in,
530
00:23:11.809 --> 00:23:13.349
I could see all the clues being put together. I
531
00:23:13.390 --> 00:23:16.410
could put things in line and never was guessing in
532
00:23:16.450 --> 00:23:18.079
terms of like, what could this be? Because I already knew.
533
00:23:18.700 --> 00:23:20.559
And then the payoff of it in terms of not
534
00:23:20.579 --> 00:23:22.359
just the effects, but the set pieces.
535
00:23:22.380 --> 00:23:23.059
That transformation.
536
00:23:23.079 --> 00:23:25.480
That transformation is incredible. We'll get to that. But also
537
00:23:25.640 --> 00:23:29.000
just the character payoff of like how much this digs
538
00:23:29.039 --> 00:23:31.240
into what I think is such a core tenant of
539
00:23:31.279 --> 00:23:33.980
the mythos of the werewolf, which not many people in
540
00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:36.119
those other movies you were kind of hinting at recently
541
00:23:36.269 --> 00:23:39.549
have really capitalized on, which is the curse. You know,
542
00:23:39.569 --> 00:23:42.190
this idea of somebody who is not wanting to be
543
00:23:42.210 --> 00:23:44.880
this creature, not having any control over this creature. And
544
00:23:44.900 --> 00:23:47.299
in this case, in the cycle, not being able to stop,
545
00:23:48.140 --> 00:23:52.240
you know, themselves or be stopped. And so that pathos
546
00:23:52.380 --> 00:23:56.019
and that, you know, sort of really intense, you know,
547
00:23:56.440 --> 00:24:00.329
drama combined with the already built human drama of the
548
00:24:00.369 --> 00:24:02.910
father and the daughter and all that, it's just, it
549
00:24:02.950 --> 00:24:04.930
works so well, man. So like, you know, even people
550
00:24:04.970 --> 00:24:07.160
that might get spoiled on this, there's still a hundred
551
00:24:07.200 --> 00:24:08.700
reasons for them to watch it, you know?
552
00:24:09.099 --> 00:24:11.859
Well, that was, I mean, you know, that there's been
553
00:24:11.880 --> 00:24:15.240
a huge debate, of course, like internally for years with us,
554
00:24:15.539 --> 00:24:18.200
you know, with shutter and all of us collectively, just like,
555
00:24:18.240 --> 00:24:20.740
how do you market this movie? And there are two
556
00:24:20.799 --> 00:24:23.119
sides of it. And you guys are representing both of
557
00:24:23.180 --> 00:24:26.549
those sides. And I've heard those arguments both ways. We're
558
00:24:26.569 --> 00:24:29.789
going in blind is the ultimate pure way to experience
559
00:24:29.809 --> 00:24:32.829
this movie. But then also to your point, Bill, that, um,
560
00:24:33.750 --> 00:24:37.109
James Cameron was responsible for spoiling in Terminator 2 that
561
00:24:37.470 --> 00:24:39.069
Arnold is the good guy and not the bad guy
562
00:24:39.089 --> 00:24:41.210
because he believed you lead with your best– whatever you
563
00:24:41.250 --> 00:24:46.029
market with your best idea first. So yeah, that's– and
564
00:24:46.069 --> 00:24:49.130
we'll find out because in a couple weeks, this will
565
00:24:49.259 --> 00:24:51.779
be– eventually, this will be known as a werewolf movie.
566
00:24:51.839 --> 00:24:54.519
I don't think that people will– that twist is going
567
00:24:54.539 --> 00:24:56.539
to be– this will evaporate in a couple of weeks.
568
00:24:57.319 --> 00:25:00.039
And hopefully it makes werewolf movie lists and all that
569
00:25:00.079 --> 00:25:02.769
kind of stuff. And it gets, you know, put up
570
00:25:02.809 --> 00:25:04.490
there with some of the other ones that we all love.
571
00:25:04.970 --> 00:25:09.819
But I hope that people can enjoy it regardless of
572
00:25:09.880 --> 00:25:12.440
which experience you have. So it's good to hear that
573
00:25:12.640 --> 00:25:13.440
that worked for you.
574
00:25:13.829 --> 00:25:15.890
And there were surprises, like funny surprises.
575
00:25:15.950 --> 00:25:17.589
And no, it's not a horror comedy, but when that
576
00:25:17.650 --> 00:25:20.769
werewolf used the eye scan to get into the.
577
00:25:20.769 --> 00:25:22.730
Basement, I lost it.
578
00:25:22.750 --> 00:25:23.650
I lost it.
579
00:25:23.670 --> 00:25:25.009
That was so funny.
580
00:25:25.470 --> 00:25:27.279
And then just the colors that were being used, like
581
00:25:27.299 --> 00:25:30.019
the transformations, the blues, the reds, you know, very Brian
582
00:25:30.059 --> 00:25:32.059
De Palma kind of stuff going on there. It looked
583
00:25:32.099 --> 00:25:33.859
so good. And even to the point where I'm waiting
584
00:25:33.900 --> 00:25:34.960
to see what's going to happen.
585
00:25:34.759 --> 00:25:35.319
With the eyes.
586
00:25:35.779 --> 00:25:37.000
So I'm like, is it going to just be like
587
00:25:37.039 --> 00:25:39.529
this blind werewolf running around? But nope, they popped out.
588
00:25:39.549 --> 00:25:41.609
And I was like, oh, my God, this is so cool.
589
00:25:41.970 --> 00:25:44.529
And it was gushy. And it was just really, really
590
00:25:44.569 --> 00:25:47.450
well done. The kills were all really fun. I love
591
00:25:47.490 --> 00:25:50.200
the gore. And at one point I did not go like, oh,
592
00:25:50.220 --> 00:25:52.539
this is overdone or this and that. It was perfect
593
00:25:52.660 --> 00:25:53.599
for for the film.
594
00:25:53.720 --> 00:25:54.619
I really, really.
595
00:25:54.740 --> 00:25:56.559
So I guess we should ask, like, who led your
596
00:25:56.599 --> 00:25:58.519
effects team and how did you find them? And like,
597
00:25:58.539 --> 00:26:00.960
was there like an audition process for getting them on board?
598
00:26:01.410 --> 00:26:03.220
Like I was, I have to assume this was like
599
00:26:03.240 --> 00:26:06.140
a key element going into production. Like this has to
600
00:26:06.160 --> 00:26:08.740
be solved. So we know what we're doing with here. Yeah,
601
00:26:08.759 --> 00:26:09.059
it was.
