Last Podcast On The Left - Side Stories: Visitations w/ Elijah Wood & Daniel Noah

Episode Date: November 7, 2019

Ben 'n' Henry chat with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah of indie production company SpectreVision about horror movies and their podcast "Visitations" -- on which they visit the homes and workshops of some of their favorite creators in the genre community and beyond.

There's no place to escape to. This is the last talk. On the left. Side stories. That's when the cannibalism started. Side stories. Yeah. What is going on with you? What is it? You know what, I'm trying... We sit together, right? How many years do we know each other? Oh, 10 to 15. 10 to 15 years. And you have to sit and think. In the beginning of each one of these shows, we have to start a conversation. Yeah, and it's so hard to do. It's so hard to do. Because we hate each other. Because that's what we do. We are just contractual friends. Yeah, of course.

Every day we go. We travel in separate limousines to the studio. We each have a therapist that is a personal therapist for Last Podcast Manors. Then we have a group therapist. Then we have a therapist for that therapist. And they all watch in each other. You Skype your parents in all the time to find out exactly what they think of every single thing that you do. I have to be emotionally destroyed, at least on a weekly basis. My mom's on speaker right now. She's just going, Henry told me she'd be on Broadway. Yeah, she would have loved for you to be on Broadway.

Hey, what's up, everyone? This is Side Stories. I am Ben staring at the beautiful face of Henry Zabrowski. You have no facial hair, which is always speaking of like weird. This is, it's a little strange just to see your full face. I feel like I look like I have leukemia. I look like when I get to a certain level of beard growth after shaving the beard and I just let it all go back, I just look like a person who's out for the afternoon from an insane asylum that I'm on a lot of like Thorazine. Dude, that's the penguin. That's the story.

They won't let me send in a tape. I should have asked Elijah Wood just send in a tape. Well, why did Henry just mention Elijah Wood? Because that's what this episode is all about. We are going to speak with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah. They are the co-hosts of Visitations, a podcast out. They are doing some kick-ass interviews with some of the best directors out there in the world. They are also behind the great production company SpectraVision, which has given us great films like A Girl Walks Alone at Night, Mandy,

some just wonderful things that they're working on. I can't wait to speak with them. So here it is, ladies and gentlemen, our conversation with Daniel and Elijah. I know you'll enjoy it. Live from your grave. Dude, today we have a very exciting episode and we are so happy to have a conversation with these people. They are in the horror verse. We have very similar interests when it comes to films and the films that we love to see,

mostly involving blood. They're also co-hosts of the new podcast, of the hit podcast, Visitations. We are joined by Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah. Thank you all so much for being on the show. Thanks for having us. Hello. Hey, Daniel. And of course, you also have the production company SpectraVision.

Very excited about Visitations. So explain this. This is you guys talking to filmmakers. Now, is it you guys sticking to genre films for the most part in terms of horror and sci-fi? Yeah. You know, the people that were, the subjects that we're talking to. Yeah. I think that, you know, because the podcast came through Shutter, right?

Shutter being the sort of Netflix for horror. You know, they approached us. They had this sort of podcast initiative. They were doing a number of podcasts and they asked if we wanted to fill a slot and we were kind of interested. We love podcasts, but we didn't quite have like a solid idea. You're literally too handsome for podcasts. We're told that we have faces for radio. That is why we're doing this. Yeah.

And the feet and limbs overall. And the face for radio. Yeah. Isn't that fun? But anyway, so we bounced, we bounced a bunch of ideas around and because it was Shutter, we knew that the, the sort of connective tissue had to be genre at least tangentially. But yeah, the main concept that we sort of landed on was this idea of an interview show that didn't necessarily feel like a typical interview show where we would, yeah.

Go literally visit people in their homes or offices and where, you know, we would basically be lobbed up and there would be no crew present to give the sense of, essentially just sort of forgetting that you were even being recorded. Right. And then a conversation would take place in the span of two to three hours that would cover not the person's body of work specifically, but rather who that person was, what their childhood was, and what ultimately led them down the path of creation in the sort of dark world of genre. Right. Well, was that something that, and Daniel, you can hop in here, was that, that world, was that something that you guys were always interested in? I know for Henry, Marcus and myself, that was sort of a key bonding moment for all three of us when, when Marcus brought up the movie Cannibal Holocaust and Henry and I were like,

yeah, it's like top 20. I mean, it's not like my favorite horror film. The fact that we even knew it like. It's a personal love. I feel like it does come like, that's why I really appreciate the idea of talking to filmmakers from and genre creators of people like where they came from, because I feel like horror is kind of a personal. Yeah. So, and Daniel, you can take this off if you want to leave this off. Where did you find or discover your fascination with this subject matter or just with this genre in general? You know, this is kind of really the subject of visitations in many ways is, you know, what it's counterintuitive that sort of walking deliberately into dark subjects would be something that people would sign up to do. And yet, obviously, you know, millions do it every day, people who love horror and, you know, just tales of the macabre or dark things in general. And why is that? And I think, you know, for me, it was, it's a subject I've spent a lot of time examining. And I know Elijah has as well.

