The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Eli Roth

Episode Date: July 28, 2026

Filmmaker Eli Roth joins Andy Richter to discuss his passion for independent filmmaking, the new crop of Gen Z horror directors, his experience as an on-set assistant for Howard Stern, his ridiculous new pitch for a holiday horror movie, and his new movie, Ice Cream Man. Do you want to talk to Andy and his comedian friends live on SiriusXM’s Conan O’Brien Radio? Tell us your favorite dinner party story (about anything!) or ask a question - leave a voicemail at 855-266-2604 or fill out our Google Form at BIT.LY/CALLANDYRICHTER. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the three questions. I'm your host, Andy Richter, and today I am talking to Eli Roth. He's a director, writer, and actor. He's directed horror films you all know, like cabin fever, hostile, Thanksgiving, Death Wish, and more. He's also known for playing Donnie the Bear Judanowitz and Inglorious Bastards. His new film, Ice Cream Man, comes out August 7th. Here's my conversation with Eli Roth. Hi, Eli Roth. How are you? Andy Richter? I'm great. You would have been right before. me in class. They've been like, Richter, Mr. Richter. Yeah, Mr. Richter. Yeah, yeah. Mr. Roth,

are you here? So anyone that has like an R and a vowel, you always think about it. You always think of like, well, we would have been sort of associated. Yeah, if they seat you alphabetically.

Right. Or lockers. Lockers. Yeah, the lockers. Were the lockers alphabetical because they were in my school? I was on the inside of them being stuffed. So I couldn't,

I couldn't tell you. Didn't know how they were disbanded. Well, now my producer. my producer was just telling me before this that you went to high school. Like you're going to have a super famous, like a hotbed of famous people high school. Not when I was, I mean, now, but yes, it was weird. Well, I'm from Newton.

I think, you know, Conan was from Brookline right next door. So there was like, I took my SATs at Brookline High. Really, I knew everyone was wondering that. Listening to this, very question mystery solved that I've revealed myself. Was it just SAT or did you do ACT2? I wonder about that too. I bailed on the ACTs. I was like, I can't handle this.

But no, it was my high school. It was myself and then behind me was John Krasinski, B.J. Novak, and ahead of me was Joe Rogan. Wow. So we didn't know this at the time, but I was, and B.J. Novak often reminds me of this that I got famous first. Before anybody. Before them, because Rogan was doing stand-up and was obviously successful before he had his podcast. How much older is he then? you. He's like four or five years. I think like four grades older. Like when I was a freshman,

he had just graduated. So I was never at the high school at the same time as him. But the same bullies, when he talks about several people that wailed on you and terrorized you and terrorized you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay. It's like the same, the bullies that were, because they were still hanging around the parking lot. They weren't, you know. Well, it's also, it's, uh, it's Massachusetts. Yeah. And there's a lot of Irish and they love to bully. They love it. It's just like part of the culture. One of the things they have to do. Yeah. It is part of it. And, um, Your father was a bully, your grandfather was a bully, you'll be a bully too.

Well, there is a caveman culture, and I don't know how, like, language restrictive we are in this podcast. You can say whatever the fuck you want. There was a culture of like, dude, don't be a fucking pussy. Part of that extended to, it could be zero degrees out. And if you wore a jacket, then you were a fucking pussy. And that was an excuse to hit you. And by the way, pussy is probably the most polite word they would use. A lot of it was not.

Of course. You know, very derogatory terms. But so I got famous. before the office. So, you know, B.J. Novak's mom was always like, well, Eli, I got to be the answer in, like, the Newton graphic or the Newton tab, like, and BJ Novak's mom was like, well, you know, Eli was an answer in the crossword puzzle

this week of the Newton graphic. And he's like, I know, mom, I don't know. It's like, well, be nice if you were, because you're on a very famous television. She's like, I know, like, we always joke about the moms. Right, right. But yeah, no, then Brian White is another actor, did really well. It's crazy.

Who's Brian White? Brian White, he was in the Family Stone. He's done a ton of movies, but he was a year younger than me. But John Krasinski was like two years younger than me. So, so, like, Kevin Krasinski. So like, to me, John Krasinski was like, dude, Kevin's little brothers in a fuck a TV show now. Yeah, yeah. And B.J. Novak.

So, like, my younger brother knew BJ. So it's, it's very funny that Newton South, but it is a school of overachievers. And they say, like. But it's a public school, right? It's a public school. So it's like, you know, it's a. It's not like anybody's filtering into there. No, but you're talking about a neighborhood,

which it was considered one of the top ten public high schools in the country. Oh, I see. It's a zip code where it is the highest percentage of kids that graduate to go on to college. Oh, wow. So it was like real competitive. And there's the saying the son, the children of laborers become professionals and their children become artists. And it's exactly that.

Like my grandfather was a plumber. and my parents grew up in Brooklyn, and they were the first generation that went to college. They went to Brooklyn College. My dad became a doctor. My mother's a teacher. And then they have kids, and the kids are like,

well, we want to be comedy writers. I want to be a movie director, you know, because you were living this kind of middle class, upper middle class life that, you know, it was really drummed into you of like, you have to be like, if you are not a lawyer or a banker or a doctor, you will be homeless, 100%.

And when I said, I'm actually not from here. I was like, I'm from Hollywood. It was like the Andy Kaufman. I'm from Hollywood. I really believed that I was completely just like an alien dropped in. It was like a total mistake that I was born in Boston. Really? I was fully like.

And why did they get up there? Is that because your dad went to school up there or something? No, they were from New York. My parents are New Yorkers. And they grew up in Brooklyn. And then they didn't want to raise kids in Manhattan. And they're like, what is the city that's like closest to New York City where we can give our kids a suburban life?

Because Manhattan was just like too dangerous at the time. I mean, you're talking about 70s Manhattan. Right. like the Warriors, the Manhattan. Right, right, right. They went to, yeah, New York. My parents were, like, moving to Boston. And bankrupt and all kinds of shit.

Yeah, it was bankrupt. It was very dangerous. They moved to Boston. They raised us in the suburbs in Newton. And a lot of kids that, like, basically everybody, all of their parents were New Yorkers. Like, most people's... Really? Wow, that's weird.

Because it was, like, very Jewish. It was like the parents went through Ellis Island. The grandparents went through Ellis Island, and then they went to Queens in Brooklyn and the Bronx. And then the parents, you know, went to, you know, got scholarships and went. became doctors and lawyers and bankers and said, we're getting out in New York City.

We want to live someplace nice. That's safe. And that's where Newton became a very big hub and Jewish. But basically, you just sort of assume that everybody's parents grew up in New York and moved to Boston. They were very, and that's why the Irish, they were like first-generate,

you know, multiple generation Bostonians. Yeah, yeah. So I always felt like my house was much more Brooklyn. Everything was at Brooklyn Dodgers. Even though I was into the Boston sports teams, like my parents are New Yorkers. So I remember, he's like, why does your dad talk like that?

I'm like, what are you talking about? Now I listen to like, you know, Mel Blank and the Beastie Boys. I'm like, yeah, my dad does talk like he's from Brooklyn. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, and so were most of your friends, dads, doctors and lawyers and things like that? They were all professionals. Yeah, they were all professionals. Jeff was my best friend who I wrote Thanksgiving with.

Jeff's dad was like kind of amazing. He was an antique dealer, an autograph dealer. But he sold like Abraham Lincoln letters and like. like rare coins, and he had a gallery on Fifth Avenue, like, it was, or Madison Avenue. Like, he was, like, incredibly wealthy because he was very successful at, like, rare documents. And he proved the Hitler Diaries were fake, which we thought was, like, crazy. That was, like, a really big thing in 83, 84. Yeah, yeah.

And that was his dad. That was Jeff's dad. So I was always hanging out at Jeff's house, like, shooting horror movies, blowing things up. We took, like, you know, his chainsaw. We put, like, you know, a blood capsule into a doll. and tried to saw the doll in half and we tangled in the chainsaw. We were like 13, 14 years old

playing with chainsaws and blowing things up, but we were filming it all. Like if there was a camera there and you were filming it, it was totally fine. Right, right, right. But other than that, my friend's parents, they were all doctors, lawyers, bankers,

and they thought I was out of my mind. My parents were totally supportive. My dad was going to be an actor. He'd gone to high school performing arts. Oh, wow. And, like, booked a national tour, but I think his home life, was too unstable and he went into psychiatry.

So, but he was like really, you know, they grew up going to the theater and my parents, like love the arts and culture and film. And my mother's a painter now. So they grew up going to MoMA and going to see Broadway shows and going to the movies. Wow. And so, I mean, my dad was like right down the street

from the actor studio. So when I grew up, everything like acting was not considered a joke or crazy. It was like, in our household, it was like, oh, if you want to be a filmmaker, if you want to be Steven Spielberg. I mean, when I was like 11, my dad would call me like, De Palma.

Like, because I was identifying movies by directors when I was 10 and 11 years old, sort of before that was. People didn't know what a director was, but I knew the difference between Martin Scorsese, Stephen Spielberg, Brian DePaulma, George Lucas, Stanley Kubrick. Like, I was obsessed with directors. I knew the difference between Buster Keaton and Charles Chaplin and what their film styles were. Like, I was really, I really just understood it at a very young age. Like, Ridley Scott was. So when people said, what do you want to do? It was like, I want to be a movie director.

I want to be like, you know, John Carpenter, George Romero, West Craven, Tocan. be Hooper. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. When he's calling you to Palma, he probably should have called you Craven. Were you shooting on video or on film? I was shooting Super 8 and video. We would usually do both. Yeah, yeah. But like, we got, my dad was one of the first families that got a VHS camera. So that was like, you could shoot, I mean, because otherwise you'd shoot the Super 8, you'd send it off. You'd wait a week. It would come back. It was silent. I was doing animation. I was doing animation and 10 years old, doing animation and drawing. And you know, sometimes the film would come back blurry. And you're like, oh, no, we did.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was, so that's your nervous. So at least video, you could see it right away. Yeah, and also the exposure was always, because I went to film, I went to Columbia College in Chicago to film school. Yeah. And we shot 16 on bolexes. Yeah, I remember those.

And it was always like, terrifying. Fingers crossed that it's not all, you know, blown out or dark, so darky, it can't see anything. It was terrifying. I mean, that was also when you shoot a movie, shooting on film was like that. I remember like the anxiety of you wait to get the lab report,

where they would basically take your film, you'd wrap for the night, even if it's like two in the morning, and then it goes to the lab, and then at 4 o'clock, they go, yeah, the negative is good. You don't have to redo everything. Or like, there might be some issues. They're looking at it. You're like, which shots?

Like, I don't know, you had some light leaks, or there's a scratch on the negative. And before digital, there was no way to fix that stuff. So you're like just reshooting it. Oh, yeah, yeah. That was scary. Yeah. And also just the fact that, like,

that like now you know it's all ones and zeros that you can back up immediately whereas then it really was like the negative yeah i miss it so much the negative was it and if you lose the negative you're done it's over well now even an ice cream man i shot on super eight some of this there's flashback sequences that i shot on super eight and even then you're like should we shoot a backup with the you know the sony venice with our cameras to make sure we got it but other stuff you just we just got it there's There's nothing that feels like it. And now I wanted to shoot on film, but the problem is there's no,

I was shooting in Toronto. There's no labs. So you have to send your film to New York. You know, like, okay, or send it to L.A. Well, what happens then? Let's say we're shooting in someone's house. Because we're shooting on locations. I'm in an elementary school.

Yeah. Where it was closed for the summer, and I have like 100 extras of children, and they're covered in ice cream, covered in blood. Like, you've one shot at getting this. You can't go back in September because school's in session because the weather changes. You had to do it.

So to shoot. You can't send the film and then wait, you know, even if it's two or three days. Yeah. Because if there's a problem, you have to like hold the location, hold the extras. And then sometimes you're in a location like someone's house for one day. You just have it that one day. Yeah. You can't, sorry, you can't hold the location.

You get like normally you could drop the stuff at the lab and then in a few hours, you know, you got it. Then you can wrap out the location the next day. Yeah. If you can't wrap out a location, you're sitting there waiting for that negative clearance. Otherwise, the insurance kicks. of all kinds of other problems. So it's tough.

It's like right now they just aren't labs. Yeah. And they don't run the bath the same. There was a bath, which is the chemicals that was running 24 hours back in the day. Now they're running it once a week, twice a week. So it's, you know, the processing is different. For Super 8 or for films?

For 35. There's not enough stuff shooting. So I love, I'm a big proponent of shooting on 35. But part of it is, it's not that the budgeting, this film is more expensive. It's all the hidden costs. Like, I want to shoot Thanksgiving on film. Well, we have a parade with 300 people.

if I can't get negative clearance, you've got to hold those people until you do. So you've got to hold, pay them for three days now instead of one day. Or you just rolled the dice and then you've lost everything and your insurance isn't covering it. And you have to eat it. It's hard when you're doing low budget. If you're doing a studio movie, you can get away with it. But I like doing low budget indies because you can be crazy. Yeah.

There's no rules. And they can't. But so, and nobody's going to say like, okay, we'll shoot in L.A. Because there's a lab in L.A. Right. Yeah. They're like, no, no, you're shooting in. You shoot wherever you are.

Shreveport. Yeah, you shoot wherever you want. And then you'd have to ship your footage to the lab. It's just another risk you have to be willing to take. But it's that same thing of like, please be exposed. I don't want some, you know, what if some worker looks at the film cans and goes, what is this? And they take off the tape and they just open it.

Like, that can happen. So there's just all these things that go with. It's enough stress making a movie that when you shoot digital, at least you know, the film's exposed. And audiences generally aren't going to be able to tell the difference. Can't you tell my loves it grows? What point are you sort of all in on horror? Or were you never and it just kind of,

because low budget lends itself to horror so easily? I think I went all in on horror. I was always fascinated by horror because horror you weren't allowed to see it. Like I remember being a kid and I missed Jaws. But I grew up knowing what Jaws was because then it would come on TV once every four years. You were just too young to go see it. I was too young. Yeah. I mean, I wasn't seen in the theater.

So I was like my Aunt Gladys to tell me about describe Jaws to me. me like Shabbat dinner or she'd come over and be like, tell me about Jaws. And then if you didn't see Last House in the Left, some kids like derelict older brother did. And you're like, what happens in Last House? He's like, well, they pull her guts out. And he's like pulling her in tells. You're like, no. And what happened in Texas chain semester?

These were like mythological things that happened because the horror movies that were ultra-violent never ran on television, even censored. So yeah, there was no VHS. Yeah, they would play a drive-in. So you see the gates of hell and this one's playing in a drive-in. But I remember as a kid seeing the ads in the newspaper thinking, if I didn't see this movie now, I was never going to watch it. It was over. Yeah.

That was the end of it, whether it was prophecy or my bloody Valentine. There was no- Or Texas changed on Masker. There was no concept of cable or VHS. And the cable started in like 82 or 81. I was so happy. I could finally see Monty Python in the Holy Grail. I remember seeing it.

It was like aired once at like 7.30 in the morning on a Saturday. And we had a VCR and I taped it. And I was just, it was the most exciting. movie experience I'd ever had in my life. I'd never seen anything like Monty on Holy Grail. It's a single, I was like, there will never be a film better than this movie. It has everything I want. I didn't know you'd be funny with chopping off arms and legs. Yeah, yeah. The killer rabbit, like I just wanted to speak with the British accent. It was such an impactful thing. But horror, suddenly, once we got the VCR, I think I was 10, then I remember

the first movie we rented were like Caddyshack, Clockwork. It was like Caddyshack and Blues Brothers. Movies that I'd only seen, or, you know, movies I'd only seen on television censored. Now I could watch the uncensored version. But by then, I was, like, fully into horror. I was so, my, Jeff and I would just go to the video store and we'd rent like 12 tapes in a weekend

and do like three on Friday night and like four on Saturday. And to, like, as many horror. I was like a garbage disposal. I wanted to watch three on a meat hook, make them die slowly. You know, it started with Texas Chainsawmasker. But then it just got more and more and more extreme.

And then I didn't understand Italian horror. I didn't realize that movies like demons, kids were like, have you seen this movie, Demons, which is Demone by Lemberto Bava? Yeah. I didn't understand the concept. I was like the perfect audience because there were movies that were made in Europe where they would speak English but use European actors and then just redub them. Yeah.

And then try and trick American audiences like Dr. Butcher MD, which was Zombie Holocaust, which is an Italian film. They cast like one or two Brits in it, like, you know, Ian McCuller or Donald O'Brien or one of those, you know, Richard Johnson, one of these kind of like veteran rugged handsome men, kind of Edmund Purdom kind of actors in pieces. Like I didn't know that Pieces was a Spanish movie. Yeah. You've Ritos Tien la Noche by Juan Picer Simone. It was like, oh, that's pieces directed by J.P. Simon. So everyone's half the people are speaking, you know, they're all speaking English, but yeah, they have these very weird dubbed voices like in the New York Ripper.

Every guy kind of talks like that. So I didn't understand that they were shot. I didn't understand what was 16 millimeter or 35 millimeter. I just knew that horror movies looked and felt different. When I watched Dawn of the Dead, it was a movie. Like anything, whether that was back to the future or Dawn of the Dead, they all, in my mind, they were movies. But I didn't understand what low-budget movie making was until Evil Dead.

And then I read, I started reading Fangoria magazine, which really went into an interview about how Sam Ramee was 21. And I was like, okay, I'm 13 or 12 or 13. That's not that far away. Yeah. He made this movie. this is the scariest movie I have ever seen, and he made it for $350,000.

So I thought, if I don't make a movie for $350,000, by the time I'm 21, I'm a complete failure. And that's why I wrote Cabin Fever. And I was like, damn it, I'm 22. I have the script. I wrote Cabin Fierreterned it after Evil Dead. And then I watched, like, at my Bar Mitzvah, we watched Mother's Day.

I have cousins from Larchmont that are, like, traumatized. There should be T-shirts that say, I survived Eli Roth's Bar Mitzv because, like, parents came down. Like in the whole, like everybody in the hall had to watch Mother's Day? Well, it was not in the temple. There was an after party. No, I know, but that's what I mean. In the basement.

In the banquet area, whatever. All the parents, yes, we did it in our house. We did the reception. So there's like the catering tent in our front yard. I wanted arcade machines so that I could get good at them, like Donkey Kong, Frogger, Dragon's Lair. And then in the basement, we had like pizza and Mother's Day. So all the parents were like upstairs chit-chatting, you know, their 80s hair.

Yeah, yeah. And then, like, downstairs, the kids are. just watching people getting axed in the balls. And it's Mother's Day is a pretty sick film. One of my favorites. But yeah, Mother's Day. But that was it. