Latest / Frightmares / Parasomnia feat. James Ross II (2026)

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Parasomnia feat. James Ross II (2026) · Frightmares

0:01
Speaker 1: You are now listening to the Someone's Favorite Productions Podcast Network.
0:07
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to Tumbleweeds and TV Cowboys.
0:10
Speaker 1: My name is Hunter.
0:11
Speaker 2: In this podcast, I'll be joined by a different guest
0:13
Speaker 2: each week to discuss a classic Western movie or TV show.
0:16
Speaker 2: I've been a fan of classic Westerns for as long
0:18
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0:20
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0:24
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0:27
Speaker 2: their best, they're incredibly entertaining, rewatchable, and some of my
0:30
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0:53
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. The following podcast will contain spoilers, tangents,
0:58
Speaker 1: hot takes and excessive foul language. Viewer discretion is advised.
1:03
Speaker 1: Enjoy the show.
1:45
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Fright Matters Podcast. I'm your host, Austin Proctor.
1:48
Speaker 3: And today, joining me for a brand new horror movie, Parasomnia,
1:52
Speaker 3: is the director himself, James Ross II. How are we
1:55
Speaker 3: doing today?
1:56
Speaker 1: I'm doing all right.
1:58
Speaker 3: Good to hear. So for anyone who doesn't know about Parasomnia,
2:02
Speaker 3: it is on Shudder. I did happen to come across it,
2:05
Speaker 3: and the poster intrigued me. uh, immediately got some, uh,
2:10
Speaker 3: like kind of just from the poster. I wouldn't say
2:12
Speaker 3: this movie vibes like insidious, although I guess kind of
2:15
Speaker 3: in a way it does with the further and kind
2:17
Speaker 3: of where Riley goes in those dream sequences. But it
2:20
Speaker 3: kind of reminded me of like the further with the
2:22
Speaker 3: hand or the insidious with the hand grabbing out some
2:24
Speaker 3: nightmare on Elm street vibes. So I was like, let's
2:26
Speaker 3: check this out. And then I read the description and
2:28
Speaker 3: I was like, yep, sold. So I watched it, really
2:30
Speaker 3: enjoyed it, reached out to you. And, uh, so thank
2:33
Speaker 3: you for being here. I really do appreciate it.
2:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks for having me.
2:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, I appreciate you taking some time out of your day.
2:39
Speaker 3: So about James, he is a writer and director raised
2:43
Speaker 3: in the Washington, D.C.
2:44
Speaker 1: Area.
2:44
Speaker 3: He builds his story from emotionally grounded characters living in
2:47
Speaker 3: a world heightened by genre thrills. He loves an unsettling
2:50
Speaker 3: narrative and injects his style of visceral horror while having
2:53
Speaker 3: some fun along the way. James entered the industry in
2:57
Speaker 3: 2023 when he was selected as one of five graduate
2:59
Speaker 3: students to receive a Gotham Award for his horror short
3:04
Speaker 3: film Don't Blink. What is the Gotham Award? Because I
3:07
Speaker 3: saw that and I was like, I'm not sure exactly
3:09
Speaker 3: what that is and where it comes from.
3:12
Speaker 1: So the Gotham Award, it's an industry award. But this
3:15
Speaker 1: particular award was for their graduate student program that they
3:20
Speaker 1: partner with Focus Features with. And so basically... uh, I'm
3:26
Speaker 1: not allowed myself to submit for this award. It's basically,
3:29
Speaker 1: you get nominated by the faculty at your film school
3:32
Speaker 1: program and they submit on your behalf. So I didn't
3:35
Speaker 1: know about this award until, until I had won it. Uh,
3:39
Speaker 1: and then it's like, Oh, okay. They, they submitted me.
3:41
Speaker 1: I didn't know this.
3:41
Speaker 3: All right.
3:42
Speaker 1: I won. So this is, this is cool. What does
3:44
Speaker 1: this mean? Um, and basically what it means is, um,
3:46
Speaker 1: you know, you get to go to the Gotham awards,
3:48
Speaker 1: which is cool. You know, being in the room with
3:50
Speaker 1: like Michael Mann and Leonardo DiCaprio is pretty awesome.
3:53
Speaker 3: Okay.
3:54
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And then, um, so focus then takes your
3:59
Speaker 1: film and distributes it on their digital platforms. So don't
4:03
Speaker 1: blink was put on, uh, their YouTube channel. Uh, it
4:06
Speaker 1: was put on some airlines and then that is kind
4:08
Speaker 1: of what got me seen by the industry and kind
4:11
Speaker 1: of led to, to where we are now. Excellent.
4:13
Speaker 3: Okay.
4:14
Speaker 1: Yeah.
4:14
Speaker 3: Cause per, uh, parasomnia is your directorial debut. It explores
4:17
Speaker 3: the terror of surrendering control to sleep. Um, and it is, uh,
4:23
Speaker 3: It's a good one. I'll be the first to say it.
4:25
Speaker 3: It's a good one. If you are into now, obviously,
4:29
Speaker 3: let me preface this whole conversation by saying if you
4:32
Speaker 3: do happen to suffer from sleep paralysis or any of that,
4:35
Speaker 3: I'd probably avoid this movie. It might be some sort
4:39
Speaker 3: of a trigger. But if like me, I don't have that.
4:41
Speaker 3: So I always love the. the movies that center around those.
4:45
Speaker 3: Cause there's not a lot. I mean, I have the
4:47
Speaker 3: nightmare on Elm street shirt on sure, but that's somebody
4:50
Speaker 3: invading your dreams rather than this kind of paralysis that
4:54
Speaker 3: Riley is experiencing throughout the movie, which ultimately affects stuff
4:58
Speaker 3: from her dreams into the real world, which I, which
5:01
Speaker 3: I really like. So the description here, um, well, I
5:05
Speaker 3: did have it. Um, I thought I had it. Let
5:09
Speaker 3: me just pull up the IMDB description here. I wrote
5:13
Speaker 3: down what parasomnia was, but I did not write down
5:15
Speaker 3: the actual description. So excuse me while I cut all
5:19
Speaker 3: of this out. And parasomnia. Okay, parasomnia. Oh, there's a
5:26
Speaker 3: second one. Here we go. So parasomnia. After her friend vanishes,
5:29
Speaker 3: Riley must confront the demon from her night terrors that
5:32
Speaker 3: may have crossed into reality while facing her own tragic past.
5:37
Speaker 3: And what I like about this narratively is it's not linear.
5:42
Speaker 3: which is always fun because you kind of have to
5:45
Speaker 3: not pick up the pieces, but you got to make
5:46
Speaker 3: sure you're paying attention when it comes to nonlinear storytelling. Now,
5:50
Speaker 3: was that the original idea on how you made the
5:53
Speaker 3: film or did you start with it kind of going
5:56
Speaker 3: more in a linear fashion?
5:58
Speaker 1: I mean, you hit the nail on the head with
6:01
Speaker 1: the nonlinear stuff. It's something that I wanted to do
6:04
Speaker 1: from the start. From the script stage, what I wanted
6:09
Speaker 1: to do with this film is... you know, kind of
6:13
Speaker 1: take the normal structure of a film and kind of
6:16
Speaker 1: like fold it in on itself. And what I mean
6:18
Speaker 1: by that is like, you go through the film and
6:21
Speaker 1: the story through one perspective, and then you stop, reset,
6:24
Speaker 1: and then go through it again from another perspective after
6:27
Speaker 1: there's a reveal. So the feeling that I was kind
6:30
Speaker 1: of after with this was, you know, imagine watching a
6:32
Speaker 1: movie that has a big twist in the end, and
6:35
Speaker 1: then watching it again, knowing And I wanted to give
6:40
Speaker 1: that experience to the audience with, you know, one watch through.
6:45
Speaker 1: So the idea of watching a movie twice with a twist,
6:49
Speaker 1: but one time. So that was kind of the idea
6:53
Speaker 1: behind the nonlinear structure.
6:55
Speaker 3: And I love that too. It was very, because this,
6:57
Speaker 3: you know, technically the release date on this is it
7:00
Speaker 3: was done in 2025 and then released to streaming September
7:04
Speaker 3: 4th this year. And it very much vibes in a
7:08
Speaker 3: way like Weapons does where they kind of, go through
7:11
Speaker 3: each character and then kind of wrap around. But I
7:14
Speaker 3: love when a movie does what you did, where you
7:17
Speaker 3: experience it from one perspective all the way up to,
7:19
Speaker 3: oh shit, and then you go back in time knowing
7:23
Speaker 3: what's going on and then get to see it from
7:25
Speaker 3: another perspective. It is not an easy thing to do.
7:29
Speaker 3: And how you did it is very effective, in my opinion,
7:32
Speaker 3: because once you see that twist, you're just filled with dread.
7:36
Speaker 3: I was filled with this immeasurable amount of dread. Like,
7:40
Speaker 3: oh my God, I know where this movie is going
7:42
Speaker 3: and now I have to see it from this perspective
7:45
Speaker 3: to see kind of the background of what was going
7:48
Speaker 3: on while Riley is dealing with everything. So I mean, truly, narratively,
7:52
Speaker 3: it is a very well-told and structured story. And again,
7:57
Speaker 3: I just like how it's broken up into segments. That
8:00
Speaker 3: is something I also really enjoy. So just from those
8:03
Speaker 3: perspectives and even How it was shot was great. I really,
8:08
Speaker 3: really enjoyed the dream sequences where... Do you happen to
8:13
Speaker 3: know what kind of camera you shot that with to
8:15
Speaker 3: get that kind of effect? Was it like an older
8:18
Speaker 3: camera or was that just kind of a filter that
8:20
Speaker 3: you threw over it?
8:22
Speaker 1: We shot on an old Hi8 camera. I don't know
8:26
Speaker 1: what the exact... title of it was, it was a Sony,
8:30
Speaker 1: Sony camera and we shot on actual high eight tapes
8:32
Speaker 1: and then digitize them.
8:34
Speaker 3: Okay. Well, that makes me love that even more because yeah,
8:36
Speaker 3: that definitely tapped into a little bit of the Blair
8:39
Speaker 3: witch there with the kind of the grainy footage. And
8:42
Speaker 3: you're also, that's meant to be Riley's perspective in these
8:45
Speaker 3: dream sequences, highly, highly effective, especially when you add the blink, um,
8:51
Speaker 3: after effect in to the camera, like you were literally
8:54
Speaker 3: supposed to be seeing it through her eyes. And those
8:57
Speaker 3: elements or those spots of the movies provide a lot
8:59
Speaker 3: of good jump scares. And I know there's this weird
9:02
Speaker 3: thing around jump scares in the horror community where people just,
9:06
Speaker 3: you know, cheap or, oh, it's lazy. No, I love
9:09
Speaker 3: jump scares. And how they're done in this are so creepy.
9:12
Speaker 3: And it's more about, like, the seer just kind of
9:14
Speaker 3: being off in the distance around a corner and poking
9:16
Speaker 3: his head around. And you're like, no, absolutely not. I
9:20
Speaker 3: don't want to see this. Get me out of here.
9:22
Speaker 3: I'm scared. Yeah. I love the fact that you actually
9:25
Speaker 3: did use high eight. That's amazing. Because it adds a
9:28
Speaker 3: completely different visual aesthetic to the movie. Because when you
9:34
Speaker 3: go back to what's actually happening, it's very clean. It's
9:36
Speaker 3: very smooth. Everything is crisp. And then you get those
9:39
Speaker 3: kind of grainier, grittier moments. And it's a very nice
9:42
Speaker 3: contrast when you're watching it all the way through. So
9:46
Speaker 3: kind of going into the movie itself here. I read
9:51
Speaker 3: that you had talked about hearing your mother's stories about
9:53
Speaker 3: shadow people and eventually experiencing sleep paralysis yourself. Was there
9:58
Speaker 3: a particular experience? Now, is that correct before I continue my.
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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, that's correct. Okay, cool.
10:03
Speaker 3: Like I said, the research on the internet can be
10:05
Speaker 3: hit or miss. So, was there a particular experience that
10:08
Speaker 3: made you think there's a horror movie in this, or
10:11
Speaker 3: did the idea kind of just develop over time?
10:15
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I think with this, it's like
10:22
Speaker 1: I'm trying to answer this without like, you know, I
10:25
Speaker 1: have a habit of like going from the beginning and
10:27
Speaker 1: explaining like my origins with horror. So I'm trying to
10:30
Speaker 1: like get to the good part where it's like, okay. So,
10:33
Speaker 1: so basically I think, I always had this idea ever
10:38
Speaker 1: since I started making short horror films when I was
10:41
Speaker 1: a teenager, like accidentally making short horror films. And the
10:46
Speaker 1: idea of sleep based horror was always something that really
10:50
Speaker 1: intrigues me. I was like, there's just a lot to
10:53
Speaker 1: play with here. I love seeing, you know, dream sequences
10:57
Speaker 1: in films, the sort of audio visual experience that directors
11:01
Speaker 1: can play with with that. And, you know, I had
11:03
Speaker 1: seen a nightmare on Elm street. I'd seen insidious. And
11:06
Speaker 1: I was like, I feel like there's, there's a little
11:08
Speaker 1: bit more that I can explore in here. And I
11:11
Speaker 1: always liked the idea of, you know, not only someone
11:16
Speaker 1: who's asleep, having these night terror experiences being tormented by
11:21
Speaker 1: something while they were asleep, but the idea of that thing,
11:25
Speaker 1: tormenting people in the waking world while that person is asleep.
11:29
Speaker 1: I was like, that to me is scary. It's, it's,
11:31
Speaker 1: For me, it wasn't as scary being the person asleep.
11:35
Speaker 1: It was being in the same house as someone who's asleep,
11:39
Speaker 1: and then there's something else there. It's related to that. That,
11:41
Speaker 1: to me, was the engine behind... the, the, the horror
11:52
Speaker 1: or parasomnia that I had been trying to do, but
11:55
Speaker 1: could never really fit into a short. So when I,
11:58
Speaker 1: I finally had the opportunity to, to do a feature,
12:01
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, this is my chance to really just,
12:04
Speaker 1: you know, air it out, let loose on this and,
12:06
Speaker 1: and see what I can come up with. Yeah.
12:08
Speaker 3: That's something I'm learning as a budding screenwriter and a
12:12
Speaker 3: filmmaker myself is there are ideas I have where sure,
12:17
Speaker 3: this is, this is a short, no problem. But then
12:19
Speaker 3: I get into these more complex ideas where it's like,
12:22
Speaker 3: all right, this has got to be a feature and
12:24
Speaker 3: I want to have the money to do this feature.
12:26
Speaker 3: So let's hold off on this one. So I appreciate that,
12:29
Speaker 3: you know, you didn't try to cram parasomnia into a
12:32
Speaker 3: short because ultimately I don't think it would have been
12:34
Speaker 3: as effective. I'm sure it would have still been great,
12:36
Speaker 3: but definitely needed that feature length runtime. So let's backtrack
12:41
Speaker 3: a little bit because I did forget to ask these
12:43
Speaker 3: two opening questions. So, How did you get into horror movies?
12:48
Speaker 3: You know, like kind of what age were you? What
12:51
Speaker 3: was that one horror movie that traumatized you as a
12:54
Speaker 3: kid or whatever? Like for me, it was a double
12:56
Speaker 3: feature of Aliens or Alien and Aliens at like eight
12:59
Speaker 3: or nine. And then The Ring happened. And then I
13:02
Speaker 3: was like, you know what? I think I'm just I
13:04
Speaker 3: think I'm good on horror movies. So what about you?
13:07
Speaker 3: Kind of tell me your intro to the horror genre
13:09
Speaker 3: and stuff like that.
13:10
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, so horror, I had a really interesting journey
13:14
Speaker 1: and I, it's, I hadn't really thought that much about
13:17
Speaker 1: it until I started doing press for the film and
13:21
Speaker 1: kind of just, you know, thinking about how this started,
13:25
Speaker 1: but I've never been like asked straight up, just like,
13:27
Speaker 1: you know, what the origins were. So, so thanks for
13:29
Speaker 1: asking that. So I, uh, I grew up on, on
13:32
Speaker 1: shows like Billy and Mandy courage, the cowardly dog. like
13:37
Speaker 1: cartoons that have the horror aesthetic and just the atmosphere.
13:42
Speaker 1: And I loved those shows, even though like, I love
13:46
Speaker 1: them because of how like intense they were. Like it was,
13:49
Speaker 1: it was, it was a lot for me and I
13:51
Speaker 1: didn't really know what I was feeling, but I found
13:54
Speaker 1: myself drawn to that, to that feeling. And so that
13:58
Speaker 1: kind of bled into goosebumps that I would watch reruns of.
14:03
Speaker 1: And then RL Stein had another show. That was kind
14:06
Speaker 1: of a spiritual sequel to Goosebumps. It was called The
14:09
Speaker 1: Haunting Hour. And that came out between 2010 and 2014,
14:14
Speaker 1: which was like the prime of my adolescence. And The
14:17
Speaker 1: Haunting Hour was so good because it was a lot
14:21
Speaker 1: more mature and a lot darker than Goosebumps. Like there
14:24
Speaker 1: were some legit jump scares in that show. And like
14:27
Speaker 1: kids die. Like they genuinely kill these kids off. Like
14:31
Speaker 1: it wasn't afraid to go very dark. And so I
14:35
Speaker 1: was really, really into that. And then at some point,
14:39
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, I want to go see a
14:42
Speaker 1: horror movie in theaters. And this was the summer of 2010.
14:47
Speaker 1: I was 10 years old, and I had my dad
14:50
Speaker 1: take me to go see a movie called Piranha 3D,
14:53
Speaker 1: the Alejandro Eja movie. Yes! And... It wasn't exactly a
14:58
Speaker 1: horror movie. And there's a lot in that that a
15:01
Speaker 1: 10 year old probably shouldn't see that my dad made
15:04
Speaker 1: me cover my eyes for like all the nudity, even
15:06
Speaker 1: though I like I peeked through my fingers the whole time.
15:09
Speaker 1: I had no idea. But it was the first time
15:12
Speaker 1: I remember that movie vividly. I've only seen it once,
15:15
Speaker 1: but it had some insane practical effects. Like I was
15:19
Speaker 1: watching people getting folded in half and There's one scene
15:23
Speaker 1: in particular that I'll never forget where during the fish
15:27
Speaker 1: feeding frenzy, this girl gets her hair caught up in
15:32
Speaker 1: a speedboat propeller. And it's idle and the guy's cranking
15:36
Speaker 1: it and cranking it. And I was like, oh no.
15:37
Speaker 1: And then that propeller spins and it just rips her
15:40
Speaker 1: entire face off. And I'm like, holy shit. But as good,
15:47
Speaker 1: as fun as that movie was, it wasn't really... A
15:50
Speaker 1: horror movie that, you know, I feel like I had
15:54
Speaker 1: been sold on. So fast forward to the next year.
15:57
Speaker 1: This is 2011, October 2011. And there's this movie coming
16:01
Speaker 1: out called Paranormal Activity 3. And my friends had seen
16:06
Speaker 1: the previous two movies. I had not seen them because
16:08
Speaker 1: I was too scared. I was like, this looks terrifying.
16:12
Speaker 1: But I was like, you know what? I did piranha.
16:15
Speaker 1: I'm doing the haunting hour. I've got all this. This
16:18
Speaker 1: is my chance to go see a genuinely scary R
16:22
Speaker 1: rated horror film with, with an audience. And I went
16:25
Speaker 1: with my mom and dad and I remember the audience
16:28
Speaker 1: reactions were so much fun during that movie. Cause I
16:30
Speaker 1: think we saw it on like opening weekend, but then
16:34
Speaker 1: I learned in a very important lesson, like, the Canon
16:39
Speaker 1: event of, of all, of all horror movie watchers or
16:42
Speaker 1: even movie watchers in general, which is, you know, I
16:45
Speaker 1: was watching the movie and I got out of it
16:48
Speaker 1: and I was like, you know, I didn't think that
16:49
Speaker 1: was that scary. And then I learned that the effects
16:52
Speaker 1: of a horror movie doesn't really reveal itself to you
16:55
Speaker 1: until hours after you've watched it. Like you don't really
16:59
Speaker 1: know if a horror movie is scary until later and
17:03
Speaker 1: And it's at night and you're looking in dark corners
17:06
Speaker 1: and you're playing through moments of the movie and you're
17:09
Speaker 1: picturing yourself in there. And then at that moment is
17:12
Speaker 1: when you decide that either a, I love this, you know,
17:16
Speaker 1: horrors for me, I'm going to go watch everything scary now,
17:20
Speaker 1: or you can be like me and you can be like,
17:22
Speaker 1: fuck all of that. I'm never watching a horror movie
17:27
Speaker 1: ever again because it's, For weeks, I mean weeks on end,
17:32
Speaker 1: I could not be in the house by myself. And
17:36
Speaker 1: I learned a very important lesson, which is that I
17:40
Speaker 1: don't fuck with ghosts. I just don't. That's the thing
17:44
Speaker 1: that's still– and I think since that movie, right? Like
17:48
Speaker 1: I saw horror movies– For the next couple of years.
17:52
Speaker 1: And then in 2013, I was playing football. I was
17:56
Speaker 1: a freshman in high school. And some of my friends
17:58
Speaker 1: were like, we're going to go see Insidious 2, James.
18:00
Speaker 1: Come with us. And I was like, nope, I'm good.
18:03
Speaker 1: But they were like, stop being a bitch. Come and
18:05
Speaker 1: watch with us. I was like, all right. Can't be
18:08
Speaker 1: a bitch. So I watched Insidious 2, and I really
18:11
Speaker 1: liked it. It felt like I loved it. the lore, uh, of,
18:17
Speaker 1: of the insidious movies. I love, you know, kind of
18:20
Speaker 1: the rules and, you know, it was just a really
18:22
Speaker 1: fun rollercoaster of an experience. And so from there, I
18:26
Speaker 1: looked up the director, James Wan. I was like, Oh yeah,
18:28
Speaker 1: not yet. Another horror movie that came out earlier this
18:30
Speaker 1: year called the conjuring. I'm gonna watch that next. And
18:33
Speaker 1: that freaks me out, but I was able to handle it.
18:36
Speaker 1: It freaks me out, but it's, I was chasing that
18:39
Speaker 1: feeling again. And I know this now, but back then
18:43
Speaker 1: is what I was doing. So I watched The Conjuring.
18:44
Speaker 1: I got that feeling again. Then I watched Sinister. I
18:47
Speaker 1: got that feeling again. And then since then, I've been
18:50
Speaker 1: a horror fan and have seen every horror movie because
18:54
Speaker 1: I'm chasing that experience that I had to figure out
18:58
Speaker 1: what actually still gets to me. And I've I've watched
19:01
Speaker 1: enough to know what actually still gets to me and
19:03
Speaker 1: what I can kind of handle. And to me, it's
19:06
Speaker 1: like I said, ghost demons. I will never do like
19:11
Speaker 1: a ghost or demonic horror movie because I read stories
19:14
Speaker 1: about what happens on set. And I'm just like, no,
19:16
Speaker 1: I'm good. Like, I don't want that creeping into my life. Um, that,
19:20
Speaker 1: and then home invasion horror actually gets to me like
19:22
Speaker 1: the strangers, um, you know, even something like the first, the,
19:26
Speaker 1: the purge, uh, that, that actually gets to me too.
19:29
Speaker 1: Cause there, those are the two things that you think
19:31
Speaker 1: about really happening. Cause I, I do believe in ghosts and,
19:35
Speaker 1: you know, obviously there's crazy people out there that like
19:37
Speaker 1: home invasions are real things. So those two types of
19:41
Speaker 1: horror movies still can get to me. Um, even though
19:44
Speaker 1: I love watching them. So that's a big, long answer
19:49
Speaker 1: to my. origins in horror. And since I started making movies,
19:54
Speaker 1: I kind of, like I said earlier, accidentally started making
19:58
Speaker 1: horror films as shorts because it's like I wanted to
20:01
Speaker 1: create suspense and, you know, make the audience feel my
20:06
Speaker 1: movies on a physical level. And I still kind of
20:10
Speaker 1: want to do that. And, you know, when you're working
20:12
Speaker 1: with nothing, the one genre you can kind of work
20:15
Speaker 1: in and give the audience that experience is horror. Um,
20:18
Speaker 1: and so that's what I started doing and I've been
20:22
Speaker 1: just kind of sharpening that knife ever since until I
20:25
Speaker 1: got the opportunity to do it, um, on a, on
20:28
Speaker 1: a bigger scope. Um, and so, yeah, now here we are.
20:32
Speaker 3: Uh, man, that was an incredible answer. I love that.
20:36
Speaker 3: The detail was great. I also love the fact that
20:39
Speaker 3: you went into paranormal activity three without seeing one and two,
20:42
Speaker 3: because that one's actually a prequel.
20:44
Speaker 1: Yeah.
20:45
Speaker 3: So like, honestly, you kind of jumped in at the
20:47
Speaker 3: right moment for that because three happens and then two
20:50
Speaker 3: and then one. So that's actually kind of funny. And
20:53
Speaker 3: then kind of the same thing with insidious insidious two
20:56
Speaker 3: is a sequel, but they do tie it back into
20:59
Speaker 3: the first movie quite a bit. So that's an interesting, um,
21:03
Speaker 3: experience with horror. And then, yeah, of course the conjuring is, uh,
21:07
Speaker 3: one of James Wan's just greatest movies so okay no
21:10
Speaker 3: demons no ghosts how do we feel about since we're
21:14
Speaker 3: on the subject of James Wan how do we feel
21:16
Speaker 3: about like the Saw franchise is that anything that you're
21:19
Speaker 3: into because I know that's a very that that was
21:22
Speaker 3: actually my gateway I don't know what that says about
21:24
Speaker 3: me that that torture porn was like oh yeah this
21:28
Speaker 3: I'm into this but that was my gateway was the
21:30
Speaker 3: original Saw and I was like oh I'm chasing this
21:33
Speaker 3: for you know for forever so Um, are you into
21:37
Speaker 3: the kind of like the body horror kind of stuff
21:39
Speaker 3: like that?
21:40
Speaker 1: I love that stuff. Cause the thing is like, I,
21:44
Speaker 1: I was a kid in the two thousands and like
21:45
Speaker 1: growing up. and going to blockbuster and seeing those posters
21:50
Speaker 1: where it's just that, and this, the severed hand and
21:54
Speaker 1: being like, like these, these horror movies just felt so
21:56
Speaker 1: forbidden to me because it's like, Oh, it's like gnarly
21:59
Speaker 1: and crazy. And so my imagination would play a lot
22:03
Speaker 1: of tricks on me. And I would imagine what would
22:06
Speaker 1: be in those movies. And then when I got into horror, uh,
22:10
Speaker 1: And I actually finally started to see those movies. I
22:12
Speaker 1: saw The Saw. I saw Hostel. I saw The Hills
22:15
Speaker 1: Have Eyes, Texas Chainsaw, like the 2000s horror films. I'm like, damn,
22:21
Speaker 1: these are like– like compared to today, those movies were
22:25
Speaker 1: fucking merciless. Like they were intense as shit. And like
22:30
Speaker 1: I remember because I watched The Hills Have Eyes again recently.
22:33
Speaker 1: I'm just like, my god, like this is a really–
22:37
Speaker 1: intense film that, that feels disgusting and dirty and you
22:42
Speaker 1: just feel it a lot more. And I think that that's,
22:45
Speaker 1: that's one of my kind of pet peeves about, you know,
22:48
Speaker 1: horror movies of today is like, they all look a
22:50
Speaker 1: little too pretty, you know, it's like, it's, it's obviously
22:53
Speaker 1: a personal preference, but I'm just like, I want my
22:55
Speaker 1: horror movies to look like, like, I want to feel
22:58
Speaker 1: like I need to take a shower after watching them,
23:01
Speaker 1: you know? And that's really what those, those two thousands
23:04
Speaker 1: movies just covered in grime and, and just the like
23:08
Speaker 1: pain was the source of horror and the body was
23:11
Speaker 1: central to that. So I love all of that. And I,
23:14
Speaker 1: I try to, I mean, you know, spoilers for parasomnia,
23:18
Speaker 1: but there's, there's a little bit of eye trauma in
23:20
Speaker 1: that where, you know, I try to explore some of the,
23:22
Speaker 1: the cringeworthy body horror moments. Um, and yeah, I just
23:26
Speaker 1: think that it's, it's a, it's a part of my
23:29
Speaker 1: toolkit now, but I think it comes from, you know,
23:32
Speaker 1: that era of films that I feel like, doesn't get
23:36
Speaker 1: quite the love that I think it should, but I
23:38
Speaker 1: think it's kind of being reclaimed now, now that people
23:41
Speaker 1: who grew up on those movies are a little bit older. Um,
23:44
Speaker 1: so yeah, love saw, love the saw movies. Saw X
23:47
Speaker 1: was great.
23:49
Speaker 3: Honestly, for, for the 10th installment, I was like, all right,
23:53
Speaker 3: all right, we're doing good. Well, and I think there's, there's,
23:55
Speaker 3: there's a certain aesthetic too, with the movies from the
23:58
Speaker 3: 2000 or the horror movies from the 2000s, you know,
24:01
Speaker 3: most of them are still being shot on film 35 and,
24:04
Speaker 3: And so they have that grainy texture to it. There
24:06
Speaker 3: was also just this lighting, like this green kind of
24:12
Speaker 3: hue that was present in a lot of these movies.
24:14
Speaker 3: You also had just countless remakes like House of Wax,
24:18
Speaker 3: Texas Chainsaw. Ghost Ship is kind of loosely based off
24:22
Speaker 3: of Death Ship, but whatever. You had 13 ghosts. So
24:25
Speaker 3: you were in this era of all of these modernized
24:29
Speaker 3: remakes that had this gritty aesthetic to it. And, yeah,
24:32
Speaker 3: you're right. All of those people who grew up with
24:34
Speaker 3: those are now getting older. And if they're getting into film,
24:37
Speaker 3: we're trying, you know, like me, I'm going to try
24:39
Speaker 3: and recreate those 2000s feelings because I do feel like
24:43
Speaker 3: it's a very overlooked time in horror history. You know,
24:47
Speaker 3: like you said. they were relentless. They were merciless. And
24:50
Speaker 3: that probably turned the average horror fan off. But, you know,
24:53
Speaker 3: sick fucks like me, I guess we're like, yeah, this,
24:56
Speaker 3: this is my shit. So for you though, was there
25:00
Speaker 3: a specific point? I know you said you started accidentally
25:03
Speaker 3: making short horror films. So what was the point where
25:07
Speaker 3: you were like, okay, I think I actually want to
25:09
Speaker 3: start getting into filmmaking and doing this as a, you know,
25:13
Speaker 3: a potential future career.
25:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I've wanted to make movies since I was
25:22
Speaker 1: seven years old. I did not consciously realize that I
25:26
Speaker 1: wanted to make movies until I was around 15 years old.
25:30
Speaker 1: So I was seven and I got into comics because
25:35
Speaker 1: 07 was when you had Spider-Man 3, you had Fantastic
25:40
Speaker 1: Four that came out, and those were kind of my
25:41
Speaker 1: gateways into superheroes and comics. And then in 08, you
25:46
Speaker 1: had the dark night, you had the start of the MCU.
25:49
Speaker 1: And then, so like, it was just perfect for me
25:52
Speaker 1: to just really start getting into these characters. And, you know,
25:55
Speaker 1: in my head, I would always kind of imagine like
25:58
Speaker 1: creating my own superhero and his story and his origins
26:02
Speaker 1: and his battles and his heroes and his villains and
26:04
Speaker 1: these scenes. And so that's what I say, like, I
26:07
Speaker 1: wanted to make movies when I was seven, because like,
26:08
Speaker 1: I was actually kind of already doing that in my head.
26:12
Speaker 1: And then, so as I grew up, and my palate
26:17
Speaker 1: expanded beyond, you know, the kids' version of superheroes and Transformers,
26:24
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, I feel like I'm learning film
26:29
Speaker 1: and absorbing this at a level that I feel like
26:34
Speaker 1: Like I was very intrigued at learning what filmmaking itself
26:40
Speaker 1: actually was rather than just the storytelling and the characters
26:43
Speaker 1: and stuff. I was learning like, OK, these are the
26:46
Speaker 1: roles that that a director has, a writer, a producer.
26:51
Speaker 1: At the same time, when I was seven, going back
26:54
Speaker 1: to that, like I thought that that actors were the
26:57
Speaker 1: ones who made the movies, like the people I see
26:59
Speaker 1: were the ones responsible. So I wanted to be an actor.
27:01
Speaker 1: So I started acting as a kid, funny enough. And
27:04
Speaker 1: I kind of, you know, did that all the way
27:06
Speaker 1: until I think grad school. But when I was on
27:09
Speaker 1: these sets, I loved seeing the crew work and seeing
27:14
Speaker 1: the director work and, you know, seeing the camera, seeing,
27:18
Speaker 1: you know, video village, seeing all these sets being built
27:20
Speaker 1: and just feeling like I was creating magic and just
27:24
Speaker 1: just a part of that. And I my mind just
27:26
Speaker 1: never left that. And then I've been trying to pinpoint
27:30
Speaker 1: this for a while, but I think like the summer
27:33
Speaker 1: of 2014 is really when I started watching just everything. Um, I, I,
27:40
Speaker 1: you know, when school let out that summer, I just
27:42
Speaker 1: remember going into the multiplex and this is back when
27:45
Speaker 1: you could still sneak into movies. Cause now you got
27:47
Speaker 1: to reserve seats and stuff.
27:49
Speaker 3: Sneaking into the movies is how I saw the first, like,
27:52
Speaker 3: like saw two and three, I think before I turned 17.
27:55
Speaker 1: Exactly. So like I would I would sneak in. I
27:58
Speaker 1: remember this. I would sneak in and I would like
28:02
Speaker 1: double feature movies. So I would actually go in and
28:05
Speaker 1: I would watch like Godzilla, Gareth Edwards, Godzilla. And then
28:08
Speaker 1: I would go sneak into the neighbors Seth Rogen movie.
28:12
Speaker 1: I got a ticket and I saw Finding Dory. And
28:14
Speaker 1: then I went to see The Conjuring 2 in the
28:16
Speaker 1: same day.
28:18
Speaker 3: So you could do that back in the day. We would,
28:21
Speaker 3: we would always look at the boards at our theater
28:23
Speaker 3: and be like, okay, this movie is on because sometimes
28:26
Speaker 3: they're split. And I was like, all right, I see
28:27
Speaker 3: a G rated movie over here. Let me get that.
28:30
Speaker 3: Cause I also see the movie I want to sneak
28:31
Speaker 3: into over here. So yeah, I did the same thing.
28:35
Speaker 1: So you stack them, you stack your movies. Um, so yeah,
28:40
Speaker 1: I would, I started doing that and then I was like, man,
28:44
Speaker 1: I really, I really love this stuff. And credit to
28:47
Speaker 1: my parents who were always like, you know, if you
28:50
Speaker 1: do what you want in life, you know, you'll never
28:53
Speaker 1: work a day in your life, something like that. And
28:55
Speaker 1: so I was like, you know what? I really love
28:58
Speaker 1: this stuff. If I was to do this for the
29:00
Speaker 1: rest of my life, like as hard as it is to,
29:02
Speaker 1: to get into this industry, as hard as it is
29:05
Speaker 1: to make movies, it's Is this something that I'd rather
29:08
Speaker 1: do than anything else? And I was like, yeah. And
29:12
Speaker 1: so when I was 15, I was like, all right,
29:14
Speaker 1: I'm going to go to film school and I'm going
29:16
Speaker 1: to be directing Hollywood movies in my early twenties. And
29:20
Speaker 1: you know, that didn't happen because I didn't get into
29:23
Speaker 1: film school for undergrad. And then I tried again and
29:28
Speaker 1: I only got into one for graduate program. I went
29:31
Speaker 1: to Florida state and that was the biggest blessing that
29:35
Speaker 1: I ever could have received Cause you know, that's probably
29:39
Speaker 1: the biggest reason why Paris on the exists and why
29:41
Speaker 1: I was able to have the opportunity to make that
29:44
Speaker 1: movie is, is by doing that program.
29:46
Speaker 3: Awesome.
29:46
Speaker 1: So it all works out in the end. And, uh,
29:49
Speaker 1: you know, here we are and, you know, I love
29:51
Speaker 1: what I do.
29:52
Speaker 3: Perfect. Well, I think that's a perfect transition to, uh,
29:55
Speaker 3: get into this movie here. So obviously, like I said before,
29:58
Speaker 3: parasomnia does involve, you know, sleeping and sleep paralysis and
30:02
Speaker 3: what can happen in our dreams. And I think one
30:04
Speaker 3: of the scariest things about this movie is that it
30:06
Speaker 3: taps into, you know, sleep requiring us to surrender control.
30:12
Speaker 3: I mean, you're unconscious. So did making this film change
30:15
Speaker 3: the way you personally think about sleep vulnerability or things
30:20
Speaker 3: that our minds can do to us while we're asleep?
30:23
Speaker 1: That's a good question. I don't think it changed the
30:27
Speaker 1: way i thought about sleep in a practical sense um
30:31
Speaker 1: part of the reason why i love this is because
30:33
Speaker 1: like there is so much that is not known about
30:39
Speaker 1: sleep by the general public that you can play with
30:42
Speaker 1: a lot of things that wouldn't really happen but could
30:45
Speaker 1: make it feel plausible you know you could you could
30:48
Speaker 1: feel like you know when you sleep no one really
30:51
Speaker 1: at least you know and you Generally speaking, no one
30:56
Speaker 1: really understands how dreams really work. There are theories about
30:59
Speaker 1: what dreams really are, where you really go. And I
31:04
Speaker 1: think the best thing about horror is you get to say, OK,
31:08
Speaker 1: what if what if we took this and we made
31:10
Speaker 1: it as scary as possible? Right. What if I took
31:13
Speaker 1: the concept of dreaming and I place you in a
31:17
Speaker 1: labyrinth for something cosmic and otherworldly that wants something from
31:22
Speaker 1: you and will go through you into our world and
31:25
Speaker 1: affect the people around you? What if I could have
31:27
Speaker 1: the scariest thing that you could fall asleep and dream
31:30
Speaker 1: about and the scariest thing that you could wake up
31:32
Speaker 1: to in the same film and have the audience experience
31:36
Speaker 1: those two things and put that on one character? And
31:39
Speaker 1: so that's what... really, that's, that's kind of where the
31:43
Speaker 1: story was born. And I, again, I, to go back
31:46
Speaker 1: to your question, I don't think it really changed the
31:49
Speaker 1: way I view sleep now. I mean, I still love
31:53
Speaker 1: having nightmares because it gives me ideas. Right.
31:56
Speaker 3: Exactly.
31:57
Speaker 1: Yeah.
31:57
Speaker 3: I mean, those are free horror movies that you produce,
31:59
Speaker 3: star and direct it, you know, like, so why not?
32:02
Speaker 1: Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, it's, it's fun to play
32:05
Speaker 1: in that environment, but I have yet to experience it
32:10
Speaker 1: in a way that you know, frightens me to the
32:13
Speaker 1: point where I'm thinking a little bit differently, at least
32:15
Speaker 1: not yet. Maybe that's something on the horizon.
32:18
Speaker 3: Great. Now I just opened a can of fucking worms
32:20
Speaker 3: and you can blame me if you start having sleeping problems.
32:24
Speaker 1: I'm going to send you a DM to be like,
32:26
Speaker 1: all right, Austin, this is what happened to me now.
32:30
Speaker 3: Um, so of course our main star here is Riley.
32:32
Speaker 3: She's the one dealing with all this and she has
32:35
Speaker 3: this very rigid set of rules to protect herself from
32:38
Speaker 3: the horror she experienced. So do you see her routines
32:43
Speaker 3: as an attempt to reclaim control or evidence that the
32:46
Speaker 3: trauma has already been controlling her life since the, you know,
32:50
Speaker 3: traumatic event she experienced as a child?
32:54
Speaker 1: I mean, I think both answers are correct. I think
33:00
Speaker 1: when I'm building out a character, I try to, I
33:04
Speaker 1: try to stay grounded to what, you know, obviously like
33:08
Speaker 1: this stuff, is, is crazy out of the blue stuff.
33:10
Speaker 1: But if it were to happen to a real person, um,
33:15
Speaker 1: from like the age, age five or for when Riley
33:18
Speaker 1: had her first incident, like, like how would someone like
33:20
Speaker 1: that realistically respond? And I feel like if you're able
33:24
Speaker 1: to get the audience to buy into the human aspect
33:27
Speaker 1: of the characters, then it's easier for them to buy
33:30
Speaker 1: in on the supernatural aspects. It's easier for them to
33:33
Speaker 1: really feel the effects of that as if it were
33:36
Speaker 1: happening to them. Because you feel like the way this
33:39
Speaker 1: character is reacting is the way that a real human
33:41
Speaker 1: would react. So that's kind of where I built that
33:44
Speaker 1: routine from, was like, if this were to happen to
33:47
Speaker 1: a character, to a young woman, how would she then...
33:52
Speaker 1: react for that as a as a trauma response? You know,
33:56
Speaker 1: how would that become a part of her life? How
33:59
Speaker 1: would she try to create something super or not create
34:02
Speaker 1: but like take something that was very abnormal and otherworldly
34:06
Speaker 1: and try to like kind of rationalize it and make
34:08
Speaker 1: it make it make renormalize herself and and feel like
34:12
Speaker 1: she is grounded in a reality that that she can understand.
34:17
Speaker 3: Was one of the, that happens very early on in
34:19
Speaker 3: the movie where they're playing the two truths and a lie. And, um,
34:25
Speaker 3: the one girl that she had just met, she, you know,
34:27
Speaker 3: she's like, you're not a barista. She's like, how do
34:29
Speaker 3: you even know this? We just met. But, uh, I
34:32
Speaker 3: loved when you set up the fact that she can
34:34
Speaker 3: make herself fall asleep, like in seconds. And they do
34:37
Speaker 3: this whole test thing. And that's part of her, uh,
34:41
Speaker 3: kind of routine. It's part of her, thing that keeps
34:44
Speaker 3: like her protected is that she has to stay awake
34:47
Speaker 3: while everyone else falls asleep. And I heard that and
34:49
Speaker 3: I was like, that's suspicious. What's that about? And then,
34:53
Speaker 3: and then of course you, that ties into the, you know,
34:55
Speaker 3: overall theme of the movie. And I was like, Oh,
34:57
Speaker 3: that was actually incredible foreshadowing for what was to come later.
35:02
Speaker 3: So I liked that she had these rules that might've
35:04
Speaker 3: sounded confusing at first. And then you get that answer
35:06
Speaker 3: and you're like, son of a bitch, this guy is,
35:09
Speaker 3: this guy was foreshadowing this from the beginning. So yeah,
35:12
Speaker 3: I really like that setup there. And, you know, of course,
35:15
Speaker 3: with the dream reality or the dream, whatever you want
35:18
Speaker 3: to call it, the dream sequences, there is this boundary
35:21
Speaker 3: that you blur between memories, waking reality and those dreams themselves.
35:28
Speaker 3: Is there anything or how did you decide what to
35:32
Speaker 3: explain to the audience and what to leave uncertain? Because
35:35
Speaker 3: there is a level of ambiguity here, which I do
35:38
Speaker 3: enjoy when done right here. I believe it was done right.
35:41
Speaker 3: but was there specific things that you were like kind
35:43
Speaker 3: of withholding to leave ambiguous?
35:47
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I think the nature of effective horror is,
35:54
Speaker 1: you know, you have to let the audience play a
35:57
Speaker 1: little bit in their imagination about some aspects. So again,
36:00
Speaker 1: something like the Sears rules are rules that a character,
36:07
Speaker 1: or establishes. They're not the actual rules of the way
36:10
Speaker 1: the seer works. And that's the whole thing. It's like,
36:12
Speaker 1: you don't really have control of this thing. You only
36:15
Speaker 1: think you have control of this thing, right? Right. And
36:18
Speaker 1: so I think as far as, you know, you mentioned
36:21
Speaker 1: some of the nightmare stuff and some of the story
36:25
Speaker 1: elements in the memory, it's like, to me, it was
36:29
Speaker 1: more about like creating what a nightmare or a dream
36:35
Speaker 1: really feels like And to me, sometimes I dream about
36:40
Speaker 1: memories or versions of memories or versions of memories in
36:43
Speaker 1: the context of how they felt for me. And so
36:47
Speaker 1: I thought that, you know, one, what I could do
36:49
Speaker 1: with that is I could use it to deliver information
36:52
Speaker 1: to the character and to the audience. But also it
36:54
Speaker 1: just it created a sense of. Like, it just felt
36:57
Speaker 1: authentic to me where it's like, this feels like something
37:00
Speaker 1: Riley would dream about. This feels like something this year
37:03
Speaker 1: would want Riley to dream about to give that maximum,
37:06
Speaker 1: you know, to, to torture Maxer, you know, kind of thing.
37:10
Speaker 3: Yeah.
37:12
Speaker 1: But, but yeah, yeah. That's kind of where that came from,
37:15
Speaker 1: which was, you know, what does a nightmare feel like
37:18
Speaker 1: to me and what would it feel like to Riley?
37:21
Speaker 1: And then how was, how will the audience be able
37:23
Speaker 1: to take some of this information and, you know, bring
37:25
Speaker 1: some of their own baggage to it to make it
37:28
Speaker 1: scarier to them individually, but also learn and, you know,
37:32
Speaker 1: follow the story as it, as it progresses. Well, yeah.
37:34
Speaker 3: And then, and mentioning the seer, I mean, it's not
37:38
Speaker 3: only frightening because of how it looks, uh, cause it is,
37:40
Speaker 3: and you only get some glimpses here and there, but
37:42
Speaker 3: what I did see, I did not like in the,
37:45
Speaker 3: in the regard of like that shit scared the, it
37:47
Speaker 3: scared the shit out of me. Um, because you know,
37:50
Speaker 3: it threatens Riley and the place where she's supposed to
37:52
Speaker 3: feel completely defenseless. And I'm wondering when you design this entity,
37:57
Speaker 3: did you kind of start with the mythology behind it,
38:00
Speaker 3: the visual appearance or the effect you wanted it to
38:04
Speaker 3: have on the audience? Where did the, like, the origins
38:07
Speaker 3: of the seer kind of evolve from?
38:11
Speaker 1: Well, it, it evolved from just the aspect of, okay,
38:14
Speaker 1: what is something that, you know, would, would come from this,
38:17
Speaker 1: this other realm through our lead character into the real world?
38:22
Speaker 1: What would, what would, how would we perceive that? Okay.
38:25
Speaker 1: Cause you know, the thought behind it was like, again,
38:28
Speaker 1: this is not how it actually looks. This is how
38:31
Speaker 1: we see it. This is its version of like, the,
38:34
Speaker 1: what we are able to, to sort of, you know,
38:38
Speaker 1: perceive when it comes to how this thing comes, uh,
38:42
Speaker 1: and design wise, I, uh, you know, this, this design,
38:48
Speaker 1: I don't know if you noticed this, but like, it
38:49
Speaker 1: has a bunch of like eyes on its head. And
38:52
Speaker 1: that to me was like, How do I distinguish this
38:56
Speaker 1: thing of like, number one, it's like this all-seeing thing,
38:58
Speaker 1: and number two, it kind of feeds on eyeballs. And
39:01
Speaker 1: so I was like, how can we sort of tie
39:04
Speaker 1: that into the design? And I worked with some great
39:07
Speaker 1: creature effects people, Vincent Van Dyke, who's great. He came
39:13
Speaker 1: up with this thing, this very fleshy and bloodshot eye
39:18
Speaker 1: creation that I just thought was so cool and so scary.
39:22
Speaker 1: I remember when he sent me like the test shots
39:25
Speaker 1: of that and I was like this is gonna freak
39:27
Speaker 1: people out Yes, very exciting.
39:29
Speaker 3: Mission accomplished mission accomplished. I was freaked out.
39:32
Speaker 1: Yep. Thank you. Thank you But yeah, that's that's where
39:35
Speaker 1: it came from and you know, just like how would
39:38
Speaker 1: we see something like that?
39:40
Speaker 3: Well, and I find it interesting too with with the
39:42
Speaker 3: name of the seer it kind of has a double
39:44
Speaker 3: meaning because a seer is is usually like a prophet
39:48
Speaker 3: or a diviner or something like that. But in this case,
39:53
Speaker 3: he is, he's got all these eyes. So he is a, like,
39:56
Speaker 3: there's almost a double meaning there. I'm not explaining this properly,
39:59
Speaker 3: but yeah, yeah. So I love that. And I also,
40:03
Speaker 3: oh my God, I love, I don't know what you did.
40:07
Speaker 3: And if you can explain it, that will be amazing.
40:09
Speaker 3: The effect you used for the Sears POV, was that
40:14
Speaker 3: a lens or was that an, was that a post
40:17
Speaker 3: thing you guys did? Because you have like, The main
40:20
Speaker 3: vision in the middle, and then you have just these
40:22
Speaker 3: like eight different, it's almost like spider eyes. Like that's
40:25
Speaker 3: the best way I could describe it. Was that done
40:27
Speaker 3: with a special lens or something?
40:30
Speaker 1: Yes, it was both. So we used a, a fisheye lens,
40:34
Speaker 1: like a 270 degree fisheye lens.
40:36
Speaker 3: Okay. Gotcha.
40:38
Speaker 1: And, um, so we started with that and that was
40:41
Speaker 1: like the initial effect. And then we wanted to, to
40:45
Speaker 1: kind of augment that. Cause at first, you know, we,
40:47
Speaker 1: we tested the movie and we were like, you know,
40:49
Speaker 1: audiences just think this is another shot. Um, so you're
40:51
Speaker 1: just using another lens. I was like, okay, if I
40:54
Speaker 1: augmented this and I put like the sort of perspective
40:57
Speaker 1: of like all of his eyes on his head and
41:00
Speaker 1: kind of, filter that out and like a, like a spider,
41:03
Speaker 1: you kaleidoscope kind of way, um, which is another kind
41:07
Speaker 1: of reference. Um, then I think that would really complete the,
41:11
Speaker 1: the seer vision, uh, where we're in his POV. Um,
41:15
Speaker 1: so that's where that came from. So yeah, it was
41:17
Speaker 1: a mixture of both. So we started with the lens
41:19
Speaker 1: and then post kind of enhanced that.
41:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's something that I genuinely love in horror movies is,
41:26
Speaker 3: you know, in this case, I wouldn't label him really
41:29
Speaker 3: necessarily a killer, more of an entity, but I love
41:32
Speaker 3: getting to see their perspective, like, POV or, you know,
41:38
Speaker 3: if it's an animal attack movie, you see their POV
41:41
Speaker 3: and this.
41:41
Speaker 1: The Jaws effect, yeah.
41:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. And this POV was just so aesthetically pleasing
41:46
Speaker 3: while also leaning into the seer himself. Like, you didn't
41:51
Speaker 3: just do it to be like, oh, wow, look at this.
41:53
Speaker 3: You did it because, yeah, he got a bunch of
41:55
Speaker 3: eyeballs on his face. Like, you know what I mean?
41:57
Speaker 3: So it actually has meaning and it looks great. So
42:01
Speaker 3: I was like, ooh, I like this POV and it's
42:03
Speaker 3: not overutilized and It's used in the moments where I
42:06
Speaker 3: feel are exactly key to what's happening, especially in the
42:10
Speaker 3: beginning with Miss Margaret. You get that and you're like,
42:13
Speaker 3: what the fuck is this? Okay, I'm assuming we're seeing
42:16
Speaker 3: some POV of an entity. And then, of course, as
42:18
Speaker 3: it goes on and on and on, you're like, oh, okay,
42:21
Speaker 3: this is the seer. So I really do love that.
42:25
Speaker 3: I also, on the topic of kind of things that
42:27
Speaker 3: frightened me and things I liked, I.
42:32
Speaker 3: That mannequin. All right. Let's talk about that mannequin for
42:35
Speaker 3: a second, because I swear, obviously, I knew there was
42:39
Speaker 3: going to be some sort of a scare. And I'm
42:42
Speaker 3: just waiting for it because I'm waiting for it. And then,
42:44
Speaker 3: you know, one of them jumps at one point. I
42:45
Speaker 3: think it was David who jumps when he sees the mannequin.
42:48
Speaker 3: And then it's not until about a half hour in
42:51
Speaker 3: when Riley's outside and she falls asleep. And there's a,
42:54
Speaker 3: there's a shot of the mannequin. It cuts to her
42:56
Speaker 3: falling asleep. And then there's a shot where it's a
42:58
Speaker 3: real fucking person. And that shit got me. I knew
43:01
Speaker 3: it was coming, but I, it still got me. And
43:04
Speaker 3: I think I, I think you did that so well
43:07
Speaker 3: where you were foreshadowing that again. It's like, you're, you're
43:09
Speaker 3: going to get a scare there. You're just not going
43:11
Speaker 3: to go. You're not going to know when I'm going to,
43:13
Speaker 3: I'm going to surprise you with that. And that's very
43:15
Speaker 3: effective when you can see a jump scare or not
43:18
Speaker 3: even a jump scare. It was more of just like a,
43:19
Speaker 3: Oh shit, there's someone real behind her. So yeah, that
43:23
Speaker 3: got me really good. I really enjoyed that. And again,
43:25
Speaker 3: it comes down to your level of, now that I'm
43:28
Speaker 3: thinking about it, you know, and this is what I
43:29
Speaker 3: love about talking about movies is just the little seeds
43:33
Speaker 3: you plant here and there throughout the movie. Like the
43:35
Speaker 3: foreshadowing is extremely well done in this movie, even if
43:39
Speaker 3: it's just to set up a scare, like it's still
43:41
Speaker 3: so well done. Thank you. And the seer himself, of course,
43:45
Speaker 3: obviously we mentioned he is, he is just, he's something
43:48
Speaker 3: that really is unique to me. It vibes like things
43:53
Speaker 3: I've seen, but it ultimately feels so incredibly unique because
43:57
Speaker 3: of the, he has kind of a cloak on, if
44:00
Speaker 3: I'm not mistaken. You get so many quick glimpses of him.
44:03
Speaker 3: It was hard to make out. You can see the
44:05
Speaker 3: face clearly, but does he have, he has some sort
44:07
Speaker 3: of kind of a robe or something on?
44:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, kind of like drapery that he has on, yeah.
44:11
Speaker 3: Drapery, yeah. And you get a good, you get good
44:15
Speaker 3: scares in those dream elements. And then of course you get,
44:18
Speaker 3: when he's kind of popping into the real world, where
44:21
Speaker 3: I believe it's David when he's outside smoking and he
44:23
Speaker 3: sees him kind of popping up around the yard. And
44:25
Speaker 3: I was like, all right, we're already invading reality here.
44:27
Speaker 3: I was like, this isn't going to be good for anybody. And,
44:30
Speaker 3: you know, you are able to utilize great tension throughout
44:34
Speaker 3: because it's this unpredictable thing that, like you said earlier,
44:39
Speaker 3: we don't really know about sleep and why we dream.
44:42
Speaker 3: So there's this level of unpredictability that comes with the
44:45
Speaker 3: entire movie. And I really had no idea where it
44:48
Speaker 3: was going. And then when you get to that halfway point,
44:51
Speaker 3: see the twist, and then we're like, oh, we're going
44:52
Speaker 3: to restart. I'm like, all right, let's do this. Let's
44:55
Speaker 3: roll it back. Let's start over. Let's see how this
44:58
Speaker 3: all came to fruition. And I am going to avoid
45:01
Speaker 3: spoilers since this is a new movie. You know, I
45:03
Speaker 3: do want people to be able to watch this whole
45:05
Speaker 3: thing and then decide for themselves if they want to
45:07
Speaker 3: go watch it. But going back to kind of Riley
45:10
Speaker 3: and her trauma here, did you consciously think about the expectations? No, sorry,
45:15
Speaker 3: that was the wrong question. So let me go down here. Okay. Okay,
45:19
Speaker 3: so the difference between a character who is strong and
45:22
Speaker 3: a character who has never been given the opportunity to
45:24
Speaker 3: be vulnerable. How did you and Jasmine approach the distinction,
45:28
Speaker 3: particularly when Riley's trauma makes letting her guard down feel dangerous?
45:32
Speaker 3: Because you also prefaced this movie with her not having
45:35
Speaker 3: cried in two years. So did you guys work together
45:38
Speaker 3: closely to kind of establish her character and kind of
45:43
Speaker 3: flesh out her character when it comes to those things?
45:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, we worked pretty closely with that. I think, again,
45:49
Speaker 1: it goes back to just trying to keep the humanity
45:54
Speaker 1: in the characters while they are in this sort of
45:57
Speaker 1: supernatural realm where it's like, okay, this character who has, again,
46:03
Speaker 1: tried to seize as much control around the uncontrollable... I
46:07
Speaker 1: think there is a point in which you can kind
46:10
Speaker 1: of overdo that. And how does she overdo that? And
46:14
Speaker 1: we're just like, yeah, well, like she doesn't, she doesn't cry.
46:17
Speaker 1: Like she does not allow herself to lose control even
46:20
Speaker 1: in that sense. Um, just based on what she believes
46:23
Speaker 1: and what she's experienced. So, so yeah, that was something
46:26
Speaker 1: that I had, um, just kind of the building blocks of,
46:30
Speaker 1: and then when I teamed up with Jasmine, we really
46:32
Speaker 1: explored that throughout the film and, you know, just the
46:36
Speaker 1: characters evolution. And, you know, when you would start to
46:39
Speaker 1: see the cracks start to come apart all the way until,
46:42
Speaker 1: you know, the, the catharsis moments of the film as well.
46:48
Speaker 3: Well, and I also really enjoyed how you explore the
46:51
Speaker 3: unresolved trauma. It can make accepting love or support difficult,
46:55
Speaker 3: even when those things are kind of exactly what Riley needs.
46:58
Speaker 3: Like there is this disconnect between her and Cam because
47:03
Speaker 3: as much as he wants to support her, although we
47:06
Speaker 3: kind of, you know, after watching it, we know, we
47:09
Speaker 3: know his story eventually. But she is someone who needs this,
47:13
Speaker 3: but ultimately it's like, can someone even give that to her?
47:16
Speaker 3: especially given the fact that she's gone through all this
47:19
Speaker 3: trauma and that trauma bleeds through the real world. So
47:23
Speaker 3: it's just an interesting element to bring into play for
47:26
Speaker 3: someone who desperately needs that human connection. But anybody who
47:29
Speaker 3: gets close to her kind of seems to die or
47:32
Speaker 3: get hurt. So that was a really good point in
47:36
Speaker 3: the movie, this kind of plot device where it's like,
47:39
Speaker 3: the juxtaposition of like, okay, what does this character do?
47:42
Speaker 3: What does Riley do? And ultimately she tries to push
47:44
Speaker 3: Cam away and be like, let me just be here.
47:47
Speaker 3: Let me figure this out. They make the connection to
47:50
Speaker 3: this revolving around her birthday, which I also really enjoyed
47:53
Speaker 3: because that was another thematic element that carried through the
47:56
Speaker 3: entire movie. So Jasmine, or sorry, well, that's the actress's name.
48:00
Speaker 3: Riley's character is just such an interesting exploration of, grief
48:07
Speaker 3: and trauma, but not done in the traditional sense. A
48:10
Speaker 3: lot of horror movies these days are so... We're in
48:13
Speaker 3: an era, I swear, ever since Hereditary, where it's like,
48:16
Speaker 3: how traumatic can we make these movies? But you explore
48:19
Speaker 3: them from a different angle. And I really enjoy that
48:22
Speaker 3: because I do like the grief and trauma horror. But
48:25
Speaker 3: when you kind of, you have done such a unique
48:27
Speaker 3: way of interjecting those themes that are current in the
48:31
Speaker 3: horror genre, but not just kind of vomiting out the
48:35
Speaker 3: same thing that's been happening over and over and over. So, again,
48:38
Speaker 3: I have to commend you for that by taking something
48:40
Speaker 3: that we are in the kind of, I'd say like
48:43
Speaker 3: the 2020s have just been trauma horror. And using this
48:46
Speaker 3: dreamlike thing to use that as the narrative vehicle rather
48:50
Speaker 3: than the actual grief and trauma. The grief and trauma
48:52
Speaker 3: is kind of what started all of this. But the,
48:56
Speaker 3: at least from my perspective, but the dreams and the
48:59
Speaker 3: things she's experiencing between those dreams are really the driving
49:03
Speaker 3: force behind. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, trauma can work. The trauma,
49:05
Speaker 3: you know, should be the movie that we're watching. That's
49:08
Speaker 3: kind of the thing. uh, uh, telling you that I
49:11
Speaker 3: really enjoyed that aspect of, of the film.
49:14
Speaker 1: And, um, yeah, trauma can work. The trauma, you know,
49:18
Speaker 1: should be the movie that we're watching. That's kind of the,
49:20
Speaker 1: that's the, the whole thing of, of trauma horror. It's like,
49:24
Speaker 1: you know, you can have trauma be the backstory or
49:26
Speaker 1: you can have the trauma be the movie or you're watching,
49:28
Speaker 1: or you can do both. So it's like, you know?
49:30
Speaker 3: Yeah. And I, and I love that you, like I said,
49:32
Speaker 3: you use that kind of as a jumping off point
49:33
Speaker 3: and then you take it in a, you take that
49:36
Speaker 3: and feed it into the story and then let that
49:38
Speaker 3: story kind of just expand. Um, so there, you know, there's,
49:43
Speaker 3: there's some mythology behind this, which I really did enjoy.
49:45
Speaker 3: There are a lot of, a lot of imagery in
49:48
Speaker 3: this movie as well, especially when you get towards the
49:51
Speaker 3: back half and you meet mama and she's got that
49:53
Speaker 3: just wild mask. I mean, there's, there's a lot that
49:56
Speaker 3: I want to go into, but I don't want to spoil.
49:58
Speaker 3: Like I said, um, where did my, so many questions
50:02
Speaker 3: I have to like filter these through.
50:04
Speaker 2: Okay.
50:04
Speaker 1: Okay.
50:05
Speaker 3: So the film's revelations complicate the idea that Riley is
50:09
Speaker 3: simply being haunted by this unnatural force known as the Seer.
50:12
Speaker 3: How important was it that the supernatural horror have human
50:16
Speaker 3: intentions and consequences behind it from your perspective?
50:20
Speaker 1: That was very important because it goes back to my
50:23
Speaker 1: initial intention with the film, which was how do I
50:27
Speaker 1: create the scariest possible scenario possible? when you're dreaming, and
50:30
Speaker 1: how do I create the scariest possible thing when you're
50:33
Speaker 1: waking up? And the idea behind the vulnerability of sleep
50:36
Speaker 1: is that you are at the mercy of whatever is
50:38
Speaker 1: going on in your head, but you're also at the
50:40
Speaker 1: mercy of the outside world. Things you don't know are
50:44
Speaker 1: going on while you're asleep. And so I do think
50:47
Speaker 1: that that part of it, again, without getting into spoilers,
50:50
Speaker 1: but to have a, a human element, um, human antagonistic elements, uh,
50:57
Speaker 1: so to speak, um, in that way, uh, was just
51:00
Speaker 1: a way for me to push that, that even further and,
51:04
Speaker 1: you know, push the hauntings outside of Riley's head and
51:08
Speaker 1: outside of just the trauma and the grief that, that
51:11
Speaker 1: she has to go through, but also that there may
51:15
Speaker 1: be something intentional behind it.
51:16
Speaker 3: Okay. Great, great answer. Um, so there are, like I said,
51:20
Speaker 3: there's a lot of elements here and I don't think like,
51:23
Speaker 3: I mean, there's lots to unpack with this movie, but
51:24
Speaker 3: I don't think it's done in a way that's overwhelming.
51:26
Speaker 3: I think you fleshed everything out very well because you
51:29
Speaker 3: have psychological horror, you have some occult horror, there's visceral imagery,
51:34
Speaker 3: which of these feels most natural to you as a filmmaker?
51:38
Speaker 3: And what did you learn about balancing them for your
51:41
Speaker 3: first feature?
51:41
Speaker 1: That's a really good question. And I don't, I feel
51:46
Speaker 1: like I learned a lot from this about balancing some
51:50
Speaker 1: of my scare tactics because I like to I thought
51:56
Speaker 1: of this not too long ago, but it's like I
51:58
Speaker 1: like to think of. like horror filmmakers is like baseball pitchers.
52:03
Speaker 1: It's like, you want a good fastball, which is like,
52:05
Speaker 1: you want to be able to, to build tension and
52:07
Speaker 1: pay it off with the scare. But you also want
52:09
Speaker 1: to throw in some curve balls. You want to throw
52:11
Speaker 1: in some sliders. You want to throw in some psychological elements,
52:14
Speaker 1: some body horror, some stuff like that. And so I
52:16
Speaker 1: think learning how to pace those things out, I think
52:21
Speaker 1: was something that, um, you know, was a bit of
52:23
Speaker 1: a learning curve for me in this, that I think
52:26
Speaker 1: coming from shorts and, Uh, and, and doing short films
52:31
Speaker 1: is something that you realize like, okay, like you can
52:34
Speaker 1: do a scare sequence, but you have to, you know,
52:37
Speaker 1: smartly space out when you want the audience up here,
52:41
Speaker 1: when you want them to cool down, when you want
52:42
Speaker 1: to bring them back up and then hit them again.
52:45
Speaker 1: And so for me, I think, um, I mean, I guess,
52:50
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, what was your, your question was, um, like
52:53
Speaker 1: how I went about just like, like which one. Yeah.
52:56
Speaker 3: How you just like, what did you learn, uh, from
52:59
Speaker 3: balancing kind of the psychological occult.
53:02
Speaker 1: And, um, uh, like the visceral, the body or the, yeah.
53:07
Speaker 3: The visceral.
53:08
Speaker 1: Yeah.
53:08
Speaker 3: Cause balancing all three of those, I mean, it's, again,
53:11
Speaker 3: it's not easy and you have a lot of different
53:15
Speaker 3: horror influences. So yeah. Balancing those, I'm sure. probably was difficult,
53:20
Speaker 3: but you know, I just wanted to get your perspective
53:22
Speaker 3: on if it was difficult or if it kind of just,
53:24
Speaker 3: you know, um, kind of just gradually evolved as you
53:28
Speaker 3: went on and, you know, I'm sure you learned a
53:30
Speaker 3: lot too.
53:30
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was one, it was, you know,
53:35
Speaker 1: staying within the scope of our budget. Cause we had
53:37
Speaker 1: a very low budget for this film, um, on, on
53:40
Speaker 1: like round 700,000. Um, and you know, it's, it's, this
53:47
Speaker 1: is supposed to be fun, you know? So I'm just like,
53:49
Speaker 1: all right, what, how can I have the most fun and, uh,
53:52
Speaker 1: you know, stay true to the narrative. But, you know, I,
53:55
Speaker 1: I'm a horror fan. I know what horror fans like
53:57
Speaker 1: to see. I, you know, it's, I don't want to
54:00
Speaker 1: call it fan service, but I, I enjoy when a
54:06
Speaker 1: film is able to surprise me and show me things
54:10
Speaker 1: or scare me in ways that I haven't you know,
54:13
Speaker 1: seen before. And so that was, that was part of,
54:15
Speaker 1: that was a big goal of mine with this film
54:17
Speaker 1: is to, to really, to show them, to show the
54:21
Speaker 1: audience something that, that they haven't seen, make them feel
54:24
Speaker 1: the movie on a physical level. And also just go
54:28
Speaker 1: on the emotional journey with the characters and have that
54:31
Speaker 1: augment some of the, the more, the sticky stuff, the spooky.
54:35
Speaker 3: Stuff, spooky stuff.
54:36
Speaker 1: Yeah.
54:37
Speaker 3: Well, and a lot of times with movies that involve
54:39
Speaker 3: like dream logic or dreams or anything like that, sometimes
54:45
Speaker 3: in some movies, it's hard to distinguish what is what,
54:48
Speaker 3: what is fake, what is real. But you do a
54:51
Speaker 3: good job visually of representing, okay, she's in a dream
54:57
Speaker 3: sequence because we've got the, you know, her POV, we've
55:00
Speaker 3: got all this writing on the wall. So she's clearly,
55:02
Speaker 3: she's clearly in a dream. And then you also do
55:05
Speaker 3: a great representation of when she's being pulled out and in.
55:10
Speaker 3: by zooming in on that kind of red door. So,
55:13
Speaker 3: you know, at least in my mind, I'm like, all right,
55:15
Speaker 3: she's exiting the dream at this point. So I feel
55:18
Speaker 3: like you are establishing what is what very well. But then,
55:22
Speaker 3: of course, in the end, you know, it does get
55:24
Speaker 3: a little ambiguous, which I like. You know, I can't
55:27
Speaker 3: have a movie that's complete ambiguity that's like, you figure
55:30
Speaker 3: it out. And, you know, whatever ending works for you
55:33
Speaker 3: works for you. But you leave just enough in there for,
55:37
Speaker 3: you know, my mind to kind of go, ooh, What
55:40
Speaker 3: if this were, you know, what if this happens or
55:42
Speaker 3: what if that happens? And when a horror movie makes
55:44
Speaker 3: me think in a positive way, rather than a questioning way,
55:47
Speaker 3: I feel that is ultimately a better experience because I
55:52
Speaker 3: like when horror movies make me think they don't give
55:55
Speaker 3: me every single detail and they leave some things out
55:59
Speaker 3: to be like, you know, you can connect those dots
56:01
Speaker 3: however you like. So again, just going back to, I mean,
56:04
Speaker 3: especially for a first feature, I do feel this is,
56:07
Speaker 3: like I said, it's narratively coherent. There's a lot of
56:11
Speaker 3: elements at play here that don't feel bogged down. I mean,
56:14
Speaker 3: it's an hour and 25 minutes as well. How you
56:17
Speaker 3: manage to put all of these together And a short runtime,
56:22
Speaker 3: which honestly, I love a good short horror movie. And
56:24
Speaker 3: when I saw an hour 25, I was like, oh,
56:27
Speaker 3: we're in and we're out. So you were able to
56:29
Speaker 3: do that with, I mean, there's like no wasted time here.
56:33
Speaker 3: Everything that's on screen is there for a purpose. And
56:36
Speaker 3: that's the issue I find watching a lot of horror
56:38
Speaker 3: movies these days, where it's like, we've got an hour
56:41
Speaker 3: and 50 minute horror movie where it's like, okay, we
56:44
Speaker 3: got to trim this down just a bit and, you know,
56:46
Speaker 3: make it a little bit punchier. And like, there's, you know,
56:49
Speaker 3: it's like, there's no room to breathe in this movie.
56:51
Speaker 3: You got to keep up because stuff is happening. But again,
56:54
Speaker 3: it's not, it's not too much to where I'm like, oh,
56:57
Speaker 3: I'm overwhelmed. It's just more impressive that I'm like, wow,
57:00
Speaker 3: he was able to do all of this on, you know,
57:03
Speaker 3: like you said, kind of a smaller budget and only
57:06
Speaker 3: an hour and 20, you know, I'd say hour 20
57:07
Speaker 3: with credits about. So yeah, It's very impressive, but I
57:12
Speaker 3: do want to know after someone has watched this movie, right?
57:17
Speaker 3: What is the one thing that you want them to
57:21
Speaker 3: take away from Paris Omnia?
57:25
Speaker 1: That's a good question.
57:26
Speaker 3: Um, if you need to think about it, we can
57:29
Speaker 3: come back around.
57:30
Speaker 1: Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think I just
57:32
Speaker 1: want them. Cause the thing that I love about horror
57:37
Speaker 1: is that, and then the thing that kept me coming
57:39
Speaker 1: back was, um, I was trying to have an experience
57:42
Speaker 1: in which the horror would stay with me after I
57:48
Speaker 1: watched the film and which that litmus test was, you know,
57:51
Speaker 1: was a positive where it's like, okay, it's hours later, something,
57:55
Speaker 1: you know, creeped in my house. All right. I'm thinking
57:58
Speaker 1: about the movie now for me, it's like, if, if
58:01
Speaker 1: you're thinking a little bit differently about sleep, If you're
58:04
Speaker 1: thinking a little bit differently about where your mind goes
58:08
Speaker 1: or what you're going to wake up to the next morning,
58:10
Speaker 1: then I think the movie did its job. I think
58:13
Speaker 1: that if those thoughts even creep into your mind at all,
58:19
Speaker 1: I think that was the goal of what I wanted
58:22
Speaker 1: to do with this film was to take something mundane
58:25
Speaker 1: that we don't really think about and make it scary
58:28
Speaker 1: enough that, you know, you are having some thoughts about it. Um,
58:31
Speaker 1: so that would, that would be my goal. And if,
58:33
Speaker 1: if that happens for you, then, um, you know, call.
58:36
Speaker 3: Out, I'll call you the audience.
58:37
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
58:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, because, I mean, like, we really, besides your body
58:41
Speaker 3: needing to, like, recharge and, you know, kind of heal itself, like,
58:44
Speaker 3: we don't really have an explanation for why we even
58:46
Speaker 3: need to sleep. Like, if we explained sleep to an alien,
58:50
Speaker 3: they would be like, what do you got to do?
58:52
Speaker 3: We just shut down eight hours a night. I'm like, why?
58:54
Speaker 3: I don't know. We just have to. It's such a
58:57
Speaker 3: strange thing that we have to commit, like, you know,
58:59
Speaker 3: six to eight hours a day to doing. And then,
59:02
Speaker 3: of course, if you're like me, I'm at the point
59:05
Speaker 3: now where I'm not even having nightmares. I'm just having
59:07
Speaker 3: the most bizarre dreams. I'm waking up like, i'm waking
59:10
Speaker 3: up like what the fuck led me to this point
59:13
Speaker 3: in my life where i'm dreaming about this like I
59:17
Speaker 3: don't know what my dreams are trying to tell me,
59:19
Speaker 3: but at this point, I'd rather have nightmares so I
59:21
Speaker 3: could have some influence for a horror short or something
59:25
Speaker 3: like that.
59:26
Speaker 1: Right.
59:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, dreams are strange. And like I said, I love
59:28
Speaker 3: when movies tap into dreams. So now that you have
59:32
Speaker 3: done your first feature, which is deeply rooted in the
59:35
Speaker 3: sleep paralysis, kind of your personal fears, is there something
59:38
Speaker 3: else down the line, whether it be folklore or cultural
59:42
Speaker 3: experience you want to tackle that Um, going forward, like,
59:46
Speaker 3: do you have, do you have some other ideas of
59:47
Speaker 3: stuff you would like to do? Um, and you know, like, uh,
59:50
Speaker 3: you know, whenever you can.
59:52
Speaker 1: Uh, yeah. So I, I actually just finished writing my
59:57
Speaker 1: next film that I am making with Blumhouse. Uh, so that,
1:00:04
Speaker 1: you know, that that's all I can basically say is
1:00:06
Speaker 1: that I'm, I'm doing it with them. But, um, it was,
1:00:09
Speaker 1: it was great because one of the, uh, one of
1:00:11
Speaker 1: the key executives from shutter actually went to Blumhouse and
1:00:14
Speaker 1: he was making a slate for them. And he, he
1:00:17
Speaker 1: was like, you know, pitch me an idea and we'll
1:00:19
Speaker 1: see if we can make it happen. And, uh, he
1:00:21
Speaker 1: loved it. And it was, it's, it's something that I've
1:00:25
Speaker 1: always wanted to do was like, you know, tell a
1:00:29
Speaker 1: story about, about a cultural aspect of my identity that,
1:00:36
Speaker 1: that isn't always seen. So it's, it's a horror movie
1:00:40
Speaker 1: that is primarily set in a barbershop and the key
1:00:44
Speaker 1: protagonist is a barber. So that's, that's kind of the
1:00:48
Speaker 1: direction that I'm going in next. And I'm really, really
1:00:52
Speaker 1: excited about it. It's, it's fucking horrifying. And yeah, I just,
1:00:56
Speaker 1: I can't wait to get back on set and do this.
1:00:58
Speaker 3: Okay.
1:00:59
Speaker 1: Wow.
1:00:59
Speaker 3: Working with Blumhouse already for your second movie. I, uh,
1:01:03
Speaker 3: that is, uh, that's, that is excellent. I love to
1:01:06
Speaker 3: hear that. Now I know we're at about an hour. Um,
1:01:08
Speaker 3: do you, do we need to cut it here or
1:01:11
Speaker 3: do we, do you have a little bit more time?
1:01:14
Speaker 1: Um, I can do one more question. Yeah.
1:01:16
Speaker 3: So yeah, since you're, since you're talking about kind of
1:01:19
Speaker 3: a new project you're doing and you said there, you
1:01:21
Speaker 3: did say there were some cultural elements to it. Okay. So, um,
1:01:26
Speaker 3: in horror movies historically, I feel black characters have been underrepresented.
1:01:31
Speaker 3: And when they do appear, their identities can sometimes be
1:01:33
Speaker 3: reduced to stereotypes or made central only to when the
1:01:38
Speaker 3: story wants to discuss race. So how important is it
1:01:41
Speaker 3: to you to make a film where black characters are
1:01:43
Speaker 3: allowed to experience all of this stuff without their existence
1:01:47
Speaker 3: needing an explanation?
1:01:50
Speaker 1: I think it's very important. I guess it's like, I
1:01:53
Speaker 1: think that audiences want to watch people and they are
1:01:59
Speaker 1: smart enough to know when they're watching a caricature or
1:02:03
Speaker 1: they're watching something that feels inauthentic. And I think from
1:02:06
Speaker 1: my perspective, I want to bring that authenticity to these
1:02:13
Speaker 1: black characters and, you know, bring my experiences to them.
1:02:16
Speaker 1: And I, again, I want to make movies where the
1:02:19
Speaker 1: characters feel like real people, where they react to this,
1:02:22
Speaker 1: like real people. I enjoy the way black people react
1:02:26
Speaker 1: in horror movies and to horror movies, because a lot
1:02:29
Speaker 1: of times like horror has a huge black audience. And
1:02:33
Speaker 1: it's like Jordan Peele, you know, hit this on the
1:02:35
Speaker 1: head where he's like, I'm titling my movies, words that like,
1:02:39
Speaker 1: me and my friends would just shout at the screen, like,
1:02:40
Speaker 1: get out! Nope! Stuff like that. So it's like, yeah,
1:02:45
Speaker 1: it's a fun audience. And I think they respond well
1:02:50
Speaker 1: when they see themselves portrayed on screen and reacting to
1:02:53
Speaker 1: things authentically. And I think it's just, it's a lot
1:02:57
Speaker 1: of fun to play with that. And I think that
1:03:00
Speaker 1: representation is really important and it feels fresh and original.
1:03:05
Speaker 1: So I'm very excited to continue to do that.
1:03:09
Speaker 3: I am very excited as well. I'm going to sneak
1:03:10
Speaker 3: in one more quick question and then I'll let you
1:03:12
Speaker 3: go on the same kind of subject. Do you think
1:03:15
Speaker 3: the genre, like the horror genre has progressed enough that
1:03:18
Speaker 3: black filmmakers can tell stories that aren't expected to serve
1:03:21
Speaker 3: as statements about race while drawing meaning from their own
1:03:24
Speaker 3: cultural identities?
1:03:26
Speaker 1: Oh, a hundred percent. I think I, I owe that to,
1:03:31
Speaker 1: to Jordan Peele. Like I mentioned, it's like, I feel
1:03:34
Speaker 1: like he made the quintessential black identity horror movie, um,
1:03:38
Speaker 1: with get out. And I think that a movie like
1:03:40
Speaker 1: that has kind of like, I say this facetiously, but
1:03:44
Speaker 1: it's kind of like trains people who are not black
1:03:47
Speaker 1: on how to engage in black, you know, media and,
1:03:51
Speaker 1: you know, kind of engage with those characters. Um, So
1:03:54
Speaker 1: I think that's kind of opened the door for the
1:03:57
Speaker 1: rest of us to come in with the success of
1:03:59
Speaker 1: that movie and his subsequent films, that there is an
1:04:02
Speaker 1: audience out there that connects with this kind of stuff. And,
1:04:05
Speaker 1: you know, they want more. And so let's let's give
1:04:08
Speaker 1: them more.
1:04:10
Speaker 3: I couldn't agree more. And I yeah, I mean, I
1:04:11
Speaker 3: do think Jordan Peele, I guess I guess being who
1:04:14
Speaker 3: he is established as, you know, as a comedian and
1:04:17
Speaker 3: then getting into the horror horror genre, he really made
1:04:20
Speaker 3: that movie came out swinging and And I think ultimately
1:04:24
Speaker 3: that has helped because I, I, I do want to
1:04:26
Speaker 3: see more stories from, uh, from black directors that, you know,
1:04:30
Speaker 3: and I love that your, your cast was an entire
1:04:33
Speaker 3: black cast. Like I want to see more of that.
1:04:35
Speaker 3: I want to experience more things like that. Uh, being
1:04:39
Speaker 3: like the whitest person I know, I'm tired of, I'm
1:04:42
Speaker 3: tired of seeing it. I want to see new voices.
1:04:44
Speaker 3: I want to see new experiences. I want to see
1:04:46
Speaker 3: new things that, that I haven't, you know, that I
1:04:48
Speaker 3: personally haven't experienced. Um, and I think, I think we
1:04:52
Speaker 3: do need more of that. So I'm, I'm glad that
1:04:54
Speaker 3: you feel we're moving in the right direction here because, uh,
1:04:57
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, like I said, again, as a
1:04:58
Speaker 3: white person, I feel like we are as well, but I'm,
1:05:01
Speaker 3: you know, I'm not on that side of things, but
1:05:03
Speaker 3: so to hear that from you is fantastic. And I
1:05:06
Speaker 3: am very excited to see your next movie. Uh, whenever
1:05:10
Speaker 3: that you're, whenever we, whenever you're able to talk about
1:05:13
Speaker 3: it more, I'd obviously love to have you back. If,
1:05:15
Speaker 3: if you'd love to come back, this has been a
1:05:16
Speaker 3: great conversation. I appreciate your time today. If anybody wants
1:05:20
Speaker 3: to find you on social media, kind of keep up
1:05:22
Speaker 3: with you. Uh, where can they find you?
1:05:24
Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, I'm on Instagram, James Ross dot I I.
1:05:29
Speaker 1: So James Ross, the second with a period after my
1:05:31
Speaker 1: last name.
1:05:32
Speaker 3: Okay, perfect. Yep. I followed you and gotten your DMS
1:05:35
Speaker 3: the other day. So go follow him, check out what
1:05:38
Speaker 3: he's doing. Uh, very excited to see in this Blumhouse
1:05:41
Speaker 3: collaboration here. And, uh, and every, at this point, everyone
1:05:45
Speaker 3: should know where to find me. I, uh, fright mares
1:05:47
Speaker 3: podcast on all forms of social media. This will be
1:05:49
Speaker 3: releasing at the end of the month. We got two
1:05:51
Speaker 3: director interviews this month because I said, fuck it. It
1:05:54
Speaker 3: is October. Let's get all the interviews out. And then
1:05:56
Speaker 3: I think we should have a bonus episode as well. Uh,
1:05:59
Speaker 3: don't quote me on this on Halloween, the franchise and
1:06:03
Speaker 3: Ernest scared stupid because I have, uh, all the time
1:06:06
Speaker 3: in the world apparently to make all the content. So, Um,
1:06:10
Speaker 3: next month we're going to be doing a Lovecraft theme
1:06:13
Speaker 3: cosmic horror for the month of November. I think I've
1:06:15
Speaker 3: said this on every recording that's going to drop at
1:06:17
Speaker 3: the end of the month. So sorry if this is repetitive, uh, James,
1:06:20
Speaker 3: thank you again for joining me today. I really appreciate
1:06:22
Speaker 3: your time. It means a lot. Go check out parasomnia.
1:06:25
Speaker 3: It is currently streaming on shutter. Uh, as, as, uh,
1:06:29
Speaker 3: I like to give my ratings on movies for everyone.
1:06:31
Speaker 3: I did give it a four out of five. I
1:06:32
Speaker 3: thought it was excellent. So please go check it out.
1:06:35
Speaker 3: If you haven't already, uh, And until next time, guys,
1:06:38
Speaker 3: stay tuned and stay spooky.. Thank you for listening.
1:07:30
Speaker 1: To hear more shows from the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network,
1:07:34
Speaker 1: please select the link in the description.