And for me, it was kind of multi determined. I think on the one hand, I had one of the most positive figures in my early childhood was my grandfather, who had a deep love of the universal horror films. Nice. Yeah, horror in general. And so we used to watch these old, we would watch all the kind of original classic universal horror movies together, Saturday, matinees in Chicago in the 70s. And, and I started to associate sort of safety and warmth with those films. And so I think that's that's one part of it. But another part of it is that also related to having sort of a tumultuous childhood where there wasn't this things were changing a lot. And my sort of calibration of my family kept changing and I kept moving and and that when I first discovered horror and specifically it was stumbling onto the pilot episode of the Twilight Zone. And when I was five years old, and, and I think it was like being hit with a tidal wave of, oh my God, I'm not the only one who feels this disoriented and refused about the way the world works. And I'm not, I'm not alone. And, and now I can't get enough of this. So like, what else is out there that reflects the way I feel? Of course, it took me 30 years to understand this.

But, but I think that was, that was really for me early. And, you know, there were a series of events throughout my life that really led to me saying, I think horror is what I want to commit my career to. And of course, Rod Sterling is the best of both worlds, a face for television and the voice for radio. He is, he was just perfect in every single way. They were back in the day when like smoke and cigarettes like helped your voice. They would gargle the smoke to make it extra gravelly. Yeah. Men fall and it's good for you. Absolutely. And then Elijah, with your work, obviously your, your life and career has been so well. It's been so well looked into and examined over the years. Was there, what was that? Did you feel like, cause do you feel like there was a noticeable, noticeable shift toward genre when you decided to do Maniac? When you guys were working on Maniac, like, do you feel like that there was like a thing that it was swinging because when did, because Spectre Vision was made after Maniac, correct? Or was it during that time period? Correct. Yeah. Spectre Vision. Well, actually, no, Daniel, Spectre Vision was sort of around that time.

I think we, we, we kind of secretly spitting our hands and shook. Yeah. About 2010. I don't remember what your Maniac was. It was about the same time, right? It was around the same time. The two things weren't related, but there was, there was like crossover because Alex Taylor, who was the producer on Maniac, is good friends of ours. So we knew her. And I think that's actually, it was either through Josh or Daniel that I ended up getting in touch with Alex, who reached out to me about Maniac to begin with. So it was sort of related, but they, we didn't have anything to do with, in regards to the production. Right. But yeah, that's interesting. Like, was that a sort of lying in the sand for me? I don't know. I think it was the first opportunity to work on a real horror film as an actor. It's rad, dude. It's great movie. I love that film too. And I was initially reticent because I don't really love the idea of remakes. Most of them are pretty terrible. Right. Or don't have a reason to exist moreover. And this one, I was so fascinated by the approach and the fact that it was so different. The idea of shooting most of the movie in POV was really fascinating and almost had this like, oh, what's the, what's a peeping Tom kind of vibe, which is a favorite movie of mine.

So yeah, that, the opportunity to play a killer in a, in a horror film was super exciting. Oh, absolutely. Barely on screen. So I was on set every day and working with the DP Maxime, who effectively was me as the operator. It was like this dance of trying to figure out ways to get into frame and subtle, interesting ways, getting my arms and hands in there. It was fun. It was really fun. Was that something that you had in mind that you always wanted to do was to throw yourself into this horror world and become a maniac in the film maniac, obviously? Or were you inspired by anyone? I know Peter Jackson, obviously the director of Lord of the Rings, people often forget he is the dude who didn't made Dead Alive. Like, did he influence you or did he talk to you at all about horror films when you guys were, you know, in such close contact? He didn't talk a great deal about horror movies, but his work certainly influenced me.

I mean, I, you know, I came up on, on his, his old horror movies. Probably after I saw Heavenly Creatures, which I think was the first thing of his that I'd seen, I then went back into his catalog and watched everything except for Bad Taste, which I came to much later. But no, I mean, I think my, my love of genre and horror started when I was like six or seven years old. I have a brother who's seven years older than me. He was renting movies with his friends. Invariably, they would be horror movies because that's what they wanted to see. And he would be like, Hey, dude, come and check this out. Just don't tell mom. So I would get access to see these movies way before I should have. And I, and I fell in love with it.

And I, and I, you know, the older I got, the more I saw, the more I deeply fell in love with the genre and saw it for more than the sort of titillating, you know, genre elements, but, but also for its beauty and for the, the art that it can represent. I think that's what I really started to see as I got older and sort of explored the genre more fully was, I was just attracted to the art of it. And then from, from an acting perspective, you know, the maniac thing was just also, it was just an opportunity to play a villain. I'd never really played a maniac before. It was just to be able to do something as twisted as that was really fun. I'm a, I'm a short statured performer. And as a short statured performer, a lot of times I feel like, um, especially if I want to come across as a dangerous person, I'm just talking about my real life.

If I want to intimidate somebody, I feel like I have to go overboard and I've been, been accused of going overboard in social situations because you feel as if I have a small person rage. Do you feel like any of that end up translating like you want to be scary on camera? Like, do you think that you would like a fellow short statured actor when you go in there and be fucking terrifying? Is there a way that you have to gear yourself up and do you end up doing that to your family as well? Do you terrorize them as well? Like in the process of that? That's what I get accused of a lot. Yes, indeed.

And rightfully so. Yeah. So you're sort of saying like, am I compensating for my lack of height? Do we have to go crazier? Yeah, not really. I think the fun thing about See, Henry, not really is the answer. Henry has been trying to validate his like aggressive demeanor because he's like, I got it.

If I don't go to 100, I actually find the inverse far more frightening. It's the quiet, weird people that are terrifying, not the loud ones. Yep. Introverted or plotting to shoot me. That's what I'm saying. Sometimes have you heard, he was a nice man. He seemed so sweet.

We barely saw him. He rarely came outside, but God, he was a sweet guy. Just cleaning his guns. The fucking people you got to stay away from. Absolutely. Absolutely. So Daniel, what has been one of the experiences so far on visitations? Again, we are speaking with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah.

Check out their podcast, Visitations. And they are doing some kick-ass things as well with their production company, SpectraVision. And we should talk, if we can, about Nightmare on Elm Street. I want to talk about, yeah, several things, and Mandy, obviously. Yes, but Daniel, I guess just quickly from your perspective, what are you learning right now? What are some of the takeaways that you've had in these conversations with these truly iconic directors? There was a point at which Elijah and I had this realization after we'd recorded,

maybe the first five or six of these, that without even meaning to, we were inadvertently conducting a psychological study. We were collecting data, and then there were these really striking commonalities in the childhoods of almost everyone that we talked to that eventually led them down a path of embracing the dark arts or genre or horror or what have you. Daniel, were those mostly traumatic incidents or just sort of just life incidents in general? Is it just a lot of wedgies? Because of the experience, though.

Yeah. Well, so look, certainly that, I mean, that is a real factor, that when you go, the sort of genre community of people who make genre films and love genre films, is a very warm and welcoming community. And I think that a lot of that is because it's people who feel like they're misfits. They don't fit in anywhere. It's a lot of Wednesday Atoms' coming together going, again, thank God I'm not alone.

And I will often come back to that. Thank God I'm not alone as a sort of general explanation for why people love horror. Absolutely. But what we found with these conversations and visitations to be very specific about it was that there were a lot of transients, like kids who got moved around a lot. There were a lot of broken homes or even more specifically, the loss of a key support figure, like a parent or a grandparent, either through death or divorce or circumstance. Yeah.

A lot of cases of kids getting moved into communities where they didn't necessarily feel like they fit in very well. It's like the parents almost kind of held them back, though. You know what I mean? It's like, thank God they got rid of the parents or they wouldn't be very successful direct. I think they would like to have their parents back, Henry. Just because you could do away with yours, most people need their parents. But no, that is so interesting. And that's why we just love obviously talking with you guys.

And it's just always so fascinating to speak to other people in the arts because their stories are always unique and compelling. But when you find the similarities, it makes you feel less like another. Yeah. Exactly. And I think also the hope too, and this really came through the process of recording like Danny was saying, we realized about five or six episodes in that we were conducting this sort of inadvertently conducting research that had all this commonality. One of the fringe benefits of the show, hopefully, is that people who can relate can hear their idols, people that they look up to, also express their fears and their insecurities and the fact that the path to that success is not necessarily an easy one.

And I think hopefully that will inspire people to kind of move forward in their art knowing that Taika Waititi is still like, I don't know, along my career is going to go, someone's going to keep going at it. Oh, shit. There's something really, there's something beautiful about that, you know, in regards to being inspiring to other artists. We spoke with Mike Flanagan from Dr. Sleep, and he was talking about how, you know, everyone's like, oh, your career must be going so well. And we're like, how is that? How does that feel? He's like, I want to throw up every day. Oh, cool.

I just want to vomit every single day. Oh, great. Yeah. His interview was really, really revealing. That was actually a really great example of a conversation where things that hadn't occurred to him, occurred to him over the course of our conversation, which was pretty incredible. Yeah. Just, you know, things about his life, reasons he makes the decisions that he's made in his art, funneling back to things from his childhood and kind of connecting.

We literally heard him connect those dots, some of them for the first time, which was really amazing. That's awesome. Very cool. And he just shows how personal his films were. Nothing I didn't understand it completely, especially like, because when we spoke with him ourselves, he was talking about breaking down the shining, like the difference between the shining and Dr. Sleep and talking about it. It was alongside Stephen King's own struggles with substance abuse. Right.

I don't know why I never hit me as that before, because you know how many times you've seen the shining, you know, you read the book, you know about kind of what Stephen King as an artist went through. And then you realize, oh, the shining is all just about being locked inside of cocaine. Yeah. He had to like get out. And it's like, because he was so scared of himself as a fucking writer, which is the scariest job. Yeah. I think because you just sit alone all day with your fucking brain and God knows what you come up with if I can entertain yourself. Life from your grave.

Life from your grave. Speaking of Dr. Sleep, we talked with Mike about how difficult that was to work in Kubrick's shadow. And I know with SpectraVision, we are seeing on Bloody Disgusting and places like that, that you all are very interested in producing the new Nightmare, a new Nightmare on Elm Street. So I know Henry has a lot to ask about that. And also how are we getting Robert England in there? And what we're going to do is how do you get him out every time? He was in the Goldbergs. He did recently say that he had one more in him.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we don't necessarily have a concept fully baked, but we love the universe. And in opportunity, it's really interesting at this particular juncture with some of these really classic franchises is that they reach a point in which they've been really played out and they're a little stale. So the idea of taking something like that that is so beloved and reinvigorating it with a new perspective is a really exciting prospect and trying to do something different that no one's done before, which is really what something like that needs rather than more of the same. Yeah, because they try to do it with Hellraiser by just casting a fat Hellraiser, but it doesn't actually change the movie. He wasn't fat, he was just fat for Pinhead, because Pinhead ain't eaten very much. No.

No. But yeah, that would be one of those. And Daniel, you can speak to this. That seems like if you would be, if you did end up producing Nightmare on Elm Street, it is both a blessing and then a massive like, how the hell are we going to live up to the standards that Wes Craven set for this incredible, incredible, incredible, iconic character and series of films. So does that send? So that is, is that more invigorating for you that concept of like, we got a lot of, we got some big shoes to fill? Or is that like, how the hell are we going to manage to pull that off if we have to? Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, it should be said that that there's absolutely no conversation happening about us producing Nightmare on Elm Street.

This is nothing more than a wish on our part. No, it's a nice part. I just saw the tweet and I was just like, can we help boost the signals? I really trust you guys. I want to manifest, if we talk about it and manifest itself into reality, I think we, I think we can do this. Franny Kruger. Franny Kruger, I love it. Female Franny Kruger.

You stole our notes. No, look, we, we, we've been, I mean, I personally have been chasing, I mean, even dating back 10 years when I was working as a TV writer, I was trying to get the rights and had a very specific take on it, which we probably wouldn't be, you know, that prudent to get into a podcast. But, but, you know, we've also, Adam Egypt Mortimer, who directed Daniel is a real for us, is also obsessed with Nightmare on Elm Street. And we've all been sort of collectively talking about it. And, you know, we, we have chatted with the rights holders a little bit. And there is a lot of, a lot of complications about the rights. So I don't know that anyone's making a Nightmare on Elm Street film anytime soon. But, but look, I think with, with anything like this, where there is so much baggage in history, you're going to piss off certain people.

It's just, it's unavoidable. I mean, I've even just, you know, this whole thing came out of an interview we did with Coming Soon where they asked us to name five fantasy films. And we just mentioned this. And, and now I think there've been like five or six other stories about it that have hit since that came out. And I've even just looked in the comments, people are already having arguments about a movie that doesn't exist. Oh, the internet is so wonderful. Yeah. Yeah.

But, but, you know, I think this is where, you know, just having a team of really smart and thoughtful people comes into play. I think as we've talked about how we would hypothetically tackle it, I've had some pretty extreme points of view about. Abandoning a lot of what's happened in the past. And Elijah is a voice of reason. It's reminded me that there are fans that want to see certain things. And so, you know, you have to balance things out. I know we would love if we ever, you know, we're lucky enough to have it. We'd love to have England do one more rodeo with us.

And, but I, all I'll say is that, you know, we, we have what we haven't fully baked it. As Elijah said, we have a sort of general approach to it that has never been done before in any of the iterations that in some ways, in our little minds feels so obvious that we're a little bit surprised that hasn't been done before. It's, it's really just kind of taking the mythology that's there and asking yourself what other avenues can be walked down, you know, what if you took a left turn off of Elm Street onto, you know, whatever a maple street or, you know, what, what other stories are around the corner. But then also, I also wanted the story of Frederick Krueger. Like that's the other thing that's been like, what about him as a child molester, which is not, you know, not the most exciting. I'm going to interject on that one because, because per Canon, this is the thing that's so confusing about all of these, these long winded franchises. I mean, this happened with Halloween too, where like the Cult of Thorn comes into it and you're like, what the fuck is all this? Like, well, initially, Freddie Krueger was only a child murderer and he wasn't, I believe, not established as a molester until the remake.

Is that right? Yeah. Is that true? And I got to say, I've never bought, I've never liked the molestation thing. The killer is like, it's just, it's like putting a hat on a hat. It's so. Yeah. He kills them. Oh, come on. Yeah. And then just be a murderer.

Well, you know what? He insults their mothers. Yeah. That makes you the best person in Hollywood, Elijah. He just wants the killer. That's all he wants. The molestation. He doesn't need to make the lick.

Well, I think that people on the internet were so abuzz with the idea of you guys handling such a massive undertaking as remaking Nightmare on Elm Street because of all your success when it comes to SpectraVision's production or producing of Mandy. You guys do such a good job, I think, of selecting cool, unique titles to work with. Like, how did you guys get to Mandy? Yeah. Like, how did Mandy show up? It was mind blowing. It's my favorite movie still of the year. It was great.

I have a Shane Morton that created the Cheddar Goblin. He does my show for Adult Swim. He's the production designer for Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell. And so he pulled me a Cheddar Goblin that I have in my home. Yeah, he sees me naked. Holy shit. That's incredible. We had seen Panos' first film Beyond the Black Rainbow, which not a lot of people saw when it came out.

And we were just knocked out by it. I remember calling Panos' manager and saying, at the risk of hyperbole, I think this guy is one of the most important filmmakers alive. And we were able to track Panos down when he was in Los Angeles. We had lunch with him at Cantors on Fairfax. And we literally said to him, we don't even care what it is. We want to produce your next film. We're in. Like, it's not about what project it is. It's about you.

And he pitched us Mandy that day. Wow. I'm working on. And I don't believe it had been completely written at that stage. And then he sent us this number of months later. For those that haven't seen Beyond the Black Rainbow, it is a beautiful movie. It's just shot so gorgeous. But it didn't have the same story as Mandy had, right?

Like, Mandy is such an intense love story, revenge story, sci-fi story, horror story. What makes it sing is the emotional connection to the very bottom of it. And also, Nick Cage fucking swinging for the fences. Like, he comes out and he really does it like he tears, he tears it down. The scene of him in the bathroom in his underwear is brutal. And I think that I don't think he knew that the cameras were running. Yeah. Hannah's talks about the two films as sort of two sides of the same coin.

Both of them are dealing with the death of his parents. The first movie Beyond the Black Rainbow, he describes as an inhale. So it's cold. It's not emotional. And Mandy is an exhale. It is pure heart, pure emotion. Interesting. And you can really feel that.

Like, they really do deal with similar things. But Mandy is like an explosion of heart and of emotion, you know? Yeah. You've now had an opportunity to work with Nick Cage quite a bit now, right? Because also, like, because you've now, you've done, you've been several movies with him. I love his process and what he has brought to this movie. When he's like ready to do it. Yeah.

It is just fucking an unstoppable force. Well, and I know that initially Panos had had him for the villain role, correct? Yeah. And then Nick is like, I want to be the hero. Do you guys have any insight into what it was, what convinced Panos that, indeed, Nick Cage needs to be the hero? Because it sort of started a whole kind of different side to Nick Cage that we hadn't seen. In a while at least. In a long time.

So do you know, like, what was it that he showed where you're like, that's the perfect role then, dude? And I know you're going to nail it. Was there anything in particular? Well, as Panos tells it, you know, Nick, you know, Elijah had done the trust with Nick and Nick, who's just like a big hearted child in the body of an adult man. You know, excitable and curious and passionate. And he was really interested in what we were doing. And he, you know, remember, even when we met him on set, when you guys were shooting, he was so, he loved the specter vision. He loved the vibration off that name.

And so he started asking Elijah, you know, saying to Elijah, like, you know, you guys seem like you were pretty hip on like new filmmakers. And, you know, what should I look at? Elijah gave him Beyond the Black Rainbow. He loved it. And then we offered him the role of Jeremiah Sand, the villain. Right. And he came up in Vancouver to meet Panos with us all thinking he was ready to say yes. And he surprised Panos and said, I want to play the hero.

Panos said no. Oh, we were all heartbroken. Like, oh, shit. Yeah. It was actually, there was a cool little bit of nuance to that, too, which I really love is that it wasn't simply that he wanted to play the hero. It was that he felt he actually articulated that he didn't feel like he had the emotional. That's right. Not the emotional intelligence, there was a way he put it, but that he said his life experience wouldn't allow him to play sand in the way that he thinks somebody else could, which I thought was such a generous thing.

It's like, it's not saying, I don't want to play the villain, I want to play the hero. It's actually far more nuanced than that. That's true. Yeah. I'm capable of doing this. I think you should find somebody else. Right. I am capable of playing this other guy.

And I just thought that was such a cool thing. Anyway, just to finish it, to answer your question, a few weeks later, Panos had a dream in which Nick was red. And it just dropped for him how it could work. And I remember he texted us and said, did we make a huge mistake? And we all said, yes. Yeah. And then Elijah emailed Nick and said, hey, you know, we think we can make this work. Are you still down?

No, should you remember that amazing email he wrote back, like, let's drink some wine out of skull skulls or what was the. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fuck, I'd have to dig it up, but it was. Dig it up. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Let's crush skulls and drink to the eternal fire. I don't know. Right. Right. Right. And of course, the actor that played Jeremiah was Linus Roach. That's right.

He just beasted it and I got to say this off the record. What a dong. Very large penis. What a dong. When you're casting someone, not that I'm 13 years old here, but I'm just asking a question. I'm like, you know, I'm like, did you look at him nude? Because if he had a small penis, this is true because he did such a great job. But like, if he had a small donger, is that a no?

Is that a no for me? Well, no, actually. In the script. You should bring that up. Yeah, it was written that that Jeremiah does have a small penis. Oh, interesting. Wow. And then so he played against tight.

So do you do that? Do you add? Are you like, okay, Linus, this is the part of the audition. You're giving it a big speech. You happen to be tripping on acid and your dong is out. Let's see it, baby. Or was it a surprise on set? This isn't fucking Hooters.

I don't know how it works in these auditions. You know, to Linus's credit, he's such a beautiful human being. He initially declined. He did not want to do the full frontal nudity. And Panos said, okay, we'll shoot around it. And on the day he, he describes having this realization that women are so frequently forced to do this, to keep their jobs, that he would be, it would be kind of an injustice for him to say no to this.

And that really, in so many cases for women, it's exploitative. In this case, the request for him to do nudity was a very important story point. Yeah. And he says, you know, who was I to say no? Just because I had the luxury of saying no doesn't mean that I should take, I should exercise that. And so he did it. I mean, really, a really, a really funny thing to say, but a really kind of

beautiful gesture on his part to allow that, to allow himself to be filmed that way. Yeah. Well, once you revealed the goods, was there an audible gasp? No, we don't have to, they're not. Honestly, it was a nice penis, but it's not like it was a weirdly shaped, crazy circus penis. I just thought it was very nice. But it's also like during Jadarowski's Holy Mountain, when they were like George

Harrison was supposed to be the lead of Holy Mountain. And they have that scene in that movie where he washes his butthole for like 45 seconds. Like he washes, he sponges his butt. And literally George Harrison's like, can we just cut the butthole washing scene and I'll do it. And Jadarowski's like, no, this is too important in my film. And that George Harrison did have to pass. He was like, oh, I cannot do this.

That's amazing. Yeah. Well, what's coming? So now you have Daniels and Real, right? What are the next rollout of the next couple of films? And how will that feature into visitation? So are you guys going to end up like, is there a way you can pair these two? Because I know Shudder must be like super happy for something like that because you

guys are such a new vibrant name and horror. And Shudder has been crushing it as well with their acquisitions. Yeah, they're rad, man. Is there like a dovetailing here? Well, we kind of did it already. We actually, just by coincidence, have two films coming out right in a row. So we've got Daniels and Real is our sort of our horror imaginary friend movie that's coming out in December.

And then a couple of months later, we don't have a date yet, but our film Color Out of Space is coming out. I'm so excited. That's awesome. It's something else, man. It's a real special movie. And that was our second film of Nick Cage and Richard Stanley directed that. And we interviewed Richard on set for visitations.

And that episode is already available. So, yeah, I mean, look, we're not specifically trying to promote our movies. But, you know, we often, I mean, three of our filmmakers are on season one of visitations. And I'm sure we'll continue to do that because we, you know, we work with people we find interesting and it was as much about, you know, we obviously want to talk to people that we weren't as familiar with, but we also are lucky enough to know some people that we really admire. And so it was it was also just sort of minding those personal relationships to get a little

deeper and to sort of showcase, you know, a deeper sort of perspective on who these people are. Yeah. I mean, the bit, you know, obviously our season one finale is a two parter with Guillermo Del Toro. And, you know, we're unlikely ever to get to produce a film for him. But, you know, it was, it took many months. It took many, many months to lock him down, but we were finally able to do it.

And, you know, that I think that episode is just a knockout. He gets so intimate with just kind of talking about his life and how the ways in which his personal experiences have crept into his work and and sort of his is the legacy that he wants to leave behind. It's an incredibly powerful conversation that I think we were ourselves were very enriched by. We're so honored to have had that opportunity with him. He was so generous with his time as well.

I would love for you to expand on that, but I would just like for people to listen. So go to listen to visitations. We are currently speaking with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah. Check out the podcast visitations. It has Henry and my full endorsement. I can't friggin wait to hear the show. This is great. I have a question about what's going on now with filmmaking.

Obviously, Mandy was crowdfunded, correct? Wasn't there a large like internet movement to get Mandy made once they found out that Panos was making another movie? Or if not, like just talk about how technology is played into getting the movies out to people that they want to see. Because I feel like for the longest time, the Hollywood machine would ruin the genre. They ruin so many great horror films. They just don't care.

They water it down. Do you feel like we're in sort of another golden era for horror because the fans have more of a say in what they actually want to see and people seem to be listening? I think it's a combination of things. Daniel, you can speak to this too. But I think we started our company at a juncture in which it preceded this golden age that we're currently in. And we started our company largely as an answer to what we felt was a missing component, which

was that there was no single place that quality interesting forward thinking genre was being made in the US. There were a lot of great genre films being made in other countries and a few examples of standalone movies that were being made in the US, but not like a movement happening. So that's why we started our company. And then over the last decade, we've been lucky enough to go to Sundance multiple times and we've seen this shift of the tide where suddenly movies that would have been only playing in the midnight section of Sundance were bleeding into the regular competition that were clearly

genre movies. Where genre was being accepted and embraced by a much larger community as a legitimate art form. And I think there's probably a lot of reasons for this. I put a certain amount of that responsibility on film festivals like Fantastic Fest, which I think has a lot to do with building the community and sort of strengthening that larger voice around those films. And then certain movies popping out and legitimizing the genre, things like The Witch.

And I would put another film that you produced, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, which is, you've seen, this is just beautiful, stunning, stunning piece of art. Well, I honestly, horror for me is really, it's saving indie film. I think because no one goes to see indie comedies as much as we like them. People will go though to see what are now becoming almost like destination horror indie films because you guys are just making pure movies that people actually want to see. You're making movies for yourself that you want to see that line with what all of us want to see because you're true fans and we're true fans.

I don't know why it seems to only exist in horror. We just kind of have to hold the line so that it doesn't, because once it starts making too much money and then we're all fucked and then all of a sudden, Mandy's arrived at Universal and then we can't do anything. You know what I mean? There's a Mandy Five. Yeah. There's a kind of cool thing though.

There's like the bigger budgets, like what would have previously been studio movies and to a certain degree they are, are handled by Blumhouse. And so there's like a whole track of the bigger, budgeted horror movies that are very well handled by them. Oh, they're doing great. They're doing great. Fantastic and the other studios aren't bothering with horror and then it's all independent studios, either independently financed or A24. God bless them.

Please stay making genre films A24. Absolutely. I love A24. Do you feel like this is the only time, something like SpectraVision, this is the best time for you all to shine? Is this something that you had wanted to do for a long time, start a production company and you're like because of technology, because of the sort of realignment of the power structure that's going on in Hollywood right now, like this is the time to strike?

And do you feel like you could have been able to do this five, 10 years ago? Or is it just, is it just right now? Is this the perfect time? It wasn't strategic on our part at all. It was purely motivated by us becoming friends, realizing that we had a shared mutual love of genre and horror, particularly the kinds of movies that weren't being made regularly at the time. And it just so happened to coincide with this beautiful renaissance and embracement of the

genre in general. It was not at all strategic. It was not like, now let's strike while the iron's hot. It's like let's make this, and if the iron wasn't hot, we'd still be making those movies. It wasn't at all a strategic move on our part. It was purely like we love this and these are the films we want to make and the filmmakers that we want to support. Awesome.

There's an interview with Robert Altman that I refer to a lot when we get asked this question, in which someone asked him toward the end of his career how he could account for the ways in which he had sort of zigzagged through the zeitgeist, with sometimes his films being huge hits and sometimes them sort of, you know, not even getting a real release. And his answer was, it's not me that's zigzagging, it's the zeitgeist. I've always moved in a straight line, and sometimes my interests have aligned with culture and sometimes they haven't. And I think, you know, many of the greatest artists, I think, behave that way.

Horrors is a genre that, you know, like Michael Myers, never dies. It always comes back from the dead and tends to reflect times of anxiety, you know, global and national anxiety. I mean, you know, they've done studies where they see that the horror boons tend to coincide with or follow times of war. Now, we're sort of, hopefully, you know, we're kind of in a post-war society now. I mean, you know, it's either no war or everybody's dead, right? But we're, I think, you know, this is a very stressful time in the world.

And you know, regardless of your political beliefs, we're all on edge. There is a feeling of great instability and, you know, whichever narrative you choose to believe, you're part of that narrative is that the other side's lying to you. You can't trust institutions, whether it be the media or government and all that anxiety coalesces around what genre? Horror. Well, horror and superheroes. You know, which is kind of, yeah, I mean, the superhero is the other side of the coin

is the wish fulfillment aspect of there are people who are rock solid. There are people who will keep me safe. There are people out there who, you know, who have rock solid values who cannot be corrupted. That's the sort of sunny side of the street, the dark side of the street is there aren't any of those people where we're all, you know, we're terrified and, you know, what genres speak to those two realities, superhero movies and horror films. And the menacing force can't be stopped. There's nothing you can do.

Yeah, then you can do. And then there's the anti-superior movement and the anti-horror movement. It's going to be, God, it's fun. It's the internet. Yeah, it's fun. What are you guys watching right now? What's horror that you guys are in the middle of? Is there anything in your watch that you would give a shout out to?

Anything you like? God, I haven't seen a new horror movie in a minute. You saw the light, you'd like the light out, not that horror, right? The light house, the horror movie, oh my God, the lighthouse is stunning. Have you fucking wait? It is so beautiful and it's the kind of movie, we're living in a really interesting age in which certain people are being given keys to a kingdom without really anyone watching what they're doing seeming.

And that's really exciting and it feels like it's tenuous and then it could disappear at any moment. So I'm so relieved that we're living in this era where a movie like the lighthouse can even get made. I mean, it's shot in an aspect ratio that is really weird for a lot of people. I know people have seen it and they're like, why was it shot like that? It's like almost too much control and the artist is allowed to do whatever the fucking want, which is very exciting.

But thankfully, and I'm so grateful that Robert Eggers was given the opportunity to make that movie. It is really stunning. The performances from Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe are incredible. It's just a stunning piece of work. It's disturbing. It's definitely not a horror movie. It's a genre movie for sure.

Because it's just about two guys losing their minds. But yeah, that's that's my favorite recently. And of course, speaking of superheroes, Robert Pattinson is going to be Batman. And I'm all for it. I can't wait for him to be Batman. I'm all for it. I'm all for it. And it's Matt.

It's Matt Reeves is directing that, right? Yes. Fuck yeah, man. It's going to be great. Yeah. And apparently the rumor is that there's a potentiality that they're adapting the long Halloween. Yeah, dude.

No, I mean, it's awesome. Come on, man. Like, I'm very excited. Because he's also intimated that he wants to make a detective movie because to take Batman back to his detective routes and Halloween is it's ultimately tracking down a serial killer. It is so rad. That is honestly as Daniel as you were talking about that is a perfect marriage of the superhero

and horror genre. As long as he can beat up at least like 10 guys, I need some action once I get the action there because then he can put the magnifying glass out and be a detective Batman. I also want to make sure he knows enough Jiu Jitsu and he kicks enough guys in the sternum as well. And I don't know that I'll ever get over the fact that the Dark Knight never got properly never never had a direct adaptation. It's there's like little bits and pieces of it and ended up in I'm talking about Frank

Miller. Yeah. Never have never ended. It was the Dark Knight Returns. Yeah. Yeah. Daniel Day Lewis as old Batman is old Batman. I wanted him so bad that he's got to say that to someone with some of his people.

I don't know if I'm inventing this memory but but I remember there was some conversation about Dark Knight Returns getting adapted where where they were trying to get Clint Eastwood and he had said I have no interest in being in a superhero movie and I'm not a ballerina. I know. Yeah. Thank you. I just want to give a shout out to it's not a movie but a video game that I'm playing right now in the horror space called Control which is probably my favorite kind of horror

sci-fi thing that I've come across and in fact it's eating up so much of my time that I haven't seen any new horror films. Dude that is awesome. Control is almost like they figured out how to turn a David Lynch movie into a into a an RPG. Awesome. It's yeah it's it's incredible. I will be downloading that tonight.

Well thank you all so much for being on the show. We really appreciate it. This has been such an honor. Yeah guys. We just we've been a fan of your work for so long and you know it's just you're you're just sort of you're you're part of the fabric of our community and we're so happy to all be together in this in this weird little world of the macabre. What you guys are doing for genre is fucking hell is really helping.

Oh thank you. Thank you guys. Hey I have a question for you if you'll indulge me. Of course. Yeah. I have a question for you. One is are you guys are you believers in the paranormal. This is something I can never put my finger on in your conversations.

I like I believe that there is no such thing as absolute truth. I think that the universe the fact that reality is created by the three pounds of jelly in our skulls shows that reality is very changeable and very thin and it is unpredictable and unmeasurable. It's something that we are because we're kind of in a consensus reality. I think a lot of times that paranormal stuff can be described as either science we haven't discovered yet or just the fact that we live in a tenuous multi-dimensional world where shit slides in and out.

But that's how that's how I believe in it. But then I believe that there there I think you know I believe in psychic abilities. I believe in like telekinesis but again I think that's future science and I think that ghosts are essentially just like giant energy farts I mean you know I don't know I do want to believe and I do feel like people are experiencing a lot of different paranormal activity and you know when it comes to UFOs or or ghosts whatever it may be it's real to the extent that people alter their lives entirely based upon their perception of what they've seen. So it's like it's real in the sense that if you're a ufologist you swear to God you saw

an alien and next thing you know you're making that film what was the guy who just took the dump by the tree when the when the the documentary the man the man the curse of the man who sees you a foes the curse of the man who sees you a foes yeah he saw a couple UFOs and he shat his pants and he tried to show this documentary crew where he shat his pants and you see it's right here and he like pulled his pants down and be like I shat right here right so so to the extent that that man's life is forever altered that is a very real thing so yeah I think they're very powerful forces at play certainly certainly powerful enough to alter someone's entire life trajectory got it all right my second quite my final question is

Henry would you do your skeleton impression before we sign off? I'm having a good time this is my this is my skeleton voice this is what I do this is my profession oh my goodness check out visitations with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah you will not be disappointed thank you all so much for being on the show we really it's been an honor for us to you guys hell yeah thank you so much guys all right there it was Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah they're very talented they're very talented and they're incredibly kind and man you know what dude I still like when we started the conversation we were like we're such big fans I don't even know if this was recorded or not and Daniel was like I'm a

huge fan of last podcast it still surprises me it is nice that like they listen how did they know like I still like no one listens to us right like no I don't know how they know I know it is I they're mostly just talking with them it's really cool to see and I think our listeners are similar to us where it's like if you've seen a girl walks home alone at night or you've seen Mandy like these are the people that are making this and and the way movies kind of work if you're not part of show business like these production companies the fact that honestly like Elijah Wood is using his influence to make horror good and good horror like we have to support the fuck out of these movies because if we don't that's

how we lose this and they want it not to succeed they don't want it to succeed because they're not making huge money Mandy's not making huge money girl walks home alone at night's not making huge money they're making they're making waves socially they're people are talking about the movies which is I think beautiful for art but you don't understand like you know all if you know it wants it the next day they want the money back the next day and I love Blumhouse movies but they definitely also kind of it's it is the horror factory now right absolutely so they put out these high profile tentpole summer horror films every year and it's a lot of sequels which I also don't mind because we love every fucking

cheesy sequel I want more horror more horror always I love it but no that they make money they go and print money they go and they they they put ship out these movies and they get that money back immediately these are things these are films that only traffic because we like them absolutely so keep on supporting great cinema and you know just horror films that that need our support and always will because again this genre as popular as it is now it will be under attack once again that's just the way it works it's us it's our way of life it's our way of life that's how I feel about horror especially and it's we I think the way they said that too about how horror is kind of like a family in the

genre is kind of a family and it it weird how you kind of can feel close to horror filmmakers even though you have nothing to do with the success of their films I didn't they're doing it but you said they're being like man we're we're kind of all are on the same team and I didn't fully appreciate that absolutely and of course the listeners of this show we're all on the same team as well without you we don't exist and we don't take that for granted so let's never take our favorite genre for granted either we have to fight for it we must fight thank you all so much for listening we really appreciate it and we will see you all in Washington DC this Saturday Friday this Friday Friday this Friday yes we got

this we know what we're doing yes we're gonna be in Washington DC on Friday so come on out to the death becomes us festival yep and it's gonna be a great time yep we got we're gonna be open for by a Gentis down yes and did the show very excited to perform with her excited to do the show excited to be in the nation's capitol oh it's always wonderful it'll just be like an hour long we're gonna sit there chit chat and have a nice little time so thank you all so much for listening hail yourselves hail Satan my goosalations hail me oh yeah oh yeah buddy oh yeah this show is made possible by listeners like you thanks to our ad sponsors you can support our shows by supporting them for more shows

like the one you just listened to go to last podcast network dot com