Ep 650: Izzy Lee

And I can't all battle.

It's the Movie Crypt! And welcome to another edition of the Movie Crypt. I'm Adam Green. I'm Joe Lynch. We are recording this episode on Monday, November 3rd, 2025, and I believe it's going to come out... this coming weekend. Oh, so we get to, with relevance, say, how was your Halloween, Adam? My Halloween was fantastic. I never go anywhere on Halloween night because I'm the full-size candy bar house in my neighborhood.

You're the full-size guy. Yeah. This year, this sounds bad because I know there's people who barely had any trick-or-treaters, but we only had about... It was somewhere between 50 and 55 because there was one little girl that grabbed four candy bars. Fuck that little girl. I mean, no, wait, that sounded bad. You know what I mean? I know what you mean. But...

Yeah, it was really, really fun. Aren't you glad? Don't you ever some years go, I wouldn't mind having a couple of those full-size bars in the days and weeks after that you hope that they don't all get taken? Well, there's always some extra because we're very prepared. So where are they now? At the house. What good are they doing there? I'll bring them in. Bring all of your 100 grand bars this way, please. Once again, like what?

Wait, I know we haven't introduced our guests yet. We'll get there. But you and I discussed this, I think, on a live show. But what do you think the most popular candy bar is? Because we have everything. Oh, I know what it is, because I guessed it going like, it will never be that one. It's Hershey bars. Straight up Hershey bars. That's what the kids always get. So we have to have like an extra reserve of those. And then I'm like...

Don't you want this Take Five or this $100,000 or these Reese's or the Snickers? The $100,000 bar is the way to go! A Baby Ruth, even? Oh, Baby Ruth. Wait, do you have any Baby Ruths left? There probably is. Yes. But yeah, it was fantastic. And I'm sad that it's over, but I'm ready for Christmas. I know, right? Like already I'm like, when can we put up the tree? When can we start watching Scrooged? It's nice, though, to have it be Christmas and have a job. Because it's been...

a while since then. That's right. So I have multiples right now in terms of jobs. Oh, poor you. So yeah, no complaints there and more on that in an upcoming episode. How was your Halloween? My Halloween was delightful. Let's see. Went to Spencer from Ice Nine Kills. Had a very small little soiree. He had some dude called Big Mike. come down from San Diego just to make roast beef sandwiches.

I may have smuggled four roast beef sandwiches out of the house by the end of the night. So you and that little girl who came to my door and smuggled four Hershey candy bars. Yeah, but here's the difference. I ordered the sandwiches. I didn't go yoink, yoink, yoink, yoink. I said...

I would keep coming back to him and say, my wife stole my sandwich. I need another one. Or a dog ate my sandwich. I need another one. The guy kicked it. The guy kicked it. I need another one. Or just, dude, I'm just not going to lie to you anymore. These fucking sandwiches are the greatest thing in the world. I have one in the room.

refrigerator right now waiting for me so I'm very excited about that so that sandwich in the refrigerator is already four days old three you better eat that today it was made at midnight it's been refrigerated it's fine

It's delightful. Anyway. Yeah, we should get to our guests. We also have Hollywood therapy this week. We got a lot. We've got a whole bunch going on here. Well, this is someone who I'm really excited to finally be able to have on the show since I've been a fan of hers for years with her. short film work, but now she's leveled up, if you will.

to feature filmdom, which means all the stress of what it takes to make a fucking feature film. Our guest has gone through it. You know her from, let's see, one of my favorite shorts. would definitely have to be... I liked Rehome. I'm a big Rehome fan. Meet Friend, if you've ever...

Memento Mori is one that kind of hit the festival circuit pretty hard. But House of Ashes, which is available now on every VOD platform. I'm just going to say everyone so that they go to it. And there's a physical release coming. Fucking Blu-ray. Please welcome to the movie crypt, Izzy Lee. Oh my God, it's so fucking rad to be here, you guys.

I've been a fan of this podcast for fucking years and it's helped me mentally so, so fucking much. And now you're on it with a feature movie out. And now your trials and tribulations will help other filmmakers. That's what this... I've actually talked to a couple filmmakers actually at the party that I was at, some of our guests. And one of them was saying like, it was so great to be able to talk about making the movie.

because now it was like me passing on my troubles and my, you know, because as we all know, now you know too, it ain't easy at all. And when you can... That's why it's hard for me sometimes to criticize any movie at all, because at the end of the day, you sit there and go, they fucking made that movie, man. Like whether the choices were theirs or it was circumstance that made them have to compromise in one form or another.

they still made the movie. And some audience members don't quite get that because they're just watching the movie objectively, which is good. You know, some people shouldn't go into a movie just like, I know all the backstage stories. I know all the...

problems that you have sometimes that informs the movie in a way that it shouldn't you know but for you you've been in the game for a long time like and I want to just start off by saying was making house of ashes now out of circumstance or did you feel like you had to

kind of evolve as a filmmaker because there's a lot of filmmakers who would love to just jump right into the feature realm because that's kind of where certain amounts of success or recognition come from and then there's others who are like no no I needed to know exactly how to make what I needed to make. And discover your voice. Exactly. Discover your voice. And when you put the mathematics down of going like, all right, a feature film is essentially eight shorts.

all strung together. Sometimes that kind of math makes people go like, it's not so daunting a task. You know, what was it for you? Why house of ashes now? Okay. Well, Jesus. I know it's a lot. I've been pitching features on and off since 2016. And no one took me seriously until a couple years later. Even though you had had shorts in festivals. I'm a woman. Didn't fucking matter. Wait, what? I'm fucking serious.

Try it and come back to me and see how fucking far you get. But you're already there. You guys, you know, you're fine. No, for real. It fucking sucks. Straight off the bat, ask any female filmmaker. You guys know a lot of them. You'll have the same fucking story usually. Are you sick of then having like... kind of establishing that paradigm right now saying, you know, like, look, it's hard. And then, you know, people go like, but it's easier now, isn't it? No. Yeah.

It's not. They say that it is and it's fucking not. There's a lot we could say about this, but we'll limit it because I don't want to deal with the opinions. There are many. There was a point.

Where, and Joe can attest to this too, our reps are like, yeah, not for the next couple of years, but we can't even put you up for anything right now. They were lying to you. No straight white filmmakers. They were fucking lying to you. What about that one? What about that one? What about that one? But then... And I always say to people, if it wasn't that obstacle right now, it would be something else. There's always an obstacle. But on one hand, you're like, all right, cool.

All right, so who are you guys going to get? I know this one. I know this female filmmaker, this one. Did they get hired? None of them were the ones who got called. They never got hired, did they? No, because they were lying to you. A former agent of mine, one of her clients, who's just a writer, but on a very big show, got offered, it was like a $10 million movie to direct. And she's like, I've never even been on a set. Why did they offer me this? But it was like...

through specific boxes, she checked. So during that time period, it was like, all right, I'm all for this, for progress. But there's people out there who know what they're doing, who've been at this for years, and you're barely... even meeting with any of them you're just throwing so like don't do it if it's not sincere exactly but it's um yeah there's always something and the other the other answer to that question is um i had a producer who came to me and said hey guess what

this is march 2020 okay oh this is you know what's coming context guess what you know i was on a hike living back in massachusetts at the time because i've been back and forth and um He said, oh, I've got almost a million dollars out of this budget. We can raise the rest, except the world's on fire. The money went away. Goodbye. So here we are. But then again. I used the pandemic to study the craft really, really, like I went hardcore on it. I got...

into six Sundance collab courses. Oh, wow. I've been doing it, yeah, like from 2020 through like 23. I took a directing actors course that was nine weeks long. Great. I learned a whole fucking language. So I'm kind of grateful that I didn't do a feature before, but at the same time, would have been nice. So here we are. I think sometimes when you're on the other side of something, it's easier to say, well, that happened.

the way it happened and this good thing came of it. But when you're in the middle of it, all going wrong and people say, look, sometimes things happen for the rest. Shut the fuck up, man. Like this sucks. Yeah.

So it's good and bad. Take us back now to when you were just kind of discovering cinema. And in particular, because... Anytime that we've ever hung out, and I definitely want to talk about Fantastic Fest 2023 because you saved me from a fucking major panic attack right before the premiere of Suitable Flesh. Thank God you were there. It's funny.

when I was coming over here, Becca's like, say hi to Izzy and you better fucking thank her for that night. I'm like, okay, good. She's so nice. But take us back to where you were just discovering... Cinema, genre cinema, what were the movies that were attracting you to not just appreciate the genre, but also to want to tell stories within that genre? We're talking preschool.

Bring it on. Oh, fuck yeah. We're talking, uh, an American werewolf in London, the Roger Corman, Edgar Allen Poe, AIP, Vincent Price films, especially, we're talking, uh, mystery. Masterpiece Theater on PBS. Was that the one with Masterpiece Theater? Yeah, man. That stuff.

The Blob, Creature Double Feature, WLVI. Do you remember the movie loft on GBH? Yeah, I do. Yeah. I do. Are these local? These local Massachusetts. In the Massachusetts area. But like the movie loft, like you got to see like...

All the Godzilla movies, like the old ones and stuff, and whatever they showed. Were they weekend kind of things? Yes. Like weekend at 2 p.m. kind of deals? I think so, yeah. The Creature Double Feature was like 10... am and then maybe noon or was it noon and then two but yeah they had like all the old school godzilla stuff with um atomic age like them and you know all of that who was the guy who hosted it

I don't know, man. It wasn't a cool arty thing, right? Like, uh, or, um, all I can think of for anyone out there who is aware of Damon Packard's work. He, I think it was, uh, It wasn't Reflections of Evil. That's like the movie he's best known for, Damon. But this dude, he's... I think he's just brilliant. Like his stuff is so funny to me. It's not funny to everybody, but my DP and I, this is back in like 2002, 2003. Once we're laughing so hard, like neither one of us could breathe.

And my girlfriend at the time was like screaming at us. It's not funny, but we think it's so funny. But he did this thing where he took Tony Curtis introducing, I don't know what the real movie was, and then just purposely. cheaply just redid his voice in certain parts so he'd be like tonight's movie was directed by damon packard the movie's called reflections of evil maybe it was reflections of evil but

Every time he'd say the name, Packard, Packard. And Tony Curtis is wearing black leather gloves. Anyway. You've got to always squish your black leather gloves to make the squishy leather noise. It's something Hershey. Was that his name? Maybe. Hershey Squirts. That's what his name was. I've got to figure this out. One of your viewers will know.

Our yard listeners. No, I got to figure it out before that because otherwise I'm going to hear from like 40 people all correcting me on what it was. So I'm going to get this right. Keep going. But was there a particular moment or a movie or something that made, because.

How many movie fans are out there who absolutely love it, but would never in a million years think I could do something with that. Yeah. Was there anything like, was there a seed to your cinematic obsession? Well, I started writing first. Data Hershey.

There you go. Hey, not bad. That's the one. That was fast. Look at that. I even know how to use the internet now. Nice, finally. I'm stepping up in the world. So proud. Sorry, what was the question again? Was there a particular movie? You were saying writing was really kind of your way in. I wrote like a little, you know, as a kid, all the loose leaf papers and stuff, like blank paper.

I made a little short story about the blob and I wrote it in loose leaf paper and I tied it with little leather strips. Was this based off of the remake? Or the original? No, this was like early 80s. So this is the original that I probably saw in the movie a lot after Creature Double Future. Yeah. Did you add drawings too? I think so. I used to, the short stories I would write at that age, they were all Jaws.

Amazing. It was always the same story over and over again, but it was my friends getting eaten by the shark. Nice. But I think it was because I could draw a shark. Yeah. And so that's why all my stories were just jaws over and over again. If you couldn't master the fin...

Like that was honestly the hardest part for me when I was drawing jaws was, can I get the fin right? Cause the fin was, it's very particular. You can't just do a fucking triangle. I was like six. I'm telling like, believe me, I'm just saying not works of art. If you have this like curve.

To the fin. When I mastered that, I was like, I can do anything. Holy shit. Thank you. I needed to admit that. So the blob. So, okay. Yeah, blob, Vincent Price, anything in Vincent Price, but especially those Roger Corman movies. You know the ones. House of Usher.

All of those. We just watched The Tingler. Oh, yeah. And I forgot that the opening of The Tingler was that thing that I used, the film that you're about to watch. I just made a William Castle remix where he's like... informing everyone to like if you need to scream just let it rip and I just put fart noises in the background so Every month we have Movie Crip Live and then we also have a tier called Slumber Party Massacre for our patrons where we do a live commentary to a different film.

We switch off with Slumber Party Massacre, who does the pre-shows. It's just like 30 minutes of trailers, commercials, funny things that fit whatever movie we're doing. And you always know when Joe made... the summer party massacre pre-show because there's just fart noises through like the whole thing. And that's not really my sense of humor as much as.

Although I guess I'm more puking because somebody always throws up and everything I do. Puking or Trump videos. Yeah, so I'm not saying I'm any more intelligent or less sophomoric than he is. But the fart joke, normally I don't laugh at that stuff. I'm just like, oh, come on. Oh, I laugh so hard. That's my goal is if I can make him laugh in here, even like with the stress of trying to put a live show on and he can turn and start to guffaw. I'm like, he did one.

I remember Michael Eisner once. I couldn't breathe. Remember those Wonderful World of Disney intros? Yeah, the Wonderful World of Disney. This is what you're missing. And then Michael Eisner would get on and be like, hi, everybody, I'm Michael Eisner. And I would just... every time. And it was gold. You're really selling the higher tiers of our Patreon. Hey, you know what? If you like farce, I got you covered. Anyway.

Anyway, so but from there, so writing then evolved into acting, drawing. So everything. All of it. Did you ever feel and it's funny, too, because I can look back now when I went when I. when I transitioned from my discipline to want to be Tom Savini, basically, which was be a makeup artist where I get to throw around the blood or be an actor where I got the blood thrown on me. When I went, when I changed over into.

I want to be a director because I get to work with those people and more. It kind of changed my trajectory in like how I saw those disciplines where. If I wanted to act, it'd be good to act, to invest in being able to talk to the actors. If I wanted to do cinematography, if I shot, then I could tell the DP what lens I wanted.

Each of those disciplines felt like I was investing in the overall kind of command of the vision using all of these different people did you see it that way too or did you just kind of like see like acting or writing as just separate entities from being a director well my my trajectory was a little different i started making some shorts in middle school and high school and

Just like a video camera, man. That's what I mean. Like those old Hi8 cameras and stuff like that? Yeah, I think so. Remember the Panasonic one where you put the entire VHS tape inside it? You had to. Yeah. Like those. Those were basically what we were using. Good old VHS, man. Those were a blast. People spend thousands of dollars trying to recreate those looks. It's insane, right? Yeah, no. High school was a lot of painting, drawing, acting, playing music.

anything that was not where the normies were. You know what I mean? Um, theater was a fucking theater kid, all that. Um, I went to Mass Art in Boston for illustration. I took an intro to video course with an elective, so that was filmmaking there with... the video, the same fucking cameras. My instructor was like, you should be a filmmaker. And I laughed. I'm like, I'm not a straight white guy that's rich. Because back then, this is late 90s.

We had Catherine Bigelow. We had Mary Heron and Marian Lambert. Those were the three that I could name. Yeah. That was it. Yes. Well, I forgot about her, didn't I? So, yeah. But the... point of reference was a lot smaller. It was tiny. Alison Anders was like one I know for like it for the indie world. Right. Was, you know, I didn't even know them, you know, like it was.

So I grew up like partially in Massachusetts, but more so the rest of... uh middle school and high school in new hampshire and it was like a partial rural partial suburban town it was really strange like our fucking high school had a vo-tech with cows and cow awards and like i know so gross

cow awards yeah like they're a fucking statue like best utters yes something like that like golden statues most engorged utters yeah oh my god so like see your statues over there your golden fun stuff like like Cows. Imagine that. Cows. Rows and rows of cows. And welcome back to the 2008 Moos Awards. Basically. Yeah. Oh, no. We got crazy one night and like stole a couple of cow statues and whatever. Tell me there was like a best.

Best cow tipping award. I didn't go that far. I mean, I sort of had the instinct because of heathers, but yeah, I wasn't going to hurt any animals. Yeah. How could you do that to a cow? Yeah. I never understood how it could happen in the first place. Yeah, like they seem so heavy. How can you even shove it over? I don't know. I never tried. But since you're East Coast, did you ever feel like, and I don't know the rest of this trajectory yet, but.

Um, were you ever inclined to go to New York to pursue from there or was California always going to be, or at least like the West coast, was that always going to be a destination for you? I had thought about coming out here to LA for acting, but at the same time.

I wasn't growing any taller and I wasn't getting any thinner. And I was already pretty like, you know, this is the 90s. It's heroin chic. You have to be a fucking walking skeleton. Okay. And I was like, I can't do that to myself. And I don't think it's.

going to be healthy for me i don't know what the fuck to do with myself so i had a bunch of odd jobs i worked at new year comics i worked at tarot records you know stuff like that um i had like a summer at a preschool i was a preschool assistant teacher which was Fucking stupid. You know, I worked at a bank. I became a copywriter and a film festival programmer.

and a genre journalist. I was at Boston Underground and then later on Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival. Boston Underground was pretty reputable. Yeah, man. That's crazy. Yeah, we started, we were like reboot. We took it over from the founder in late 2004. In 2005 was our first one. Okay, so in that era.

Were you watching some of those films that were being submitted and did that kind of like reinforce your excitement? Like what the fuck is this? Yes. Or how the fuck did this shit get made? I mean, well, speaking of shit, I remember one. submission for a short that was literally a guy shitting into the camera. Oh, you saw that one. That was a, that was you. I thought so. Yeah. Yeah. Um, no, but like early days we had, uh, Adam, Adam one guard with popsicle. That's right.

award and all that really early days and it's so funny to be able to look at that and go Someday that guy's going to make Godzilla movies. You know, you never know. You never fucking know. But you can see like that was one of the things that like the New York Underground Film Festival back in late 90s, early 2000s when. Film Threat was kind of big. And they would sponsor New York Underground. And Todd Phillips was one of the programmers. And you'd go and you'd see just the scrappiest stuff.

But there was still stuff that was so compelling. And you'd sit there. I think there's no better compliment to a no-budget film than to say to the filmmaker, I can't wait to see what you can do with money. Right?

So that's where I'm at right now. I'm hoping that's going to be starting to happen. But the thing was in the 90s, this comes up often, but it seemed like you would make it short and if it was... fortunate enough to get into some like name festivals the next step would be a feature right or even if you made a feature and it got into festivals and god willing distributed you would keep moving up right

It doesn't always work like that. And I think a lot of money people now look at things differently where they're like, they did that for how much? Well, then let's see what they could do with half that.

Let's see. I know. I don't even want to talk. I don't even want to tell anybody about the budget because of that. No, just say, I remember you saying this years ago on this podcast and thinking, because you're like, we did this in this many days with no money. That's, that's the, that's the catch. side the trap of having the like the Robert Rodriguez's of the world come out and say like

I made a movie for $7,000. What they didn't tell you was all the money that they took that Sony used to make it presentable, which was like a million, but it made so many filmmakers go, I can do that with $7,000 too. But I think that's a good thing though, in that it gives people hope to stop waiting for permission. Like at a certain point, I think it's healthy to be like,

Okay, so this thing I want to do that I probably need, and most people don't know what they need until an actual line producer tells them, because they think, oh, we could do this in like 10 days with just a little bit. Oh, wait, no, we can't. I was that guy that that's on the hatchet behind the scenes where I'm like, if someone gave me 1.5 million, I'd be able to do, Oh man. And then that's how it starts. And then I don't know.

And I'm like, wait, we only have how many days? I have to cut all the rain? Wait, we don't have this? We have to shoot in the summer when there's less time? It's always something. No rain and wind, no Curacao for you. But what you did with House of Ashes, which now people can see wherever they're seeing every other movie, you did it for whatever you had to work with. Never enough. But you finished it, and it's out.

Like what Joe was saying earlier, this is why I don't review movies. Like he's on letter blocks. I'm not. And I'm always like positive. Yeah. And that's my thing. And if I'm not, I just don't say anything. Anyone who sets out to do this and actually sees it through to the finish line. and miraculously their thing gets distributed and it's available for the world to see, that is a feat. That's an accomplishment. So automatically, I'm giving it props. But that doesn't mean...

I'm going to watch it again necessarily. It's going to be in my list of favorite movies of the year or whatever. But also maybe you're the same way. In my old age, I just don't get excited that often. buy anything anymore I've seen too many movies I know too much about it so it's just hard and I'm a lot harder on the big studio movies you should be because they have the money and the resources yeah you had every resource available to you now

I do understand there's a whole different set of problems that comes with that because they're being made by committee in most cases. And as much as the director's name might be there, the writer's name, that's not necessarily what happened. Do they have creative control? Do they have final cut? Yeah. Like who interfered here, here, and here? Like, yeah. Every time we have an editor on, I'm like, what editor had final cut of the edit? None, ever. So how does...

how do they award Oscars for that? Shouldn't the Oscar go to that indie movie that was literally could not be cut together. It was so horribly directed and yet some editor made it work. I almost wish that in the guild, they would show you. Here, this would be the perfect way to really gauge that. Show whoever makes those decisions the assembly.

And then show them the final product. No one should ever see an assembly. I know that, but you know what? Editors can see it. Assembly of House of Ashes for the first time. When you're going to like, all right, roll up our sleeves. We're going to sit down. We're going to really start honing this thing. Did you freak out? I switched editors.

See, I've never done that, but I usually go home and cry. And it's not the editor's fault. All they're doing is putting stuff into the timeline so you can get started. But you get so overwhelmed. At first, you're like, okay, that's not right. Well, no, that's not the right.

oh my God, oh my God. And as it keeps going, you're getting sicker and sicker. You want to fucking die. Yeah, you're like, why did I ever think I could do this? I fucked it all up. Dude, that's exactly what I say to myself. Why did I ever think I could do this? Is this a Massachusetts thing? Is this a New England thing? No, it's everyone we've talked about. And it's the same thing. It's everything if you care. Yeah.

That makes sense. We would always hear stories like, you know, I was originally an accountant and then I just kind of stumbled into filmmaking and here I am making these blockbusters. Neil Breen or something. Or just those filmmakers that just stumbled into the... you know like they were a financier and then became a producer went yeah fucking I'll make you know I'll start making movies so easy fuck yourself yeah yeah yeah it's the people that like

live and breathe this shit and then when you get tested when your moral compass gets tested or your passion gets tested and you go fuck was I not like cut out for this shit this thing that I put every ounce of my passion yeah you want to fucking die yes that's why the DGA needs to set up assembly edit therapy yes and now it's time for Hollywood therapy

The doctors are winning. That's right. It's time for everyone's favorite part of the movie crypt. It's time for Hollywood therapy with Dr. Arwen. This is where the three of us do the best job we possibly can answering your more. personal questions on behalf of the good doctor we would let her answer but woof and she's not here today oh i mean me okay uh this week's question comes from scott

When it comes to your experience with indie, this is long. When it comes to your experience with indie horror, what would be your sweet spot when it comes to a budget for a film? For the overall production, release, and advertising, what number or range do you feel would give enough resource to get things done while not being too much of a risk when it comes to any ideas you may have rolling around in the back of your head? Sure, tons of money and time is great.

but his funding is an investment which needs to be turned around, recouped, and profited from. Do you have any thoughts on this? Side note, second question for Adam. I hear tons of comments and references Joe brings up, which I totally get. And I'm surprised anyone besides me would reference at times, but sometimes he pulls something so obscure that I'm convinced he is the only one with this info rattling around in his brain. I swear.

could ask him who ran craft service on the 1994 failed attempt to bring car 54 where are you to the big screen a flop I worked at a theater during and he would somehow know who it was and what city they grew up in Bill Travers Cincinnati What are some references he shot your way which really stood out and made you want to say, really? No one knows that reference. No one knows what you're talking about. We'll do that one first. Yeah. Well, I don't think. Okay. I think you do have an encyclopedia.

Encyclopedic. Encyclopedic. I'm a writer. Encyclopedic brain. I don't know everything. Jesus Christ. My wife knows more than I do. He has a laptop in front of him, and there's a thing called IMDb, so you can look things up. I'm never looking at...

that but i'm talking about but i will say usually when it comes to like dps and stuff you don't even need to look like you do know that um i couldn't tell you what i ate for dinner last night like and again i i might need to go start looking into this because i feel like i'm aging so fast like

I used to, every story I ever had, every funny thing that happened. The instant recall. Yeah, and I would tell them all the time, and I'd learn how to hone them and make them shorter, compelling. Could I offer up a possible diagnosis? Prevagen? I always see commercials for that. It's for like old people that can't think. Or is it for erectile dysfunction? It's both. Maybe it's both. Do you feel like your stress has, because anytime that I'm incredibly stressed, I can't remember shit. Nope.

That could be it. It's been a few rough years. Considering the last couple months, especially, that you've had, that maybe that recall is just kind of getting clouded by all the things that you're thinking about? Because I feel like a clearer mind.

allows you to have that kind of recall all the time maybe but that's just there's been plenty of times just on this podcast where you've busted out something where i go how the fuck did you know that but okay let's go back to the first two so we can all jump in on this okay

For the first question, when it comes to your experience with indie horror, what would be your sweet spot when it comes to a budget for a film? It depends on the film, right? That's a trade-off, man. Like if you're trying to make... sci-fi movie you probably want to make sure you have the budget for your sci-fi movie to be watchable now there's plenty of people who have found interesting ways and creative ways around that but the sweet spot is

the amount of money you can get and know that you actually have a chance at getting your investor money back. Because if you... are able to convince somebody. And we see this happen all the time. Joe worked on a movie once where the producers were just taking advantage of elderly people, basically. Oh my God. Promising them the world, but then just, they didn't care how nights, how the movie came out.

they were going to use that money for something else anyway. You don't ever want to be that person. You have to be able to sleep at night and you're hopefully going to get more work when you're able to show somebody invested in you and they got...

at least their money back, and then some, hopefully. So I think when you're starting out, try to shoot for concepts, concepts of a plan that can... that can be made on a budget you know you can that's achievable that you know you can handle um because what you don't want to do is somehow get somebody to give you five million dollars five million dollars and you just fucking blow it and you

can't get into any film festivals anyone's heard of. Nobody wants to buy it. It ends up like a YouTube original or something like that. You know, it's just, you don't want to be the filmmaker who's always.

losing people's money yeah because it'll be a very short career although then again it's so hard because there's always exceptions everyone at this table knows of filmmakers who have never made anything that made money and they keep jumping up, up, up the studio chain and you're like, how do they keep failing upwards?

But it's just luck sometimes, you know? That answer is loaded with checks and balances. Yeah, it depends what it is. It depends on the project because there's one side where... And you can always use that... that kind of adage that filmmakers use, like I'm doing one for them as opposed to one for me. And in, if you delineate that line in the sand where you go, okay, if I'm doing one for them,

Then or doing one where it's like, OK, I need the I need the resources, the budget, the time to make that sci fi movie. Right. Where you're not making primer, you're making Star Wars or you're making, you know, the day the earth stood still or something that.

might not be that big but at least it needs the resources so that the first thing someone doesn't say when the film's over is that look cheap as fuck you know you want to be able to support that idea that scope But when you do that, when you're getting into the 20, 25, 30 million and on up range, you're going to have to relinquish some creative control or it is going to be a situation where you're going to have to.

Let's just say you're going to have to CC a lot more people on the email chain to possibly get sign-offs on those things. Now, if you're lucky, you have financiers, producers, above-the-line talent that are going to... support you completely and not give you no's. Sometimes no's are good. Sometimes no's force you to come up with things that make everybody happy. But that's what I mean. You're now.

you are now going to have to answer more money, more problems. On the other side, if it's a more personal thing, then yeah, you might not have the resources that you want.

but you're not going to have to have a lot of people see seed. You know what I mean? So it's a, it's a tough one. Also the genre factors into this too, because you look, it might be cheaper to make a, comedy like a low budget romantic comedy you have semi-attractive people saying cute things in coffee shops and yeah um it's cheaper to make but it doesn't translate international

usually whereas horror if it's a good concept well executed with a cool poster and a cool trailer your chances are a lot better that other countries are also going to be interested in this thing when you get to romantic comedies and even action movies and stuff. Chances are good. It's going to depend on who's in it. And do you have one of the eight names that's on those lists that get me a Marvel actor for a $1 million movie? Yeah. No, it's not going to happen. No.

But, hey, if you have the connections to make that happen somehow, they will capitalize off you for it. Wouldn't that be great? But as someone who – I want to get to the second part of that, which was how much money should you factor in for –

I want to make sure I use the right words for the release and advertising. Now, typically that falls on the distributor. That doesn't come out of the production budget. But as someone who is in the thick of it right now with your movie coming out, how would you address that when someone's like, how much money should you have for the release?

Well, I don't have any money, so it doesn't matter. I'm doing all the press I can. But you're expected to kind of grassroots it. Of course. Every indie filmmaker is expected to do that. But nobody really tells you that, at least when we were in film school, which was a long time ago. There should have been a class on that shit. So I was really blindsided by that with Hatchet, where I'm like, well, I'm looking at all these Saw and The Descent and all these Lionsgate movies. Yeah, man.

You thought they were studio movies. There were ads everywhere. There were billboards. It was like, this is a huge movie. But when you don't have a distributor who does that, they basically look at you and go, go get them. And then you're like, what do I do? Oh, no, I'll make a Instagram for the movie. Cool. You have like 16 followers after like it's been out for two months. It's hard, man. It's so hard to break through.

I wouldn't, again, it always depends, but I wouldn't take money away from your production budget for the release. Normally that's the distributor. And again... Hopefully you make the movie attractive enough to one of those distributors who... takes a small movie but releases it in a way where people are aware that it is out there and exists but there's a world though that if you're making a movie like for example um you know like with point blank

that was positioned as a three to four quadrant movie for Netflix. So I had to hit all of the demographics in one form or another, aside from the fact, and at one point they were like, You know, do you want this to have all the cursing? Because that could get us more in the algorithm if you take some of the cursing out and went, fuck no. But I also knew that, like, if I tried to tell Frank Grillo he couldn't curse, he'd be, fuck you, you're fired. So it was, again, it was a trade-off.

so you have to consider that like it honestly it all comes down to what the type of project is like if you're trying to make something commercial that means that the marketing has to be part of that it depends what time of year it's coming out what the weather is like that weekend it depends what just opened the weekend before what you're that you can't predict are you up against black phone too you know like who knows

what you're what you're dealing with but I would just Scott I would worry more about raising the money you need to make your movie make the movie the best you possibly can and and then some and then you know try the festival circuit and hopefully, you know, we talk about this often on past episodes. but at least try for the market festivals like the Toronto's, the Sundance's, the ones where you hear movies selling out of them as opposed to whatever, Holliston.

Farm Festival. Hey, that's a good festival. The cow awards are amazing. On our show, we did, because nobody would accept our characters' short film shimpads, we had our own film festival just so we could say our movie got selected. That is a thing now. People do it more often than you would think. But I always love when it's an indie movie that... Doesn't seem very appealing to me. And there's all these festival wreaths at the end. I always pause to be like, never heard of it. Never heard of it.

Great idea, though, because the average person is just going to see those and be like, cool, man, somebody liked it. I'll check it out. I want to do it. I would just want to throw out to Scott also, just in a realistic sense. And Izzy, you went through this as well with House of Ashes.

If you try to swing too high with something high concept that ultimately will need a bigger budget, which ultimately will mean you'll have a lot of cooks in the kitchen, which ultimately will mean that you'll relinquish a lot of creative rights.

The best thing you can do right now, especially if you don't have a feature, is... have a production, have a script, have a production, have a concept, have crew members and cast members who all want to support the best version of your vision and your voice that you can possibly get out on a budget. like worry about the budget for the bigger movies later, you know, but it sounds like right now he needs to get his voice out.

And I think it might be better off if he tries to do something that is reasonably budgeted, even if it's a micro budget, but come up with that idea that's going to foster that. And then so that you can... Show the world what your vision is. Think about every filmmaker that you have admiration for, that you're like a big hero of. they all probably started in indie film at this point. They all had their hard eights before they had their one battle after another's or they had their...

you know, following before they had their Oppenheimers, those real fucking small movies that you can go back and watch blood simple and go, that's a Coen brothers movie. Well, before they made Hudsucker proxy, you know, find your vision first, then. find the time to compromise. Yeah, that's a great answer. So with your movie out now and a physical release coming, other than podcasts or interviews, which...

In most cases, I'm assuming it's connections you already had or something. Did the distributor, was there like a publicist working there? Like even an internal one? No. Nope. No, that's me. Yeah. But here's the thing. My, my journey has been a little different where I was a journalist before and I had deep connections with all those peeps and they were excited to support me because I'm one of them.

And that wasn't a plan. That was just something that happened because I love fucking horror movies so fucking much that. Yeah. Well, you've always been around. Yeah, exactly. So writing about them, interviewing other filmmakers, starting to make shorts, building an audience that way organically, it just sort of all came together. And, you know, one of those connections paid off where...

holy fuck, I'm in Fangoria magazine right now. Which is amazing! It's insane. It feels like a fucking gift from the universe. When you sent me the picture, I was like, I've... There's no better feeling for a geek like us when you have that moment. Because you grew up with it and you fucking see like, oh my God, look at the Tom Savini's and Tony Gardner's of the world and all the directors. You're like, look at these rock stars. I want to be like these dudes.

And you grew up with that. And I got to go to my childhood bookstore and go buy that copy. um a couple weeks ago and i was like oh my god oh my god dreams do come true god damn it see scott look at that happy ending right there that could be you and that is arwen's final word

Knowing how many short films that you've made before House of Ashes, which one can you, because I think all of us in one form or another can look back at earlier work and go, there it is. It's right there. Like there's that moment that I went like, okay, I either can. jump into a longer form storytelling format or there's an idea because I think

especially when you're doing short films, short films, a lot of times are like what music video directors in the nineties used as ways to experiment and find their style and find their voice. Like Fincher was figuring out his style all through the early nineties on the,

on the paycheck of record companies to finally say like, you know what? I will make an alien movie. You know, then it blew up in his face and, but then Janie's got a gun. Exactly. Well, but you look at that and you go, that's a fucking David Fincher movie. Even though, you know, it wasn't fully formed, but it was in short form content. If there was any movie that you would eat. How about this? Yeah. If there was any one of your shorts that you would play before House of Ashes.

which one would it be and why? Oh my God, Jesus. that's a hard question because I've done 27 fucking shorts not all of them but there's gotta be a few but there's gotta be a few that you go like not even like the most polished ones like some of the short films sorry I just want to make sure the audience caught that you've made 27 shorts before you did this feature. Yeah, man. 27. Fucking hell. Yeah. Yeah.

That's what you have to do sometimes. And so many of them played in festivals we were all at. Yeah, yeah. My real career started in 2013 with the recent stuff. I mean... Re-home my monster, I mean, more so tonally would be either Memento Mori or one that I did called Dark Signals, which is like a little bit experimental and a little bit of a proof of concept, but I didn't use it as such.

it at Fantasia and I didn't send it anywhere else because I just kind of didn't want to. Did you play in the big theater? No, we played Decev, the smaller one across the street. Got it. Yeah. Still awesome. Still fucking awesome. What was the first time that you actually got to, was that it? When was the first time you actually got to watch one of your pieces of work with an audience? That wasn't your family. 2013. Yeah. Which one was it?

This one was legitimate. In what way? Well, that's the title of it. Oh, that was it? Here's the thing. It was so, sorry to get back to social political horror, but horror is political, guys. I think it's the best way to convey it these days, more than ever. Well, that was the thing. So back in 2012, there was a shithead, Representative Todd Akins, who said, if it's a legitimate rape...

First of all, fuck you. As opposed to an illegitimate one? Yeah, what does that fucking even mean? A woman's body has a whole way of shutting that whole thing down. Fuck you. Like, we're not magical unicorns. We can just erase. this kind of bullshit so i made i was like i was so fucking mad i couldn't sleep i wrote a short like inspired by that bullshit that night and um filmed it in december and then started playing the circuit on

in 2013. It was, um, I had a guy, uh, sitting drinking whiskey on a stage with a burlesque dancer, very, very private show. And she drugged him, her and her friends. And, um, and. implanted a a mutant pig baby in his stomach that burst out and yeah here we are i i'm in so it wasn't a great short but I had fun and it played some fests and you know led to the next one I needed to see if I could do it you know and then there was a bumper I played actually actually that was before

It was a bumper at Fantastic Fest. It played in front of American Mary, and it was called Babe, Be Gone, and it was about time travel abortions. So, yeah. All right, so then to jump forward to House of Ashes.

What was the impetus of that story becoming like a fully fleshed out feature? Well, we had a tiny bit of seed money from V Channels, which is now called Insurgents. And I needed to raise more because it was not enough. And we wrote it for basically one location with a little bit outside of that. And it was just, it was basically the last resort.

No one's knocking at the door. The cavalry is not coming. What can I do on my own? And that was it. So we were hoping this would be a... near alternative future like a twilight zone-esque type of story if we weren't careful and of course no one's careful here so um it became fiction became reality

while we were in prep so we start out with a woman that is under house arrest for miscarriage and it started fucking happening and that was really depressing and it kept happening and now look at where we are so it's kind of like Every time I have to talk about this, it's not exactly re-traumatizing, but it fucking sucks. You know, like my rights vary from state to state. Yours don't. And that's bullshit.

Like what the fuck are we even doing here? Have you had any, not to jump forward into like the exhibition of the movie and the screening of the movie, but it's very sad that like different states. will have a different kind of perception of the voice and the kind of thesis that the movie has. Have you ever had any that said, nope, because of the politics behind it? No. And if that was the case, they never told me.

But I've played red states like Tennessee Chattanooga Film Festival, which is an awesome festival. That is so great. Yeah, like red states have pockets of sass. And I don't think a lot of red states are actually red. I think they're gerrymandered into being red. And I think they're actually.

purple i again like preaching to the choir here but i always tell people like when the news is breaking your heart and you can't believe what's happening just go talk to actual people and it will renew your faith yeah that it's not as bad as it is. If that makes any sense. It's propaganda versus reality. Yes. Yeah. Like most people, we all want the same things. Right. And we're not monsters. No. And, but.

I'm always hoping like that bubble is going to burst. Like people are just finally going to be like, fuck these politicians. I've had enough of this shit. I feel like we're at that inflection point right now. Yeah. I really do. But the sad thing is.

the first instinct people get when they're like, fuck all this bad news is they start seeking out the news that they agree with. Right. And that's the problem. The bias, yeah. I think when, if you can go back to when we had, what, like three TV stations? It wasn't, they didn't look, there's certain people and personalities that would come on that lean one way or the other, but it was really about, this is what's happening. These are the facts now.

You can, it's like a la carte, like, oh, do I want to be angry today? Do I want to be angry about nothing? Did you guys see? Actually, this is relevant because it's just going to air. Fox News. ran, not only was it AI generated, but it even had the company that generated it, what is it called? Sonora? Sora. The logo burned in. on it right and they still aired it yeah and it was like a minority uh person

complaining about their SNAP benefits and how they abuse the system to live off of everyone. It was all fake. So they were presenting it as real. Yes. And they've since apparently apologized now, which they rarely do. Normally, like 6 a.m., they'll be like, oh, correction about that. Okay, fuck it. And then they move on. Even their lawsuit, the $800 million they paid out.

They didn't talk about it on air because I have older family members who don't watch it all the time and they don't know anything. They only know what they see there. And anyway. But I hear what you're saying. And I do think the world, and maybe this is just my naivety, but I think people in the world are so much better. than what we all feel right now. It's true. And if you just go talk to people, you'll see they're not your enemy. They're not. Maybe you think differently.

But there's a way to compromise on this. But there's so much money to be made in keeping everyone angry. It's true. And it's awful. It's really true. And that's why we have clickbait. And that's why we have all this bullshit. Yeah. But... House of Ashes does deal with a very serious situation. That's how it starts off. It's not all about that. And some people are really mad that it's not all about that. In that case, I would have made a drama and tried to get in a Tribeca or whatever.

It's not just about that because I'm a genre fucking filmmaker. That's the heart of the story. It's how it starts. And while she's under house arrest, she has to deal with a myriad. of people like a nosy jogger. Oh yeah, that fucking asshole. That was cool to see Joe show up in the first five minutes. I didn't even tell you, right? No, I had no idea. But I saw him wearing his camp counselor Halloween costume.

And I was like, I know who that is. Seeing him wear that at Panic Fest inspired me. Like, hey, do you want to be in a... My tiny movie for five seconds. I go to all film festivals wearing that outfit so that hopefully someone will cast me. It was perfect casting because when I think of athletics, I think of Joe Lynch. Fuck you, asshole. I was very uncomfortable.

like realizing like, Oh God, I'm going to be seen than more than the vicinity of people that are all laughing at me now. No, everyone loves you. Stop it. Stop it. I want to go back to, okay. In terms of. You've generated the idea. It's come into script form. And, you know, knowing that you're a longtime partner, Steve, and you guys have worked so tirelessly in getting this thing made. What was like, what was your path? Because ultimately it ended up.

being crowdfunded correct partially yeah yeah what what led you to that realm was it just because you were just hitting a lot of you know people saying no this isn't for us or or was it to generate more control to make a film. Make the movie that you wanted to make without any compromise because the movie does not feel stymied or compromised, especially when it gets into the more political stuff in a good way. Well, I was the boss. Exactly. I was the head producer. I was one of the writers.

the director giving that up then it's gonna does she need to go that route does this need to happen this way because we really want to make sure that it fits into all the quadrants yeah I had none of that because it was such a tiny budget and um the The person at Sargent's, my EP, my main EP, he's just like, oh, it's a ghost story here. Here's a little bit of money. It's going to live on YouTube at the very end of its realm because he's one of those YouTube guys where he does like...

100 movies a year and they're all tiny and eventually whatever its path is at the end of its... realm or run it's gonna live on YouTube with the advertising and I've been hearing more and more about YouTube with all that advertising the money like that's apparently the most popular place to see anything these days which is wild wild Apple TVs and the Rokus like there was a different like there was a time when all of us would go I don't want to fucking watch it on a laptop right now I watch

I watch more YouTube, but it's because I can watch it on my big TV. And now that the creators, whether they're influencers or content creators or studios or production companies, when they're now realizing that you can upload 4K. It's going to look just as good as if it was on HBO Max or Netflix or whatever. As long as you're providing the elements that are making it look just as good, why couldn't you have distribution there? Right.

that's changed the game for a lot of people. So when you say like, oh, eventually it'll be on YouTube, you might be like, that might garner the most audience as long as it's, you know, dealt with properly where no one's just getting screwed or it makes it feel like you're... you're getting ripped off from it. Yeah. Yeah. But everyone has YouTube. Everyone does. And now they don't just have it on their phone.

or their laptop, they have it on devices that they can watch in 4k on their TVs. So it makes it a lot more of like a, an enticing way to get the word out in a way. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it was always the plan, and it was, you know, again, sort of like a Rumble Stiltskin situation. It was like, okay, well, this is all I've got, and so I'm going to make it the best that I possibly can and do the impossible.

get it done even if that's out of fucking spite, you know. What would you say was, because now you shot it in L.A., you guys came down. Where do you live now? You live up north. We're in the Bay Area right now, yeah. Okay, so why, I just have to ask.

Why not shoot it all in the Bay Area? Was it because you had a lot more friends down here that could help out the cause? Everyone is here. I'm the only one up there. I don't even fucking know anybody. Well, George Lucas is up there. Well, of course. Chris Columbus is up there. Yeah, why didn't you ask him? He's pretty good. He's all right. I could get some Yoda money. Maybe that'd be fun. Um, I just couldn't believe how many times you guys came down here. Like I felt bad that like,

how much you sacrifice to come down, to come to location, basically. Well, you know, it's easier than importing everybody else. True. It's so much easier. Or relying on people who, like, in a... classified ad who were like, I know how to make movies. And they're like, what's this? It's boom pole. Oh yeah. No fucking way. No, I mean the talent and the crew are here and I'm not. So I'm going to point myself. And luckily with that location and I'm not allowed to say who's.

that is. Oh, good thing I didn't. Good thing. Sorry, PTA. We were allowed to live there.

um for a little bit of pre-production during production and a little afterwards to you know wrap things up and clean and stuff and that was a fucking gift because while we were looking at locations we were dealing with like this fucking person's a scammer that person's a scammer these location guys laughed at me for like my budget because that's LA for you and then you know a dear dear friend was like well what is your budget and I told him and he's like well

I'm going to be on a shoot in New York in the winter. And I just realized my house is the house of ashes. And I was like, you are saving my life. Wow. Did he say it like that? He did. Oh, that's so weird. Slick move, Marty Scorsese. Very, very smooth. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he also can't talk about this publicly easily with a name, but helped me out with VFX.

Majorly. That makes a lot of sense. Doesn't it? Yeah. Jim Cameron, man. He's the man of the people. Yeah, he came all the way from Australia or New Zealand, wherever it is. He's just now. So I'm king of the world. Helps me out. How long do I need to render? So when... when you had the movie finished, right? And what was your next step with it? Were you like... Yeah, so we...

September 30th, 24, we wrapped our DCP at Simple DCP. We tested it in a little theater down the street here. And a couple weeks later, we had the world premiere at Brooklyn Horror. What a great place to fucking premiere. I love that festival. And that's at the Draft House, right? No. It's at Nighthawk. Yeah, it was at Nighthawk, and some of the screenings were at the Brooklyn College of Art or something like that, too, because they had a really big screen.

At least in years past they did. 2019, yeah, Adam played there. I thought the train house was part of that. No, they did it one year. They do have food there at that. theater oh the Nighthawk is great I love the food there but that's a great venue because people it's a little more on the artsier side the curators are the same guys who do the midnight shows for Tribeca. And they're Yellowville. Yes. Oh, that's right. Duh.

Good to know. I didn't know that. But you know what? I want to backtrack one moment because I was really so impressed with Faina, your lead. Yeah. How did you find her? So, okay. So this is... My first feature in it is... Because the whole movie rides on her. She's amazing. Yeah. And I got to admit, when I first met her, I think she was just having a bad day.

She just seemed like she was just very low-key. I'm like, uh-oh. Is this how it's going to be? Was that day one of our shoot, which was super stressful? Yes. Yes, that's what it was. We had the most people on day one because of avails. Yeah. It was wild. Like we had. She just seemed like she was like very much in her own head, which is. Yeah. I shouldn't be even like. No, she wasn't. Making that judgment call. Steeped in a very grieving character with like deep character work that.

Because when you see the movie and you go, oh my God, she's riveting in it. How did you find her? Well, it was a series of trials and errors. I knew I had to find someone fucking amazing. I had originally cast somebody else who didn't work out. And I had looked at a number of other people who didn't want to work on films less than a million dollar budget. So I'm like, yeah, I understand. Same here. Talk to you later. And it just so much time had been wasted.

I found Feina through a friend, and that friend is one of my co-producers, Kevin Sluder. He is a local filmmaker as well. He had seen a short at Screamfest and was like, hey, I might have found your Mia. And I said, do tell. Because it was becoming not quite panic mode, but almost there. Because this was October 23 and...

the target window was, you know, for that winner in 24. And, um, she was, he said, he said she was like really amazing, ran a gamut of emotions. And he told me the name of short. I'm like, okay, I looked it up. Hey, I know this director, Jack Bennett. I'm going to ask for a screener. I watched it. She was fucking unbelievable. And it was all about, and she wrote this too, as well as started it and produced it, about auditioning over Zoom, about...

an actor screaming in different ways and getting all these live notes and adjustments from a committee of increasingly ridiculous suggestions, you know, and it was kind of hilarious. But. really well done and so i asked jack to introduce us he did i floated the uh film and the character buyer the story all that she was really interested she read it and

had a reaction like nobody else I had talked to about this role. And I was like, oh, fuck, oh, fuck, oh, fuck. I got really excited. I'm like, I think this is one. And it was. Her self-tape was brilliant. We had a live callback, adjusted to notes really, really amazingly well, just nailed every fucking thing. And I was like, it has to be the one.

It's Fina. Fina Sanchez. And it's her first fucking lead role. How did nobody else cast her before this? She trained in New York in theater, like all of this, like what the fuck? That's what, that's one of the few things that you can always like relish in is when you have that moment. And then when the actors go on into.

bigger careers and be like, yeah, it's all me. It's all me. It's a course. I get to have the feeling of, I could present this amazing person to the world, but this person was already amazing to begin with. frozen i always loved seeing and introducing emma bell And then to watch her go on to walking dead and final destination in Dallas and all this stuff and be like, but in our movie, it says in introducing. Yeah. So yeah, I think that is one of, one of the things that we don't.

really talk about much on this show but uh other than charity stuff like because of this podcast we do yorky thon every year and we saved all these dogs which is

if it wasn't for our careers, this wouldn't exist. That wouldn't have happened. So, like, you always have to try to find the positive in it. But... like in a case like this where you cast somebody and gave them their first shot and as a lead carrying a movie god willing 10 years from now you're gonna see her and all this other stuff and that's because of you yeah man and that's such a good

I mean, I feel like it would have happened for her one way or another. Maybe. It pissed me off that it took this long. You know? Like, she's amazing. Hire her. Yeah. Done. Yeah. Oh, we have... everyone's second favorite part of the movie crypt.

Viewer mail! So we just have a couple questions for you here from our audience. Again, if you want to know who is going to be coming on the show, just join our Patreon. It's only $1 a month at patreon.com slash themoviecrypt. You get the episodes without any commercials.

the full versions of the episodes, viewer mail, Hollywood therapy. You get to see who's coming up for $1 a month. That's it. Shopify helps you sell at every stage of your business. Like that, let's put it online and see what happens stage. And the site is... This one's going to Thailand. And that, wait, did we just hit a million orders stage?

Whatever your stage, businesses that grow, grow with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at shopify.com slash listen. Save over $200 when you book weekly stays with Vrbo this winter. If you haven't seen your college besties since, well, college, you need a week to catch up in a snowy cabin. Take a week-long vacation and save over $200. Book now at Vrbo.com.

Okay, so these were just some of the questions that we got for you here. Let's see, we already answered that one. All right, this is from Jacob.

is a huge fan of your work loved house of ashes and looking forward to your next project as a new englander how would you say the region got you interested in horror as a genre i think this is Jacob Davidson. It is Jacob Davidson. Yes, it is indeed. Yes. How many years have we known Jacob? A long fucking time. Like 2010. Jacob's like in his 70s now. He's not. He's close. Yeah.

I don't know. He's older than you. He's 30 going on 70. Yeah. Thanks, Jacob. So kind for you to ask this question. That's exciting. You know Massachusetts, New England. We have a long, long... A history of Gothic horror. Look at Salem. Yeah. I mean, look at Salem. Look at all the women they fucking murdered there and took their property. Okay. Wait. Is it weird to you? I loved Salem. I was there all the time when I was in the band and all that stuff. But...

Is it weird to you when you walk around and like the football team is the Salem witches and everyone's wearing hoodies with like witch hats on them and everything's all, which is this and which is that? Cause. at some point you're hoping these same people are going to look at that cemetery, you know, uh, accused, pressed to death, drowned, hung all this. Like it is a dark, dark blemish on.

not just our country society because it happened in other places too but now everyone's just like yay witches woo this is so fun but there's a reverence whenever I was in Salem a reverence to, and this might all go back to like high school when I was in the crucible. I, and I had like the worst part cause I was Giles Corey, which is great cause he gets pressed to death, but.

When you have to play the elderly man when you're 15, nobody believes you. Nobody wants that part. And that was the role I got in that, which sucked. But because of studying all that stuff...

I'm never unaware of that. Yeah. And so the fact that you brought that up about, Oh yeah, this culture of murdering women and stuff like that. Like, yeah, we're kind of back there again, aren't we? Um, I, I'm one of those witches that they would have, or women, let's say it, because there weren't really witches for real.

There was nobody flying around, casting spells and all that shit. They killed women. That was it. We'll throw you in the water with rocks on you. If you float, we'll kill you because you're a witch. If you drown, I guess you weren't a witch. No, you're going to die either way because fuck you. No, I mean, I was one of the women that, like, they would have definitely murdered for having a voice of any kind, for being mad about things, because why would I be happy about being treated?

the way the society treats us. I mean, here's the thing. It's tourism based off of actual human suffering. Yeah, that's... Like in another hundred years, are people going to go to Auschwitz and buy sweatshirts in merch? Well, the way things are going, probably. Well, the thing is, the U.S. doesn't run Germany, so they'll be fine. Probably won't happen.

You know, I mean, maybe it will. I don't fucking know. It kind of feels like it's going that direction. You know what I'm like... kind of scared of yeah is i don't know if you play video games but stuff like the call of duty games and stuff some of these wars are only 40 years old and now you're playing a character in them right in our lifetime we're gonna see the 9-11 video game where you're on

Flight 93 and you got to like crash the plane before it gets to the Capitol. Too soon. Yeah. Right. But so when I think about that, I'm like, imagine being like 90, 90 or. years old right and it's Christmas morning and your grandchild got this new

video game console and they fire up a game and it's, you know, Pearl Harbor and you're like, Jesus Christ, this is a game to you? It's insane. It's just a weird way of looking at things. I mean, the thing is with Salem, I kind of forgive it because... it's you know look we grew up as outsiders it's a town more or less for outsiders in the grand scheme of things and that part of it I really like it's kind of an asylum for

All the weirdos. It's beautiful. It's gorgeous. I love it. Yeah, I was there a couple months ago, you know. It was so, oh, I love it so much. I was there last month and I hadn't been there in years.

I just love, I mean, I love New England in general. But I think I live everywhere, though. I don't think there's anywhere I'm like, I don't want to go there again. Like, especially... this country lobster rolls man i hope everyone listening at some point in your life you get to get out and actually see it and not just watch it on tv it's just like i was saying before about actually talking to people you'll be really surprised how great everybody is i swear um

Okay, so as far as the region getting you into horror, also another thing too, where we're from, Halloween was very sacred. It wasn't just that night. It was like... whole time a year it was an industry everybody got into it and I do that love that about LA like people get really into it and it is a really fun place

But fuck when it's Halloween and it's 80 degrees outside. I know that is a little strange because we didn't grow up with that. But I fucking love LA and Halloween. You know, that's why I'm here. Because John Carpenter and Pixel Grip and Halloween Friends. Oh, did you get to go to Carpenter? Yeah. How fucking great was it? Always great. Oh my God. It was my fifth time scene. What did he close with? He crossed with Christine. Christine, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like...

By the end, I was like, he's got to close with Christine. He didn't play the thing. No! Really? No, not on... That's why I walked out. Yeah, that's why you walked out. You did not walk out. Flip the table and I'm looking at playing the thing. What table? Fuck you, John! There's no table at the Belasco. Yeah. Except if you're backstage.

All right. And then we have this question for you from Greg. Hello, Adam, Joe, and Izzy. I've enjoyed your journey as a filmmaker, as I will never forget my first experience to your work as it was the short... Innsmouth. Innsmouth, yeah. And it was in a packed theater here in Kansas City. Oh, it's Greg from Nightmare Junkhead. For a then monthly series called Slaughter Movie House. Oh, yeah.

The crowd, quote, reacted to a certain scene and it was beyond a memorable experience. I love the vibe that House of Ashes gives off. If you had to program... three vintage movie trailers to get the vibes ready for a house of ashes screening. What films would they be? That's a great question. That's a good question. Thanks for the memories and hope to see you all back in Kansas city at the screen land again soon.

Oh my god. This is a classic Greg. I just realized Adam Roberts was here like two weeks ago. We were going to get together. I just remembered now. Oops. You know what's funny? I saw him on Friday and he was like, what's the over-under if Adam's going to write me back? Oh, Jesus Christ. Wait, he was in town this weekend? This month I was traveling, then I got back. Dude, it's October. It's our busiest month of the year. I know, but still. You're forgiven for not...

I love those guys and I feel bad that I spaced on that. Well, guess what? He could have texted you. Exactly. Fuck him. That's what I was listening right now going. Well, fuck you. What three trailers would you? What lies beneath Suspiria and Blue Velvet. All fucking bangers and would fit... especially the kind of enclosed, almost chamber piece-like feeling of that. It's a little claustrophobic. I just watched. I would be scared, though, because those are three...

exceptionally amazing movies they are you don't want to remind people I don't want to remind people that my tiny movie is a tiny movie so take one of our movies and program one of our movies in there just to kind of level the playing field you program one of your movies what would you think you've seen the movie what would you play

the trailer for Ice Pirates three times in a row and that way I have a fighting chance I think yeah now when I say the audience knows this but I thought Ice Pirates was one of my favorite movies because when I grew up Seeing it on HBO every time fucking Beastmaster played, then that was on.

I thought it was the funniest, greatest, coolest movie. And then it disappeared for like 25 years. And you're like, why can't I get Ice Pirates? Rights issues. It's fucking terrible, man. It's not how I remembered it at all. Well, I saw Bloodbath at the House of Death when I was like eight.

and I was like scarred for life I saw it like more like 10 years ago it's a spoof And it sucks It's ridiculous That's like being scared Over Saturday the 14th Right Disney's But you don't know When you're a tiny kid No Disney's Sleepy Hollow Still scary Is still fucking scary Yeah It's not one of those things Where you're like I was scared of this cartoon Of the Headless Horse movie No no no Terrifying

That's kinder fucking trauma. Yeah. Dark Crystal, Black Cauldron, Last Unicorn. The end of something wicked this way comes with Jonathan Pryce turning into the elderly man on the carousel. That was fucked up. Splitting fucking Jason Robards. Knuckles? Yeah, you don't fuck with Jason Robards, man. That's messed up. Dude, which Superman was? Two or three? I think it's two where they have...

Or was it three? They turned that woman into like a robot. Part three. That fucked everybody up. What about during the day? And Robocop. You're watching it and you're like, oh! The Wrath of Khan when those little earwigs climb into the ear. That was... Even E.T. where he's in the fucking tent and all like the guys and the guns.

Well, back then there were guns before it was retconned. But like E.T. dying, you're like, oh my God. We had so much fucking kinder trauma. Scary shit, man. Yeah. That would get scrubbed out. Like within the first 20 minutes, the parent fucking dies all the time. Bambi. Yeah. Dumbo, they... Lock his mom up in chains. Anyway. Yeah. Oh my God. The Lion King, man. All of it. Disney's responsible for a lot of fucking nightmares. Yeah. Okay. So last question we always ask everybody.

What was the point? And I'm sure there's many, but just one that you can think of on your journey so far where shit got, it was so bad. It looked so bleak. Everything was on fire and fucked up. And how did you not give up? Jesus Christ. Okay. It's probably like a daily thing. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's like, it's like, that's like a whole bunch of years, but I was living here in LA. This is 2017 into early 2018.

And I had a toxic Hollywood job. Steve was working at the goddamn Burbank Airport. He had applied for hundreds of marketing jobs, copywriting jobs, all of that. it became very, very, very, very fucking difficult to be here. Still like that. Right? Sad. So it's... Yeah, it got very bad where I said, we have to go back. We fucked up. Like your job is his job was still open back in Massachusetts and they wanted him back. His grandma was.

Probably going to die within six months. And we were fucking broke. And I felt like the biggest failure in the world. But also I knew I wasn't alone because I listened to this podcast. And when I was back in Massachusetts and we had moved. you know and settled in all that and you know we're both still working in corporate america it was a really fucking dark time i listened to this podcast constantly on my hikes and it really helped me see like okay

this is a pause. This is not the end for me. I just have to figure things out for a bit. So I want to, I really want to thank you guys for having this podcast. Wow. Yeah. Don't make me cry now. I'm so glad you said that though.

You see this happen fairly often, maybe not all the time, but where somebody is like, I'm making a short film and they're all fired up. They're so excited. And when it's done, it's not what... they hoped it would be for various reasons. That doesn't mean you suck at this. The first time you tried to ride a bike, you probably fell. And this industry will fucking kick that bike out from beneath you. You have everything working against you.

If you really want to do it, now pick yourself up and now do it again. And now there's going to be different mistakes, different things that go wrong every time. But I would still fly back here. Like, for instance, when we did My Monster, I flew back here. I was... Katie Reif had put me on a list after we made the film. I would still fly back here to just make movies with friends, like little tiny shorts and stuff. And that put me on a list at the AV club where like, here's...

Here's 10 female filmmakers. That you need to hire. Yes. Specifically, it was directed there because he had come out and all that. And we can talk about that later. But that you should hire because. X, Y, and Z. And I was on the list with John Wexler, Axel Carolyn, you know, probably Bria Grant. Yeah, by Bria. Well, she was in My Monster and she was still acting.

you know, more so than not at that point. And now everyone knows her as director and she's fucking amazing. And I love her. Bria is the best. I love Bria. Yeah. Everyone loves Bria. Steve has a joke where he goes, Oh, is she South Cabrera today or North Cabrera? Like, is she happy or mad? And I will sing Ria Las Vegas at her just because, just because I love being in her presence. And she's so supportive to everybody. She's wonderful. She dropped by the set.

of House of Ashes while we were shooting just to say hi and, you know, bought the whole crew lunch on day one or two. Oh, fuck yeah. Yeah, she's wonderful. Could she come over here and buy us lunch? We love you, Bria. She's in Mexico City this weekend, like rocking it out at Dia de los Muertos.

Wow. Having a bunch of fun there. All right. So where can people see House of Ashes? It will be on VOD right now at places like Fandango, DirecTV, Vudu, and Amazon. And then theoretically we have a Blu-ray at some time. Sometime next month from Anchor Bay. Fuck yeah. Anchor Bay, who's back now, new Anchor Bay, in case people weren't aware of that. And where can people follow you so that they can...

Catch the news about the Blu-ray when you can. I'm on Instagram. I'm on Blue Sky. I've got my website, nilenochtum.com, which is Latin because I like to be difficult. And are you good at checking? I'm a difficult woman. I'm terrible with social media. I don't like, I'll have like a day where I'll look at like everything, like messages especially. I can't, it's just, I don't know.

That's healthier, I think, than what I do. That was why I stopped, was because I realized it was negatively affecting my life. Because you can't escape everybody's got an opinion. And the thing is, most of the people, especially most people I follow, we share the same values and opinions.

but I don't need to fucking hear it every five seconds because it just reminds me of, you know, it's just, everyone could use a little less social media, but there is a way to get in touch with you if people want to get in touch with you. Yeah, man, I've got a contact form on my website.

So where are you on social media? I'm pretty much everywhere at at the Joe Lynch. And I'm at Adam underscore FN underscore green, even though I just said not very good at it. I just want to say congratulations. Yes. Congratulations. I'm so proud of you. It's been years since we first started hanging out and seeing everything. And again, like I mentioned before, you were there for me.

When in 2023, when we were playing suitable flesh and I was having panic attacks and you sat down next to me, you're going to be fine. You're going to be great. I'm like. Why are you saying this like you've had 15 fucking features out like you just knew? Because I've just, well, I recognize the panic.

I feel I'm fucking anxious as hell all the fucking time. And I can see it in other filmmakers. Are you kidding? Like you're an artist. I'm an artist. We're all suffering. And, you know, I've been on stage a billion fucking times with shorts and whatever. Once I get up there, it's fine.

fine and you're amazing at that shit but it's like it's the anticipation that kills you but you're joe fucking lynch is to entertain people yeah that's it that's all you're hoping is they're gonna like it oh well you know There's a whole lot of people who love to shit on the film. Yeah, but you know what though? Once you realize everyone gets that, it doesn't matter what the movie is. It makes it a little bit easier to let it roll off and be like, okay, well.

but hey Fangoria supports me bloody disgusting and dread central gave me amazing reviews like we played Glasgow like come on that's the important thing your vision was seen around the world it was amazing but as someone who grew up on this stuff who's been around it for so long yeah you know the stuff that means something to you like Fangoria is acknowledging your movie you're good mic drop like that's awesome

Like not everyone's ever going to get that. No. So it's huge. I, I did not expect it on my first future. I did not expect, but it's learning to take the time to celebrate those wins, whether they're small or not and not do. what we still kind of both do. Like there was a day, it was like last week where both of us were like, oh wow, there's something good happening. Like separate things, like one for him, one for me. And I'm like, well.

I wonder what's going to fuck this up. I'm not going to get excited. It's like waiting for the pendulum to swing back and smack us in the face. We're like, no, no, no. It swung that way. It's good. Leave it there for a bit. It's nice. Not anticipating, when's it all going to go to shit?

which is so stupid. I know, but... Our brain is trying to theoretically protect us. Protect us, yes. But at the same time... I'm sick of being protected. Same. It's a shitty way to live, so you have to celebrate every fucking tiny win because you could get hit by a bus fucking tomorrow. Hopefully not, but you have to. You have to, especially in 2025 in America. Fuck this. Take the wins. Joy is fucking resistance. Yep. There it is. Yes.

All right. So see House of Ashes on whatever VOD platform you want and stay tuned to Izzy's Instagram. for more information about the physical release. And we will see all of you next week with another edition of the movie crypt with Adam and Joe. Good job. Likewise, you guys rock. It's the Movie Crypt!