602
00:26:09.119 --> 00:26:11.059
I mean, when we had the initial idea, we knew, okay,
603
00:26:11.339 --> 00:26:13.039
if we're going to set out to make a werewolf movie,
604
00:26:13.059 --> 00:26:16.319
we have got to nail the transformation rather than sort
605
00:26:16.359 --> 00:26:19.460
of looking at American world from London or the howling
606
00:26:19.519 --> 00:26:22.329
or company of woods, whatever you'd want to put in that,
607
00:26:22.509 --> 00:26:25.630
you know, that your ranking of your favorite transformation scenes.
608
00:26:26.230 --> 00:26:28.869
We didn't want to say, well, Rick Baker, uh, already
609
00:26:28.930 --> 00:26:30.710
did such a good job in the eighties. Let's not
610
00:26:30.750 --> 00:26:33.230
even bother. He did do not just such a good job.
611
00:26:33.250 --> 00:26:35.210
He did the best of all time and it's impossible
612
00:26:35.430 --> 00:26:38.349
to beat that, but let's not run from the challenge.
613
00:26:38.410 --> 00:26:40.769
Like let's try and do our own version of something.
614
00:26:41.369 --> 00:26:43.430
And the big, and the most compelling reason to do
615
00:26:43.490 --> 00:26:45.329
so is that no one has done that in 40 years.
616
00:26:45.589 --> 00:26:50.750
So you just by the nature of attempting it in 2026,
617
00:26:50.750 --> 00:26:53.890
shooting it on 4k with modern cameras and lenses, it's
618
00:26:53.990 --> 00:26:55.799
going to look, and we have a dead body, so
619
00:26:55.859 --> 00:26:58.700
it's not going to be the same anyway. It's going
620
00:26:58.740 --> 00:27:00.930
to give people something that they have not seen in
621
00:27:00.970 --> 00:27:04.650
a long time and young people that maybe don't know
622
00:27:04.690 --> 00:27:05.849
about American world from London.
623
00:27:06.269 --> 00:27:06.490
Yeah.
624
00:27:07.210 --> 00:27:09.130
So, yes, the effects were paramount.
625
00:27:09.910 --> 00:27:14.200
So I was introduced to Patrick McGee who did our
626
00:27:14.240 --> 00:27:17.480
creature to do VHS for Stork because he made all
627
00:27:17.500 --> 00:27:20.789
of the effects including the Stork monster for that VHS segment.
628
00:27:21.660 --> 00:27:23.940
And in that initial meeting, we had already had the
629
00:27:23.980 --> 00:27:26.299
script for cycle was done, ready to go. We pretty
630
00:27:26.339 --> 00:27:28.700
much knew it was green light, green lit, and we
631
00:27:28.720 --> 00:27:30.240
were going to make it, but we had about a
632
00:27:30.259 --> 00:27:34.019
year till we could shoot it. And we'd already storyboarded
633
00:27:34.059 --> 00:27:36.819
and previs the whole transformation scenes. We knew exactly shot
634
00:27:36.839 --> 00:27:39.099
by shot how we were going to do it. So
635
00:27:39.140 --> 00:27:41.759
when I met with Patrick, the first time to talk
636
00:27:41.799 --> 00:27:44.660
about the stork, this was around Christmas of 2023, I
637
00:27:44.660 --> 00:27:52.619
believe we then. I showed him that previs and I
638
00:27:52.680 --> 00:27:54.930
didn't know that he was a huge American werewolf in
639
00:27:54.970 --> 00:27:58.490
London fan. And that's like his, his favorite film and
640
00:27:58.750 --> 00:28:01.990
his dream project was to do a werewolf movie, his own.
641
00:28:02.250 --> 00:28:05.230
He'd been thinking about it his entire career, his entire life.
642
00:28:05.869 --> 00:28:08.150
And he had studied how Rick Baker did it. He knew, okay,
643
00:28:08.170 --> 00:28:11.089
well you're going to need six syringes for the face
644
00:28:11.109 --> 00:28:11.809
and you're going to need.
645
00:28:11.799 --> 00:28:13.339
All of, all of the components.
646
00:28:13.900 --> 00:28:15.400
And he had thought through how he would do his
647
00:28:15.460 --> 00:28:19.789
version of one. So it was just a, timing was
648
00:28:19.829 --> 00:28:21.910
perfect in the sense that I got to work with him.
649
00:28:21.970 --> 00:28:23.710
We got along great. I thought he did a great
650
00:28:23.750 --> 00:28:26.930
job on, on VHS. And there was, in my mind,
651
00:28:26.950 --> 00:28:29.259
there was no one else that was gonna do this
652
00:28:29.319 --> 00:28:32.640
and be right for it. So then I had made this, um,
653
00:28:32.920 --> 00:28:35.240
I'd made a coffee table book to pitch the cycle
654
00:28:35.279 --> 00:28:38.359
as well. It's like 300 page thing. It's lays out
655
00:28:38.420 --> 00:28:41.829
every location, every costume, the whole movie, like broken down.
656
00:28:42.630 --> 00:28:44.390
And I sent him that and a letter. And I
657
00:28:44.390 --> 00:28:47.250
was just like, you know, please say yes. Because what
658
00:28:47.289 --> 00:28:49.890
people also might not realize is Patrick does all of
659
00:28:50.069 --> 00:28:54.109
the Halloween horror nights at the, the, um, California and
660
00:28:54.170 --> 00:28:59.240
Orlando locations. So all the monsters, the mazes, he does that.
661
00:28:59.319 --> 00:29:01.640
And we were shooting at the exact same time as
662
00:29:01.740 --> 00:29:04.619
Halloween horror nights. So he was like, I don't know
663
00:29:04.660 --> 00:29:06.059
how I'm going to, I don't know if I can
664
00:29:06.099 --> 00:29:07.559
say yes. Like, I just don't know if I have
665
00:29:07.640 --> 00:29:11.109
the bandwidth to do this, but it was his dream project.
666
00:29:11.160 --> 00:29:14.430
And he said, yeah, okay, let me, let me do it. Um,
667
00:29:15.130 --> 00:29:19.119
And then we worked together on how to make that achievable,
668
00:29:19.180 --> 00:29:21.440
not only for the best results, but within his schedule.
669
00:29:21.519 --> 00:29:23.680
And so it was kind of like, okay, let's, we
670
00:29:23.720 --> 00:29:26.000
broke it down into, we got, he made us the corpse,
671
00:29:26.059 --> 00:29:28.119
the Peter Stump corpse first. So we shot for the
672
00:29:28.160 --> 00:29:30.680
first thing we had a one, we shot for the
673
00:29:30.720 --> 00:29:33.829
first week with no corpse, no wolf, just, just Deborah,
674
00:29:33.950 --> 00:29:37.170
you know, the more dramatic scenes. Then the corpse arrived
675
00:29:37.190 --> 00:29:39.509
and we shot some corpse stuff, but Patrick and his
676
00:29:39.569 --> 00:29:42.720
team stayed in LA working on the wolf. So we
677
00:29:42.740 --> 00:29:45.319
had the corpse up there with us for another two weeks.
678
00:29:45.440 --> 00:29:47.500
And then Patrick and his team came for the last
679
00:29:47.559 --> 00:29:51.289
week with Trevor Newland, who performed a werewolf and, and we.
680
00:29:51.230 --> 00:29:52.069
Did some wolf stuff.
681
00:29:52.869 --> 00:29:55.279
But the, the, the best decision that we made was,
682
00:29:55.859 --> 00:29:58.619
was to not try and shoot the transformation or all
683
00:29:58.640 --> 00:30:02.140
of like the retina scanner scene, all of the closeups
684
00:30:02.180 --> 00:30:04.859
of its mouth, its eyes, all of those reactions, even
685
00:30:04.920 --> 00:30:07.539
closeups of it on the beach. We didn't do any
686
00:30:07.559 --> 00:30:09.700
of that stuff during the main production. We sit, we
687
00:30:09.740 --> 00:30:14.079
waited five, six months later so that Patrick can continue
688
00:30:14.119 --> 00:30:15.880
to work on all of the stuff and build the
689
00:30:15.940 --> 00:30:18.609
hands and the feet and the spines, all the stuff
690
00:30:18.619 --> 00:30:21.950
for the transformation. We edited the movie together with the
691
00:30:21.970 --> 00:30:26.009
footage we had came back and then put a ton
692
00:30:26.029 --> 00:30:28.170
of werewolf stuff back in and shot for another week
693
00:30:28.250 --> 00:30:31.619
in Los Angeles, adding all that stuff in. So if
694
00:30:31.630 --> 00:30:34.519
you're going to do practical effects, you just have to
695
00:30:34.599 --> 00:30:36.859
approach it that the practical effects are going to dictate
696
00:30:36.880 --> 00:30:38.720
your schedule and budget to a degree. And you've got
697
00:30:38.740 --> 00:30:42.180
to listen to their needs. You cannot just force them
698
00:30:42.220 --> 00:30:44.599
into a box if you want them to turn out special.
699
00:30:45.700 --> 00:30:48.539
My favorite shot is the werewolf coming up from the water.
700
00:30:49.400 --> 00:30:51.079
on the, like the beach when the sun's coming up.
701
00:30:51.140 --> 00:30:53.220
And I was just like, this is so well done.
702
00:30:53.400 --> 00:30:55.819
And the werewolf looked so good, but I'm sure I
703
00:30:55.839 --> 00:30:57.680
was like, how many disgusting things did you have to
704
00:30:57.720 --> 00:30:58.460
look at and touch?
705
00:30:58.480 --> 00:30:59.359
And there's a point.
706
00:30:59.380 --> 00:31:01.400
So you're probably like, am I doing the right thing
707
00:31:01.420 --> 00:31:01.799
with this?
708
00:31:01.859 --> 00:31:03.440
But it's, that's so fun.
709
00:31:04.519 --> 00:31:04.700
Yeah.
710
00:31:04.740 --> 00:31:07.240
That water. I mean, that was our last day of shooting.
711
00:31:07.259 --> 00:31:08.200
I would hope so.
712
00:31:08.380 --> 00:31:08.740
Right.
713
00:31:09.119 --> 00:31:11.720
Yeah. Well, it was, it was twofold.
714
00:31:11.400 --> 00:31:14.880
Because we're, you know, this is November in, in Oregon
715
00:31:14.900 --> 00:31:18.039
and the water is cold. So we knew we're going
716
00:31:18.059 --> 00:31:21.140
to have Debra dive into the ocean or into the river.
717
00:31:21.160 --> 00:31:22.160
Go get it girl.
718
00:31:23.140 --> 00:31:25.079
And she was like, to her credit, she was like
719
00:31:25.119 --> 00:31:27.440
the thing that she was looking forward to the most.
720
00:31:27.460 --> 00:31:29.539
Cause she likes to be very, she loved the stuff
721
00:31:29.559 --> 00:31:31.539
where she's running, you know, jumping into the cage and
722
00:31:31.579 --> 00:31:32.579
like to be very physical.
723
00:31:32.839 --> 00:31:33.099
Yeah.
724
00:31:33.160 --> 00:31:35.059
But we saved that for the end, just in case
725
00:31:35.119 --> 00:31:37.569
like somebody got a cold cause they were in the
726
00:31:37.940 --> 00:31:40.890
water or or worse got injured or, and we just
727
00:31:40.910 --> 00:31:42.549
didn't want, we just figured that was the way you
728
00:31:42.589 --> 00:31:45.470
should go out on this. And then poor Trevor, it
729
00:31:45.509 --> 00:31:47.990
was freezing cold that day. And he's in that suit.
730
00:31:48.059 --> 00:31:51.099
And that thing is he's basically, you know, he's other
731
00:31:51.119 --> 00:31:53.559
than the torso, he's pretty much naked. His arms and
732
00:31:53.599 --> 00:31:57.119
legs are fully exposed. He just has prosthetics and some
733
00:31:57.160 --> 00:32:00.349
hair kind of on top of him. And, uh, So
734
00:32:00.380 --> 00:32:02.529
he's just out in that water and the foam latex
735
00:32:02.650 --> 00:32:06.230
soaks up the water really quick. So like he but
736
00:32:06.250 --> 00:32:08.750
he did it and it looked it looked incredible. And
737
00:32:08.769 --> 00:32:11.529
I love I love that moment. That was one thing
738
00:32:11.569 --> 00:32:14.390
that we also thought would be really cool that hopefully
739
00:32:14.430 --> 00:32:19.269
you guys would agree as werewolf fans. something about introducing
740
00:32:19.289 --> 00:32:21.990
an aquatic coastal element into a werewolf movie, I thought
741
00:32:22.039 --> 00:32:24.240
would be awesome because we'd never seen that as well.
742
00:32:24.259 --> 00:32:24.339
Nope.
743
00:32:24.640 --> 00:32:26.160
I was like, is she going into the water? I
744
00:32:26.160 --> 00:32:29.119
was like, what's the plan here, Meg? What's the plan?
745
00:32:30.640 --> 00:32:32.119
And then it was just so beautiful.
746
00:32:32.140 --> 00:32:34.779
It was great. Well, I mean, it sounds like you
747
00:32:34.799 --> 00:32:38.539
guys didn't have the rockiest experience making this because you
748
00:32:38.579 --> 00:32:41.200
had this mentality going in of like, let's give them
749
00:32:41.220 --> 00:32:43.349
the time and the space that they need. Let's, you know,
750
00:32:43.380 --> 00:32:46.019
adjust the schedule for them. let's, you know, really roll
751
00:32:46.059 --> 00:32:48.279
with the punches sort of thing. Uh, it sounds like
752
00:32:48.299 --> 00:32:50.140
you didn't have like a, the wolf broke down again,
753
00:32:50.180 --> 00:32:51.640
sort of situation like draws, you know?
754
00:32:51.660 --> 00:32:51.829
Right.
755
00:32:52.289 --> 00:32:52.750
No, no.
756
00:32:52.769 --> 00:32:55.009
We, in fact, like we had the best time ever
757
00:32:55.049 --> 00:32:55.710
making this movie.
758
00:32:55.730 --> 00:32:56.750
Like we, Oh, that's great.
759
00:32:57.250 --> 00:32:59.809
There it's always hard. I'm always stressed at night. Cause
760
00:32:59.849 --> 00:33:02.890
I have, I put so much responsibility on myself to
761
00:33:02.930 --> 00:33:05.170
make sure that not only we're making a good movie for,
762
00:33:05.789 --> 00:33:08.589
for you guys, for fans, for, for the, but I
763
00:33:08.630 --> 00:33:10.349
want the cast and crew to have a really good
764
00:33:10.390 --> 00:33:12.750
time while doing it and to try to, you know,
765
00:33:13.839 --> 00:33:15.819
enjoy that experience and look back on it as a
766
00:33:15.839 --> 00:33:19.369
very special time in their lives. And I'm most proud
767
00:33:19.609 --> 00:33:21.470
of the fact that I think we did that on
768
00:33:21.509 --> 00:33:23.910
this and everyone, you know, had such a nice time
769
00:33:23.990 --> 00:33:26.309
and we were all family and become friends with all
770
00:33:26.329 --> 00:33:29.470
the actors and everyone has just been, it was just
771
00:33:29.490 --> 00:33:32.289
a genuine joy. And, and no, there wasn't to your point,
772
00:33:32.509 --> 00:33:35.509
you know, and, and that's Patrick McGee credit to him
773
00:33:35.529 --> 00:33:40.210
because every single thing he made worked and And it did,
774
00:33:40.289 --> 00:33:43.250
it never broke. It's not like we, we, we, you know,
775
00:33:43.269 --> 00:33:45.079
broke the leg off the corpse at one point in time,
776
00:33:45.390 --> 00:33:48.740
hauling it around in the back of the art department van,
777
00:33:48.779 --> 00:33:51.980
but we fixed it. Um, but everything worked when we
778
00:33:52.019 --> 00:33:54.329
needed it to, there was never anything that we couldn't
779
00:33:54.380 --> 00:33:57.289
shoot around or, um, adapt to.
780
00:33:57.349 --> 00:33:59.509
And so, yeah, there was no Bruce, the shark moment
781
00:33:59.529 --> 00:33:59.809
for us.
782
00:34:00.190 --> 00:34:05.230
That's great. That's great. Um, And in terms of working
783
00:34:05.269 --> 00:34:07.970
with the actors in the ensemble, was this something that
784
00:34:08.030 --> 00:34:12.300
you guys had any time to talk about extensively, rehearse
785
00:34:12.340 --> 00:34:13.679
at all? Or was it sort of run and gun?
786
00:34:13.719 --> 00:34:16.340
Like we have these locations and we have you guys
787
00:34:16.360 --> 00:34:18.179
for this week. Let's just figure it out on the
788
00:34:18.219 --> 00:34:18.900
day sort of thing.
789
00:34:19.440 --> 00:34:22.219
No, I met Debra for the first time in January
790
00:34:22.239 --> 00:34:25.750
of 2024. And we shot it in October, started shooting
791
00:34:25.769 --> 00:34:26.329
in October 2024.
792
00:34:26.309 --> 00:34:26.550
Oh, wow.
793
00:34:26.570 --> 00:34:31.250
Yeah. we had, we had met up a few times
794
00:34:31.329 --> 00:34:34.409
before that. And in our very first meeting, she had some, um,
795
00:34:34.550 --> 00:34:36.400
script notes and was like, I just, you know, I'd
796
00:34:36.440 --> 00:34:38.360
love to know if you would be open to doing these.
797
00:34:38.380 --> 00:34:41.019
And I said, yeah, of course you're, you're a partner
798
00:34:41.059 --> 00:34:43.400
on this now. So yeah, like I, I'd be crazy
799
00:34:43.440 --> 00:34:47.010
not to listen to your ideas. Um, and so she, yeah,
800
00:34:47.050 --> 00:34:50.250
so we kind of did another draft or two before
801
00:34:50.369 --> 00:34:53.010
we got to shooting. And then, so yeah, Debra and
802
00:34:53.050 --> 00:34:55.739
I had met a few times in person. We'd Got
803
00:34:55.800 --> 00:34:57.840
on Zoom at one point for four or five hours
804
00:34:57.880 --> 00:35:01.539
and just went through every page of the script, tweaking things.
805
00:35:01.920 --> 00:35:04.460
We got on to another Zoom with Sue Black, who's
806
00:35:04.480 --> 00:35:07.719
a real forensic anthropologist, to give notes. And so Debra
807
00:35:07.739 --> 00:35:12.389
could kind of just ask her questions, just pick her brain,
808
00:35:12.750 --> 00:35:17.369
you know, to pull stuff for her character. And Jeffrey, yeah,
809
00:35:17.489 --> 00:35:20.849
you know, we got him a little bit probably that summer.
810
00:35:21.530 --> 00:35:21.989
I believe.
811
00:35:22.329 --> 00:35:25.329
And, um, you know, his big request was just, I
812
00:35:25.349 --> 00:35:28.409
just want to know that I have your time. Like,
813
00:35:28.469 --> 00:35:30.860
I don't, I don't want to show up a week
814
00:35:30.949 --> 00:35:33.000
before and running gun. Like I just, I want to
815
00:35:33.019 --> 00:35:35.739
have conversations and text and share pictures.
816
00:35:35.820 --> 00:35:37.219
And so it was very fluid.
817
00:35:37.239 --> 00:35:40.320
Like they were very, very, once they committed and said, yes,
818
00:35:40.440 --> 00:35:43.480
I was, um, I was ecstatic with how much they
819
00:35:43.559 --> 00:35:46.320
wanted to be involved in that process. And I would
820
00:35:46.980 --> 00:35:49.929
show them the pictures of the locations and, the cars
821
00:35:50.010 --> 00:35:52.329
and the wardrobe and all that stuff. Like they were,
822
00:35:53.050 --> 00:35:54.929
they were a big part of it. Um, some of
823
00:35:54.949 --> 00:35:58.409
the other actors had to come in, uh, Jack Doolin,
824
00:35:58.449 --> 00:36:01.449
who's awesome in the movie. He plays Lenny. He was
825
00:36:01.489 --> 00:36:05.719
the one that we had the hardest time casting that role. Yeah.
826
00:36:05.739 --> 00:36:08.059
And cause it diff it's different. Jack is different than
827
00:36:08.079 --> 00:36:10.360
what was written in the script. So Jack is the
828
00:36:10.460 --> 00:36:12.880
one that had to come in and like, just in,
829
00:36:12.980 --> 00:36:15.139
in figure it out the fastest, which he nailed.
830
00:36:15.239 --> 00:36:16.739
And it was awesome. He was a great guy.
831
00:36:16.760 --> 00:36:19.619
Um, but everyone else kind of had, had a nice,
832
00:36:19.659 --> 00:36:23.159
like comfortable ramp up other than, other than poor Jack.
833
00:36:23.199 --> 00:36:23.320
Yeah.
834
00:36:23.639 --> 00:36:25.380
Can I ask you too? I just really want to
835
00:36:25.400 --> 00:36:27.840
know this from watching the movie with working with David
836
00:36:27.880 --> 00:36:31.610
Myers Gregory as Peter. I mean, there's so many moments
837
00:36:31.679 --> 00:36:34.630
of like, uh, his videotapes, you know, and, and how
838
00:36:34.670 --> 00:36:37.289
many like different recordings he's made. Uh, how long did
839
00:36:37.309 --> 00:36:39.389
that process take? Because it seems like it could have
840
00:36:39.409 --> 00:36:40.809
been just a day or it could have been maybe
841
00:36:40.829 --> 00:36:41.230
a few days.
842
00:36:41.250 --> 00:36:43.610
It's a great, I'm glad you asked that. Like, um,
843
00:36:44.619 --> 00:36:45.559
David is amazing.
844
00:36:45.619 --> 00:36:48.659
Like I was editing a movie, uh, years ago and
845
00:36:48.800 --> 00:36:51.449
he was in, he was in it and I would
846
00:36:51.469 --> 00:36:54.369
see the footage come in and David scenes. And I'm
847
00:36:54.389 --> 00:36:56.670
just watching all the, you know, the raw stuff. And
848
00:36:56.829 --> 00:37:00.110
I'm like, who is this guy? He's so talented. He's
849
00:37:00.250 --> 00:37:03.130
so good. How am I going to edit this down?
850
00:37:03.150 --> 00:37:06.380
Because like he, there, there's 10 takes that I want
851
00:37:06.389 --> 00:37:09.650
to put into this movie. So I met him on
852
00:37:10.130 --> 00:37:11.969
that movie and stayed in touch with him and always
853
00:37:12.010 --> 00:37:13.630
wanted to find something to put him in because he's
854
00:37:13.690 --> 00:37:16.719
just one of the most talented actors I've ever seen.
855
00:37:17.030 --> 00:37:20.179
And he was perfect for this. So he came out
856
00:37:20.519 --> 00:37:22.980
and he was shot with us one day in the
857
00:37:23.039 --> 00:37:24.880
house when she has kind of the nightmare where he's
858
00:37:24.940 --> 00:37:26.739
on the phone call and says, it's coming for me.
859
00:37:26.820 --> 00:37:28.559
That was the first day of his shooting. And then
860
00:37:28.679 --> 00:37:29.739
all the tape stuff was.
861
00:37:29.659 --> 00:37:32.760
Done in one day. So it was just David and
862
00:37:32.940 --> 00:37:35.460
a full crew down in the basement shooting.
863
00:37:35.739 --> 00:37:37.869
And the way we did it is, We shot it
864
00:37:38.010 --> 00:37:42.769
all on the main production camera, 6K cameras. We did
865
00:37:42.809 --> 00:37:45.010
have like a little flip cam next to it just
866
00:37:45.269 --> 00:37:48.559
capturing like an analog version of it just in case
867
00:37:48.579 --> 00:37:54.610
we would use that. But we ended up– then we–
868
00:37:55.039 --> 00:37:57.960
so David wrapped. We edited the movie together and we
869
00:37:58.000 --> 00:38:00.119
came back and did a bunch of second unit stuff
870
00:38:00.679 --> 00:38:03.760
in that six months later time jump. And one of
871
00:38:03.800 --> 00:38:06.369
those things then that gave me time to basically pick
872
00:38:06.489 --> 00:38:09.130
like 45 minutes of the best takes of all of
873
00:38:09.190 --> 00:38:13.250
his tape stuff. And we transferred that to a real
874
00:38:13.309 --> 00:38:15.929
TV then and the old actual TV that you see
875
00:38:15.969 --> 00:38:18.969
in the movie. We ran that 4K footage through there.
876
00:38:19.010 --> 00:38:21.949
We didn't even need to actually apply any VHS filters
877
00:38:22.110 --> 00:38:25.199
onto the footage. just by the nature of that digital
878
00:38:25.219 --> 00:38:28.260
footage being converted to the analog signal and put on
879
00:38:28.280 --> 00:38:31.619
the TV. And then we shot the TV. So you
880
00:38:31.639 --> 00:38:34.340
get the real static and the fuzziness and all of that,
881
00:38:34.380 --> 00:38:37.949
because I hate bad TV comps. Like when you see
882
00:38:37.969 --> 00:38:39.829
a V effect, it just throws you out of it.
883
00:38:40.949 --> 00:38:42.909
And so our approach, not just with the werewolf was,
884
00:38:42.949 --> 00:38:46.849
but put everything in camera if you can. So, but
885
00:38:46.889 --> 00:38:48.329
it takes a ton of time to do that because
886
00:38:48.349 --> 00:38:49.909
you have to shoot the whole day with him. You
887
00:38:49.929 --> 00:38:52.550
have to then edit that stuff down. come back with
888
00:38:52.570 --> 00:38:55.769
the crew, run that signal to a TV. And then
889
00:38:55.809 --> 00:38:58.820
we had, then I had to edit what we shot
890
00:38:58.909 --> 00:39:02.320
of the TV to fill up what the final movie is.
891
00:39:02.659 --> 00:39:03.860
So it was a big process.
892
00:39:04.260 --> 00:39:04.460
Wow.
893
00:39:05.099 --> 00:39:07.539
But it's so much worth it, you know, the physicality
894
00:39:07.679 --> 00:39:10.320
of the effects and actually seeing that work so much
895
00:39:10.360 --> 00:39:12.340
better than, like, look at this tennis ball and just pretend,
896
00:39:12.360 --> 00:39:12.619
you know?
897
00:39:12.639 --> 00:39:14.090
It feels like for everybody.
898
00:39:14.429 --> 00:39:17.690
And just watching how his makeup was subtly changing and
899
00:39:17.730 --> 00:39:20.329
getting darker, it was just very well done.
900
00:39:20.510 --> 00:39:22.530
And, you know, that work pays off.
901
00:39:22.829 --> 00:39:23.050
Yeah.
902
00:39:23.150 --> 00:39:24.909
Well, and he shaved his head for real.
903
00:39:25.150 --> 00:39:26.320
I was going to ask.
904
00:39:26.510 --> 00:39:28.309
I was like, it looked like he did that, like, twice,
905
00:39:28.349 --> 00:39:30.719
but it's really cool how you... shot that and made
906
00:39:30.760 --> 00:39:32.360
it look like he has doing it over and over
907
00:39:32.380 --> 00:39:33.659
and over again. When I could tell that he was
908
00:39:33.699 --> 00:39:34.559
really shaving his head.
909
00:39:34.860 --> 00:39:37.929
Well, so yeah, funny story about that. Uh, he, so
910
00:39:37.989 --> 00:39:40.050
David had the idea. I would have never written in
911
00:39:40.070 --> 00:39:42.250
or asked him to shave your head. That would have
912
00:39:42.269 --> 00:39:44.989
just been like too crazy of an ask. But he
913
00:39:45.010 --> 00:39:47.909
was like, I think I should, I really think I
914
00:39:47.929 --> 00:39:50.690
want to shave my head because he had in the script,
915
00:39:50.710 --> 00:39:54.090
he understood that it was kind of this, he's becoming
916
00:39:54.130 --> 00:39:56.010
more and more sick and looking a little bit more
917
00:39:56.050 --> 00:39:59.590
and more like somebody who has cancer or is, you know,
918
00:39:59.610 --> 00:40:02.550
their body is failing them as he gets older and
919
00:40:02.610 --> 00:40:05.650
older in his life. So David wanted to shave his head.
920
00:40:05.690 --> 00:40:08.650
He wanted to be bald for that last, that last tape.
921
00:40:09.030 --> 00:40:10.989
And I thought, well, yeah, if you want to do it,
922
00:40:11.030 --> 00:40:15.539
that sounds amazing. But then Patrick McGee, meanwhile, in L.A.,
923
00:40:15.800 --> 00:40:19.659
is working on the corpse prop. And he is wanting
924
00:40:19.679 --> 00:40:23.250
to punch hair in the corpse because he believes, and
925
00:40:23.309 --> 00:40:25.510
rightfully so, like it's just going to look better. And
926
00:40:25.530 --> 00:40:28.710
then also his point was that you need to take
927
00:40:28.750 --> 00:40:31.269
this corpse and turn it into a werewolf. If we
928
00:40:31.329 --> 00:40:33.369
start with some hair on its head, then that can
929
00:40:33.429 --> 00:40:36.719
justify making this bigger mane. And we have a starting
930
00:40:36.760 --> 00:40:39.699
point to grow from rather than like it's bald and
931
00:40:39.840 --> 00:40:43.519
all hair has to sprout. Um, so then that's when
932
00:40:44.219 --> 00:40:45.929
I was like, okay, great. So we have one guy
933
00:40:45.949 --> 00:40:47.849
wants to shave his head. One guy wants there to
934
00:40:47.869 --> 00:40:48.130
be hair.
935
00:40:48.769 --> 00:40:49.349
What do we do?
936
00:40:50.230 --> 00:40:54.260
And, uh, and, and I had the idea of, okay,
937
00:40:54.300 --> 00:40:57.239
well then how about the character decides to shave his
938
00:40:57.280 --> 00:40:59.480
head because he's sick of the hair because he's a werewolf,
939
00:40:59.920 --> 00:41:00.860
but it keeps growing back.
940
00:41:01.190 --> 00:41:01.469
Yeah.
941
00:41:01.710 --> 00:41:05.510
And so that he would he would then that was
942
00:41:05.550 --> 00:41:06.690
the way to solve that problem.
943
00:41:06.730 --> 00:41:08.030
And then and then it just made.
944
00:41:07.929 --> 00:41:10.130
It is a great example of like, how do you
945
00:41:10.389 --> 00:41:12.389
sort of find this meeting in the middle that comes
946
00:41:12.469 --> 00:41:16.150
out with a better result, hopefully, than what either individual
947
00:41:16.190 --> 00:41:16.570
would have been.
948
00:41:16.869 --> 00:41:18.690
Very Claudia, an interview with a vampire.
949
00:41:18.710 --> 00:41:24.800
She's like, which one of you did it? So I
950
00:41:24.820 --> 00:41:26.340
know I don't want to put the cart before the horse,
951
00:41:26.489 --> 00:41:29.239
but this movie ends in a way that is perfect.
952
00:41:29.300 --> 00:41:33.570
I think it's great. And I know that it's really
953
00:41:33.630 --> 00:41:36.369
early days, but is there any interest on your part
954
00:41:36.659 --> 00:41:38.219
of maybe continuing the story?
955
00:41:38.739 --> 00:41:39.000
Yeah.
956
00:41:39.340 --> 00:41:39.579
Yeah.
957
00:41:39.780 --> 00:41:43.880
I mean, I don't know that I would do like,
958
00:41:43.900 --> 00:41:45.719
I don't know what you would do. I think it'd
959
00:41:45.760 --> 00:41:50.889
be really hard to do the same thing twice because now,
960
00:41:50.949 --> 00:41:51.190
you know.
961
00:41:51.210 --> 00:41:53.349
You're in a werewolf movie. So it's like, what, what
962
00:41:53.389 --> 00:41:53.889
do you do?
963
00:41:54.110 --> 00:41:57.300
And, and, you know, if this was the, 80s and
964
00:41:57.320 --> 00:41:59.199
we're just trying to crank out sequels you probably have
965
00:41:59.239 --> 00:42:01.320
the whole body farm start to come back from the
966
00:42:01.360 --> 00:42:01.760
dead or.
967
00:42:01.719 --> 00:42:05.099
You would get ridiculous.
968
00:42:04.510 --> 00:42:06.670
But then you're just switching tones and I don't know
969
00:42:06.730 --> 00:42:08.389
if I could wrap my head around like how you
970
00:42:08.409 --> 00:42:11.309
would do that and justify that but the idea is
971
00:42:11.429 --> 00:42:12.840
I think there's a few things that I think would
972
00:42:12.860 --> 00:42:15.289
be really cool we have a whole sort of prequel
973
00:42:15.369 --> 00:42:18.329
origin story of the werewolf that came he hints at
974
00:42:18.369 --> 00:42:19.670
it in his final tape over the.
975
00:42:19.610 --> 00:42:23.059
Few credits i love that it's over the credits if
976
00:42:23.079 --> 00:42:24.800
this was in the theater i'd be yelling at people
977
00:42:24.840 --> 00:42:26.139
sit down sit down listen.
978
00:42:28.019 --> 00:42:29.880
Yeah thank you that i thought that was kind of
979
00:42:29.920 --> 00:42:31.739
a cool way to sort of close out the movie
980
00:42:31.780 --> 00:42:34.050
with his the final thing you hear of him was
981
00:42:34.090 --> 00:42:36.849
the first tape that he ever made and yeah yeah
982
00:42:37.420 --> 00:42:40.639
But he talks about how this boat was trans this
983
00:42:40.699 --> 00:42:42.579
boat hit the oil rig that he was working on.
984
00:42:42.639 --> 00:42:45.219
He went down to investigate something in this cage, clawed
985
00:42:45.260 --> 00:42:48.400
him in, in that boat, you know, sank to.
986
00:42:48.340 --> 00:42:49.139
The bottom of the ocean.
987
00:42:49.219 --> 00:42:52.389
So we love the idea of exploring what that original
988
00:42:52.409 --> 00:42:55.489
werewolf was in this boat so that we could double
989
00:42:55.530 --> 00:42:57.409
down on the aquatic werewolf story.
990
00:42:57.829 --> 00:42:58.610
So you could do that.
991
00:42:59.550 --> 00:43:02.050
You could do, I think a TV series about the
992
00:43:02.090 --> 00:43:04.349
trials of Peter stump and all of the things he
993
00:43:04.409 --> 00:43:07.929
went through each, each week. And you still get Werewolf
994
00:43:07.949 --> 00:43:10.050
because he's in there, but then all the people he
995
00:43:10.090 --> 00:43:13.989
would have interacted with in this underbelly of sort of X-Files,
996
00:43:14.050 --> 00:43:15.130
Supernatural kind of guys.
997
00:43:15.590 --> 00:43:16.309
Wow.
998
00:43:16.630 --> 00:43:18.449
And then the other thing that I would be kind
999
00:43:18.489 --> 00:43:20.449
of interested in, I don't know where it would go yet,
1000
00:43:20.530 --> 00:43:23.199
but I like the idea of seeing a time jump
1001
00:43:23.260 --> 00:43:25.739
in Meg's life like 20, 30 years later, and she
1002
00:43:25.760 --> 00:43:28.550
has not figured this out. And she is about to
1003
00:43:28.639 --> 00:43:32.239
quit herself, just like her dad. And Mark's Jeffrey Donovan
1004
00:43:32.260 --> 00:43:35.880
is not around anymore. The cage is being overgrown. And like,
1005
00:43:36.000 --> 00:43:38.000
I like the idea of like, where would that character,
1006
00:43:38.039 --> 00:43:41.460
what would happen when that character is about to quit themselves? Yeah.
1007
00:43:41.659 --> 00:43:42.099
Yeah.
1008
00:43:42.420 --> 00:43:43.579
Can you make all of these tomorrow?
1009
00:43:43.860 --> 00:43:44.079
I know.
1010
00:43:44.139 --> 00:43:45.889
I'm like, this all sounds really good.
1011
00:43:46.219 --> 00:43:46.730
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1012
00:43:46.789 --> 00:43:47.030
Yeah.
1013
00:43:47.909 --> 00:43:51.070
I just like all the stuff going on in that basement.
1014
00:43:51.230 --> 00:43:54.150
Like him putting together the cage, putting together the door,
1015
00:43:54.230 --> 00:43:55.110
having to be doing all.
1016
00:43:55.050 --> 00:43:56.429
The different tests and stuff. Like I would watch a
1017
00:43:56.449 --> 00:43:58.389
whole thing on that. So that's great.
1018
00:43:58.409 --> 00:43:59.010
That's great.
1019
00:43:59.550 --> 00:44:02.500
So I think like I sequels are, I'm not opposed
1020
00:44:02.539 --> 00:44:04.280
to sequels or remakes or any of that thing. It's
1021
00:44:04.300 --> 00:44:07.000
just like, but I don't like being repetitive. So I
1022
00:44:07.039 --> 00:44:10.320
think I understand that, you know, which is the tough conundrum,
1023
00:44:10.340 --> 00:44:13.179
because I think oftentimes fans, like you want, you want
1024
00:44:13.219 --> 00:44:16.139
that comfort blanket of like, oh yeah, but that's, I
1025
00:44:16.300 --> 00:44:18.250
want to watch the sequel because I liked the first one.
1026
00:44:18.269 --> 00:44:20.250
I just kind of want the same thing, but slightly different.
1027
00:44:20.269 --> 00:44:22.489
But then from the filmmaker's perspective, you're like, yeah, but
1028
00:44:23.190 --> 00:44:24.889
We just did that. And it's kind of hard to
1029
00:44:25.159 --> 00:44:28.280
do another four years of that is you want to
1030
00:44:28.300 --> 00:44:31.260
challenge yourself. So I think those three examples are ways
1031
00:44:31.300 --> 00:44:34.099
of like cycle-esque sequels without.
1032
00:44:33.860 --> 00:44:37.590
It being like, you know, picking up two minutes after
1033
00:44:37.610 --> 00:44:38.250
where this one ends.
1034
00:44:38.389 --> 00:44:40.409
I think it just speaks to how imaginative you are, man.
1035
00:44:40.469 --> 00:44:43.369
Like those ideas are all great pitches and not at
1036
00:44:43.469 --> 00:44:45.809
all what I would first think of when I think of, oh, yeah,
1037
00:44:45.829 --> 00:44:47.949
sequel to the cycle, you know, sort of ideas. but
1038
00:44:47.969 --> 00:44:49.829
in a way that feels satisfying and not just, Oh,
1039
00:44:49.849 --> 00:44:52.329
they're just changing, changing things and doing different, something different.
1040
00:44:52.369 --> 00:44:54.889
Like it really does feel like an extension of the experience.
1041
00:44:55.900 --> 00:44:57.760
Well, what would you guys want out of like, what
1042
00:44:57.780 --> 00:44:58.719
would you expect?
1043
00:44:58.800 --> 00:45:01.000
If you, someone said cycle two is announced, what would
1044
00:45:01.079 --> 00:45:03.039
you think like you would want as an audience?
1045
00:45:03.400 --> 00:45:04.559
I would want the prequel.
1046
00:45:04.619 --> 00:45:06.780
I would want to kind of know how it all started.
1047
00:45:06.800 --> 00:45:10.260
Cause it's such an interesting werewolf, you know, just to
1048
00:45:10.320 --> 00:45:13.369
have like the dead body to, to physically also be dead,
1049
00:45:13.389 --> 00:45:15.889
you know, everything be decomposing in its own weird way,
1050
00:45:16.050 --> 00:45:18.579
but yet, when the moon comes up, you still turn.
1051
00:45:18.920 --> 00:45:19.639
I think that's crazy.
1052
00:45:19.739 --> 00:45:20.440
Yeah. Yeah.
1053
00:45:20.559 --> 00:45:22.219
And I want to know more about that.
1054
00:45:22.519 --> 00:45:26.300
Yeah. I think as long as you are somehow very involved,
1055
00:45:26.780 --> 00:45:27.159
I'll be there.
1056
00:45:28.070 --> 00:45:28.300
Yeah.
1057
00:45:28.320 --> 00:45:28.949
With bells on.
1058
00:45:29.070 --> 00:45:31.789
Yeah, absolutely. So we do have to wrap, but we'll
1059
00:45:31.809 --> 00:45:34.369
just give our quick recommendations at the end here. Mine
1060
00:45:34.429 --> 00:45:36.610
is the monster squad, just because that was the first
1061
00:45:36.650 --> 00:45:39.889
time I saw a werewolf, not just traditional werewolf in
1062
00:45:39.909 --> 00:45:41.809
terms of he's cursed and all that, but also when
1063
00:45:41.829 --> 00:45:44.070
he gets blown apart and his body parts, you know,
1064
00:45:44.389 --> 00:45:47.010
get sucked back in, he's back to life. And that
1065
00:45:47.030 --> 00:45:49.780
watching the cycle felt to me like, oh, wow, how
1066
00:45:49.820 --> 00:45:52.440
do you kill this guy? And so I feel like
1067
00:45:52.559 --> 00:45:54.980
if you're a werewolf fan, it's a neat thing to see. Like, yeah,
1068
00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:57.300
this is an early idea of like how many different
1069
00:45:57.320 --> 00:45:58.949
things we could do with the werewolf mythos, but still
1070
00:45:58.969 --> 00:46:00.849
keep it kind of traditional. And the cycle is the
1071
00:46:00.889 --> 00:46:01.969
latest iteration of that, I feel.
1072
00:46:02.340 --> 00:46:03.619
I would go with Ginger Snaps.
1073
00:46:03.940 --> 00:46:08.039
I just really love the brutality in that, the transformation,
1074
00:46:08.079 --> 00:46:09.880
what it kind of stands for. It's a little different
1075
00:46:09.900 --> 00:46:12.670
than other werewolf movies, the female agenda with it.
1076
00:46:13.139 --> 00:46:15.199
It could also be a queer representation.
1077
00:46:15.340 --> 00:46:17.420
You know, it really talked to a lot of people
1078
00:46:17.480 --> 00:46:20.119
on a different level and had that like 90s grungy feel.
1079
00:46:20.760 --> 00:46:22.570
And with the practical effects, I really liked it. I
1080
00:46:22.590 --> 00:46:24.269
think the two of these would be really fun together.
1081
00:46:24.289 --> 00:46:24.849
Yeah.
1082
00:46:25.909 --> 00:46:26.630
Those are both great.
1083
00:46:27.449 --> 00:46:31.010
Yeah, like I said earlier, I've always changed up the answer,
1084
00:46:31.050 --> 00:46:33.409
but Bill, you just inspired me to do one that
1085
00:46:33.449 --> 00:46:34.630
I have not mentioned yet, which.
1086
00:46:34.550 --> 00:46:35.219
Is wax work.
1087
00:46:35.679 --> 00:46:39.320
Oh, because it has that great werewolf scene out in
1088
00:46:39.360 --> 00:46:40.039
the barn.
1089
00:46:40.119 --> 00:46:40.579
Yeah.
1090
00:46:40.900 --> 00:46:43.199
And that one, like some of those that was one
1091
00:46:43.239 --> 00:46:46.059
of those werewolf. It's not a werewolf movie, but, you know,
1092
00:46:46.139 --> 00:46:49.659
just like Monster Squad, a werewolf in a horror movie
1093
00:46:50.139 --> 00:46:53.900
that was seared into my mind in in that in
1094
00:46:53.920 --> 00:46:54.920
that one cabin sequence.
1095
00:46:54.960 --> 00:46:56.800
So that's great. Yeah.
1096
00:46:56.820 --> 00:46:59.579
That's awesome. Let's go. Jordan, we have to go, but
1097
00:46:59.699 --> 00:47:01.349
thank you so much for doing this today, man. It
1098
00:47:01.369 --> 00:47:03.389
was really special. It was such a treat. Thank you.
1099
00:47:03.469 --> 00:47:05.849
Being so open with your process and we wish you
1100
00:47:05.869 --> 00:47:08.030
all the best on this release. We hope people love
1101
00:47:08.050 --> 00:47:08.650
it as much as we do.
1102
00:47:08.869 --> 00:47:10.630
Well, thank you both. I'd do this anytime.
1103
00:47:10.670 --> 00:47:14.219
You guys are a blast to talk to and I
1104
00:47:14.260 --> 00:47:15.639
really appreciate it. Yeah.
1105
00:47:15.659 --> 00:47:17.199
You should be very proud of this film and I
1106
00:47:17.239 --> 00:47:20.500
cannot wait. I cannot wait to see. Everybody else is
1107
00:47:20.519 --> 00:47:21.800
going to love it too. Don't even worry about it.
1108
00:47:21.800 --> 00:47:24.039
Well, thank you.
1109
00:47:24.059 --> 00:47:24.280
All right.
1110
00:47:34.760 --> 00:47:36.360
Thank you all for joining us for this episode of
1111
00:47:36.400 --> 00:47:40.900
Bill and Ashley's Terror Theater. Part of the Stranded Panda Network.
1112
00:47:41.019 --> 00:47:42.659
You can find my work in the show notes links below.
1113
00:47:43.119 --> 00:47:44.570
Check us out on social media. You can find this
1114
00:47:44.610 --> 00:47:47.010
show at strandedpanda.com and everywhere else you get your podcasts.
1115
00:47:47.389 --> 00:47:50.449
Join our Patreon at patreon.com slash billandashterrortheater. If you have
1116
00:47:50.489 --> 00:47:52.130
questions or comments, please feel free to write to us
1117
00:47:52.210 --> 00:47:55.489
at billandashterortheater at gmail.com. We're dying to hear from you.
1118
00:47:55.739 --> 00:47:56.679
See you in your nightmares.
1119
00:47:56.699 --> 00:47:56.769
Bye.