The Horror Returns - THR: Bonus Episode - Jo Shaffer, Adam DeSantes & Spencer Peppet Interview (Hell Is Empty 2021)

Episode Date: March 18, 2022

We interview director Jo Shaffer, writer Adam DeSantes, and Actress Spencer Peppet, to discuss their new religious cult horror, Hell is Empty, as well as their band The Ophelias. Thanks For listening! www.thehorrorreturns.com Patreon https://www.patreon.com/thehorrorreturns Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thehorrorreturns/ Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/1056143707851246/ Twitter https://twitter.com/horror_returns?s=21 Instagram https://instagram.com/thehorrorreturns?utm_medium=copy_link SK8ER Nez Podcast Network https://www.podbean.com/pu/pbblog-p3n57-c416/ E Society https://anchor.fm/esoc E Society YouTube Channel https://youtube.com/channel/UCliC6x_a7p3kTV_0LC4S10A

James victims, for those of you who delight and dread, who fantasize about fear, who glorify gore, welcome, you have found the place where the horror returns. Listeners beware, this podcast contains major plot spoilers. and the foulest of language. Join us in celebrating the old and the new, the best, and the worst in horror. Believe or not, we have done these and forgotten hit the record, but it didn't go very well. So, uh,

I've been once or twice on set. Oh, man. Yeah, I can imagine that. All right. Um, so Christy, thank you for setting. this up. Definitely appreciate it and you sending us the screener. That was cool. Of course. Yeah. Thank you so much. Everyone for doing this. We really appreciate it. All right. Well, we'll just, I'm going to do a quick three, two, one countdown and we'll dive in. Oh, no. Hopefully you guys won't hear a dog barking in the background. But it happens from time to time.

Sorry about that. No worries. Okay. Yeah, we're very much one of those indie podcasts, just so y'all so we're real laid back every week. We're up to episode 303 this week, so we've been around a while. So, yeah, we just do it for fun. Yeah. All right, you ready? It's a good reason to do it. Yeah.

Yeah, only reason. Yeah, true. All right, three, two, one. All right, welcome in everybody to The Horror Returns, and we do have a bonus episode. something we haven't done for you guys in a while. COVID has obviously created its own unique set of problems for everyone, particularly in the industry. So we haven't brought you guys as many interviews lately as we would have liked to. But I'm going to read for everyone that's listening a brief.

This is, I guess, the little IMDB blurb for a movie. You guys can tell, I think, when I say what this movie is about, why I wanted to this interview. You guys know this is mine and Phillips' favorite subgenre of horror. So here we go. Movie is called Hell is empty. I believe it's available March 1st. Is that right guys? Yeah. Okay, cool. Cool. So here it is. A self-style messiah initiates a teenage runaway into his cult of sister wives.

Her rebellious nature upends the community, triggering a bloody uprising against the patriarch. So, yeah, this was kind of... And then I like the picture IMDB puts on there the screenshot. It kind of looks like the Last Supper. Really cool. So, we do have three people with us that are involved in the film.

Director Joe Schaefer. How's it going, Joe? Good. How are you doing? Doing great. Thanks for joining. And so I guess you co-wrote this also with Adam DeSantis. Adam, is that right? Yes, yep All right

And I also have Okay, cool Yeah, and I think This is indie filmmaking So we know how that goes So there's probably a lot of people We're in multiple hats Yeah, and also

I think it's one person Oh, what's that? Oh, Spencer also helped With she has a story credit But the initial seat of the movie actually came from a song she wrote. Oh, cool. All right. So I was just about to announce actor Spencer Peppett, but Spencer, obviously, you're, you did a lot more than just acting then.

Oh, I jumped the gun. Sorry. I ruined you. No, it's all good. No, that's perfect. That's the best way it could go. Yeah. Hi, I'm Spencer.

I played Lydia. I have a story credit, and I composed the score. Nice. Okay, cool. All right, well, we'll jump right in. We've got 10 questions, and then afterwards. Don't let me forget. We definitely want to cover where our listeners can purchase or rent the movie, because that's how you guys keep going.

And then whatever you're comfortable with sharing about social media, we'll get into that at the end, too. So, all right, question number one. See, I think thought this was mostly going to be for Joe and Adam, but, you know, sounds like it. All these questions are going to be for the group. So here we go. So you guys definitely hit, as I mentioned,

on one of our favorite subgenres, the religious cult. Where did the inspiration come from? And was there any conscious allegory to anything that is going on today? Yeah, I think the something that I was really struck by when we were researching cults is how fluid the definition. is and people I mean there are obviously you know kind of there's there's a general like framework of what a cult is but you see that kind of like mode of thought and mode of leadership um in a lot of different things um you know and like I mean like tech companies is a fun example not to get too

political but uh you know so like I was personally um just intrigued by that style of manipulation. Yes. And so I think that I was really interested in the small cult because it felt like just such a self-contained and reduced power dynamic where you could really just, almost like a playground to just mess around with different sort of different, different, I don't know. Does that make sense? Yeah, it's like a bottle episode except it's Thailand. Totally, totally. Self-destructing bottle episode.

Yeah. All right. Anything to add, Adam or Spencer? I guess I would just say that for me, the really interesting question at the heart of the story for me is, why do people follow leaders like Ed? You know, because from the outside, he seems kind of, you know, pathetic, obviously fake. But clearly, there's a draw. You know, he draws in many people and, you know, what are the conditions that lead people to be susceptible to that?

I think is one thing I enjoyed getting to explore in this story. Gotcha. Yeah, the occult of personality. We've seen it a lot lately. I can give you the story of the song if you'd like Oh, I'd love to hear the story of the song So it was oh my god Summer before I guess junior year of college

And I had moved into a new apartment I was by myself normally I record with the band And I was making this like totally Lo-fi Solo project kind of EP that Joe and I ended up doing a bunch of videos for Which was really fun But I wrote this song

and it had the line Cut your braids with kitchen knives kill the rest of your sister wives And I sent it to Joe And they were like Can I make that a movie? And I said, wait What?

And that's kind of how the Genesis of Hell's Empty started was with that song And you can actually hear it in the end credits Of the movie Oh yeah, yeah, yeah It's in there after one of the other songs, I think it's like the final credit song.

Yeah, totally. So that was just really cool and exciting to see that, you know, transform into a full feature-length film. And it was also fun. I mean, Joe was writing this all through junior year of college, right? And living in the tiniest apartment, literally so small it didn't have a full-size fridge. With a gigantic heuronymous Bosch poster above me in like near darkness. Just typing away.

And so I would kind of come back from classes and they'd be, you know, typing away and I'd be like, have you moved? And they would say, no, but I have a new draft of the script. And so it was very fun to just get to see the whole process and give input and build these characters as they, you know, as Joe and Adam both, like, crafted this script. Yeah, totally. Nice. All right. So definitely sounds like a team. effort this is like this is almost unique we've done several interviews haven't done any like I said

in about a year but that's a lot of interaction so that's really cool yeah all right next question I definitely got a distinct folk horror vibe from the film so you know other than it just being a straight ahead cult maybe was folk horror at all big for any of you guys growing up yeah definitely I'm, I'm, um, since, since you're the expert, I'm nervous to, to present myself as knowing more about it than I do. Uh, but yeah, absolutely. Um, love the wicker man. Uh, always found just that, um, something about a bunch of sticks tied together is just terrifying. Yeah.

Um, I think, uh, I don't know if this, this is almost like proto folk horror, but, um, Night of the Hunter was a big inspiration. Just the sense of something evil kind of in a pastoral landscape. I love that contrast. And I think also one other, this isn't a movie, but Flannery O'Connor, that kind of like really grim but still funny Southern Gothic style is something I really took influence from. What about you guys? Yeah, I mean, I'll be honest I was a little bit of a wuss growing up

when it came to, when it came to horror films in general. Same, yes, same. I may have been a latecomer to the genre at large, but I think one of the, some of the first few movies that I, first few horror movies that I really enjoyed were like the witch. Okay.

I mean, I second what Joe said about The Night of the Hunter because that was hugely influential for this movie. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny. I remember off what you were saying, Adam, about being too scared of horror movies for a long time. I remember a distinct moment where we decided that we needed to toughen up what we were writing.

We went to a haunted house together. Oh, nice. And it was horrible. I'm never going back. Oh, come on. It in 4D, which I did not know I was seeing it in 4D. But that was a good, that was like my baptism into sort of contemporary horror, I would say. Did it scare you?

All right. You even talked about that. Yeah. Yes, but it was just cheap jump cuts or jump skirts. So, yeah. Yeah. The old it terrified for this day, though. Yeah.

All right. We've got a couple of questions for Spencer. So where did you get inspiration for your character? Were you looking back to any classic performances? Or was there anything to draw on from your personal experiences? Yeah. I mean, we talked a lot about Joan of Arc, actually, and used her as like a touch.

Stone for the character of Lydia. And I also, I don't know, I was really interested kind of going back to what Joe and Adam were saying about like why someone would choose to stay in a situation like that. And for me, it really came down to like thinking about the material conditions that Lydia was facing. Like, if you are at the point where you have literally nothing, like nowhere to go, no way to sustain yourself and no one who you think cares about you and suddenly someone's offering you a meal and a dress, like, you're probably going to take it. And so I don't know, I think that was a big

piece of it. And we also, I didn't chime in on the last question because my parents lied to me as a child and told us that the TV didn't work. I didn't watch TV or movies until I was 18. Wow. Yeah. Like, regular, you know. That sounds a little bit like cult programming in and of itself. I saw high school musical. I was kind of.

But, you know, I didn't really get into it until college. And so a lot of my, you know, film knowledge has been very recent. And honestly, it's been really, like, exciting and fun to build that, like, from the basis. I mean, we would go to the library once a week and I would take home a stack of books, read all of them, return them, get a new stack, return them. So, you know, that was pop culture and now I'm just building on it. So lots of literary stuff. I agree on the Flannery O'Connor side. I think, yeah, Jonah Bark. And then all of those kind of, like, I don't know, there's something so cool about like a pop horror movie. Yeah. Like, I would consider, you know,

The Witch and it follows and Jennifer's body and cabin in the woods. Those are all just so good and they definitely helped like build the foundation for Letia, I would say. Also something I remembered recently was that the character was kind of based off the short that we. Oh yeah. Which never ended up coming out but. I forgot about that. Yeah, we did a sort of like almost devised thing about a teenage runaway. I remember she had a gold coat, which we...

I spray painted. Yes, yeah, which I think we... I don't know if it made it in the movie. There was a gold jacket. Gold jacket. Yeah. Yeah. Rosemary was that character. Yeah.

She lied about her name, though, so it could have been Lydia. Could have been anything. All right. Well, that kind of gets into the rest of what I was going to ask you, Spencer. I mean, do you have any other things in film, television, stage? And you do have a musical background. So like what else drew you to this? Yeah. So I am a musician as well. I am the front woman of the band The Ophelias. Joe actually plays bass. And so I kind of, I went to college for experimental theater. So a lot of like devised work, a lot of team exercises and projects and things like that. But I met Joe. a freshman and we made another movie actually Adam and Joe and myself and also our cinematographer

our DP Alex Halstead was also on the team for that first movie which was called Calliope and micro-micro-budget feature like the most micro-budget filming in a basement in Wisconsin and that's kind of how I met you and Adam and the whole the whole team and then we started dating after that movie. And so most of my film experience has been through this kind of team of people, which has been really cool because it's, as you were saying, a very communal effort into something, which from my experimental theater background, I deeply enjoy. But music is definitely something that we're actually about to go on tour next week. Joe and I make all the music videos. We've done stuff for other people. And I would love to.

to keep doing movies. We've been in a writers group for the last two years since the pandemic started and we're cooking some stuff. Yeah, we've got some stuff cooking. Yeah. Nice. Yeah, be sure to send us some when we're done, send us some links to the

band stuff so we can post that as well. Absolutely. All right, so this is for everybody. What was the experience like filming this movie with an ensemble cast? And considering the subject matter, was there ever any point where things got, you know, like too real or real dramatic for anyone.

Like any onset stories, we want the dirt. Oh, man. Well, I mean, I think for starters, just getting the location ready was such an intense thing. It had been abandoned for, I think, 10, 15 years. At least a decade, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So it was, it was, you know, like there was.

when Adam and I first set foot in there, there were like syringes and you couldn't walk most of the place. The place was in bad shape. Truly. Like you had to cover your mouth. So that was like a good like six months of just like driving to Indiana to like chip away at everything. Last fighters too. A film set.

Yeah. Just to make it. turn it into a place where people, like, where it's not an OSHA violation to, like, bring people to. So that was, I would say, the first thing. The first challenge of, yes. I can talk about the ensemble a little bit. A bunch of members from the ensemble actually also went to the same program as I did, and we were classmates. Okay.

So, Nia Farrell, who played Saratoga, was in my program, and so was I. who played Murphy. And so getting to work with people who I had been working with for a bunch of years previously, definitely added to the family vibe of the sister-wife cult. Makes a difference. Yeah, totally. And I'll say the only thing, when things got a little too real, anytime there was like water or dirt,

which there's a lot of there was a baptism scene where I was like okay we've done too many takes of this I cannot do anymore the baptism there's a lot of like running through the woods

and eventually it got to be like okay I'm gonna go get prepped I had a full playlist that I would listen to to like get into character and do all the exercises and all of that and it was a lot of like listening to Courtney Love and then like running through the forest and like getting covered in dirt and blood and oh the hair cutting what am I talking about? I was going to say please talk about the haircutting yeah please yeah I mean I was literally cutting my hair off and it was weirdly painful because it was just like a single razor blade hot glued to that piece of ceramic and you'd been tied up there for like three hours yeah because once you're tired

I couldn't really leave, right? So it was a small set, right? Close set. And so it was just us and like our AD and Alex and she had been bringing me like snacks since I couldn't move. And then finally it was time to cut all my hair off. Which you've been growing for like two years in preparation. So cut all the hair off.

It took so much longer than expected. Yeah, it was a long time. And Alex just shot the whole thing. So he shot everything. It took like 45 minutes, I think, of me sawing at my hair. And so when you see me crying, it's because it actually was painful. And I was getting very frustrated, but it wasn't coming off faster. But the relief at the end, I think they start, like, crying happy tears.

That is also real. Yes. Wow. Joe, you may be the next. man this may be like filming of the shining or something torture your actors

you may be the next Kubrick okay to be fair Spencer specifically requested that she get to cut her hair for real so I I but no I definitely did

I was thinking about what's the movie is it burden of dreams the documentary about Werner Herzog making Fitzcaroldo in the jungle. Oh, God. And I just had these nightmares that, like, oh, my God, like, we're doing this.

We're doing one of those. But I will say that, you know, like, as intense and hard scrabble as it was, I do think that we did, and this, I mean, is really due to Adam. Like, we avoided any, like, dangerous situations. Yeah, like, there was grueling stuff for sure. But I think it, you know, remarkably, like, I don't think, I think we did a good job of keeping people out of danger. Got a true danger. Gotcha.

You're in a place that could actually be very dangerous. Yes, totally, totally. Yeah, we had to reinforce the house a little bit. Oh, yeah. You don't want the house falling on you. Yeah, that was. A raccoon did walk in during a take, which was fun. Oh, okay.

Adds to the ambiance. Yes. We all just kind of looked at it and it looked at us and it was like, all right, you guys are busy. To be fair, we were in its home. Yeah. Yes. Definitely had probably lived in that house for the past 10 years. Yeah, yeah, they owned it.

All right. Well, you guys had talked a little bit about, You know, a lot of you guys knowing each other before you started. But other than that, what led to the casting of the film, for example, I guess I'm thinking of Travis Mitchell, the psycho leader. Anything that set him apart or made you decide to go with him over somebody else? Yeah, well, I think the sort of initial thing was he was going to be in a short I was working on. but it didn't work out, but it was based off Arbaud Dwyer. I don't know if you're familiar.

It's a pretty, like, horrific. We don't need to get into it, but it's like a scummy bulleted who came to a terrible end on live television. So I kind of seen him do that sort of, like, kind of narcissist and crisis thing and knew that he could do that well. And he's also just very like, you know, he's worked so much and for so long that he's, he can just really like take direction quickly. And I think such a big thing about casting this movie was finding people that could work together very fluidly and who could really kind of take on the game. character without, I may not babysitting because like obviously it's a collaboration, but you know, people who are really like could be autonomous and he, um, he just, yeah, he's just, he's a nice guy. He's nothing like it, but he locked into something. Yeah, that's usually the case,

right? Yeah. All right. Nice. So what's next for you guys? Like, do you plan to continue doing this type of film or maybe take a stab at something more lighthearted like maybe a rom-com or something like that next time well we've got a lot of we've got a lot of different scripts and a lot of different genres um i think i don't want to speak for everybody but the one i'm most excited about is another horror movie um more in the supernatural realm uh which i think would be really to explore because I was really, I think so much of this movie for me was about just trying to focus on sort of how, like, mundane human things create horror. But it made me kind of excited to try a full-on, you know, kind of like Gonzo style, supernatural horror movie. Yeah, I mean, actually, it's worth, it's worth saying.

I think in some earlier versions of the script, we kind of dabbled with supernatural elements a little bit. And we ended up going more in the people are the devil direction. But, yeah, I'm also, I think it'll be fun to do it just the kind of full-on ghost story. Yeah, totally. I think we learned a lot about just like how to pull off effects too. So I kind of feel like, you know, given the reins next time, fingers crossed, we could really kind of dial up the hallucinatory stuff in a fun way. Are you guys, so are you guys thinking about like a big cast again or maybe more of a smaller,

or more enclosed story. I loved getting to work with a big cast. Yeah, ensembles are fun. Yeah, the chaos is just exciting. If it helps, I'm working on a script right now about total isolation, so we can get a little bit of both. Yeah, true. Yeah, we sort of all have our things that we've been working on

and are kind of cross-pollinating and stuff. It's the collaboration. Thank you. Totally. Nice. All right. So when did you guys actually make this movie? When was filming?

Summer of 2018. Okay. So that makes my next question irrelevant. I was going to ask whether the COVID situation created any unique problems or anything like that. But it sounds like you guys wrapped well before that. Yes, thankfully. It did, you know, the film, thankfully,

most of post-production was also before COVID. I think we were still just finishing up like the VFX. And that all can kind of happen remotely anyways. So it was a big deal. But it definitely impacted what happens once a film is completed because

the whole film festival landscape which is hugely important to building an audience particularly for horror films. There are hundreds of small horror festivals with, you know, really enthusiastic fans.

And it's, I think we were both really excited to be able to connect with people watching film through those festivals. Yeah, you know, you're just, it's, it's, it was. Go ahead. Oh, no, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. No, I'm just... We do that on the show all the time.

Just, yeah, you know, you work on something for so long, and I would just second what Adam was saying. We were so excited to get to, like, see people reacting to it in a group environment and to see, you know, did the line that we were hoping would get a laugh or, like, a nervous chuckle, get that. And, you know, we got, I think we got one, to all be at one. an in-person screening, which is really gratifying. There were a couple. There was, we only, oh yeah, we only got to attend. The premiere was thankfully in person in Brooklyn. And that was fun.

That was fun. I think that was the only time we've gotten to see the film in a really large group. Yeah, totally. Oh, one other thing timeline was, this is just pure pettiness, but I do feel they need to get it off the chest. You're going to say that. We wrote and shot this movie before Midsummer came out. Oh, my God.

Oh, okay. All right. I love Midsummer. I just want to make it clear that we're not. A favorite movie of 2019. Yeah, we were not trying to rip Midsummer off because I, maybe no one cares, but I care. And here I am. Yeah, that was when we did our top and bottom 10 of the year, that was my favorite.

favorite goma that year. It's so good. Did you ever see the director? Oh, my gosh. The director's good. Oh, yeah. I went to the theater to see the director. It's so good.

We saw, Spencer and I saw it together, and we were like on the fence about. It's like, it's cool, but I don't know if I love it. And then we saw the director's cut and we were like, this is amazing. Yeah, yeah.

Because it's, I still haven't seen the director's cut. Oh, yeah, dude. You got to see it. It's so good. I have to. Yeah. All right.

Well, we've got, I got one final question here for everyone. And this is just kind of like our hallmark question. We ask it of everybody, we interview. So if you've got an answer, great. If not, no, that's cool too. But it's just simply this. Are there

any, you know, charities, organizations, causes, you know, things that mean a lot to you guys or that any of you happen to be particularly passionate about? And if so, how can our listeners get involved? Yeah.

Yeah. I, For me, it's totally, totally unrelated to anything, film or horror, but I'm very into climate change, climate justice. Just, you know, that's going to affect, already affecting people across the world and only going to get so much worse. So always want to throw more attention on that. and, you know, have people starting conversations about what the, what the coming decades are going to mean for us. But climate emergency fund is a great charity. So I'd like to shout them out.

Very nice. I'll say also just sending funds to, like, the Texas Equality Fund and the ACLU in Texas, as Abbott, you know, continues to, like, make completely, just, senseless and cruel anti-trans laws and legislation it's really important and just like also checking in on like your trans friends and like making sure that people

feel seen and heard and loved very important yeah I actually live in Texas and I was going to make it yeah when you mentioned when we were talking about the character name I was going to make an Aunt Lydia joke but I thought nah All right, anything else before we wrap up that you guys want to mention? Obviously, we want to know where to go buy the movie, so you can make more, right? So where all can we find, our listeners find this film?

Yes. Wait, I want to make sure I read it correctly. But it's on iTunes, Amazon, Let me Yeah Amazon iTunes Google Play Voodoo Microsoft Store available for

rental and purchase as well as cable and satellite across the country All right And the movie is called Hell is Empty and now where did that title come from?

It's So it comes from the tempest. Yeah. Which I kind of, I mean, I think I don't want to speak for everybody, but I think we were initially just taken by sort of the poetry of it. As the movie sort of progressed, and we sort of developed this idea of kind of

someone using this sort of fanciful, intense language as a way of making themselves seem more esteemed and more powerful. I sort of think it's funny because like i mean i i think we none of us are like shakespeare heads yeah i've studied it yeah i like the tempest uh but i i do think the band is called the opho yes oh yeah true yeah but you you were talking about like oh the cannon oh my god i think there's something i i think no one else does but i i think it's kind of uh funny to just like i don't know The language of being too big for your britches and highfaloon.

Intrigues me, and I like the Shakespeare preference in that regard. And also, the full quote from The Tempest is, hell is empty and all the devils are here. So I think particularly in a film where they're always, You know, Ed is always is casting blame at the devil and, you know, the devil is the foot everywhere.

That always, yeah, it felt poetically relevant. All right. Well, that makes a lot of sense. So, Joe, Adam Spencer, any of you guys want to throw out any social media links or anything that you want our listeners

to go check out? Yeah, you can follow the film at Hellas. film on Instagram. That's where we're most active. Yeah, and also The Ophelias. Yeah, at The Ophelias on Instagram and Twitter.

I'm at Spencer Puppet as well. I'm also on TikTok. I'm working on my TikTok presence. Oh, aren't we all? Literally. Yeah, and y'all are on Twitter. He was empty on Twitter as well.

We are. Yeah. I think so. Yes, absolutely. Of course. You can see me in the corner of Spencer's TikToks. All right. Well, yeah, Brian does all of ours.

I'll let him handle that. So it's hell is empty film. So just kind of search for that then. Yeah. Instagram and Twitter. Well, guys, thanks again for joining us. We always, again, love doing these interviews. Just don't do them as often as we like,

but things seem to be picking up. So thanks for joining us. Yeah, thank you so much. Thanks so much for having us.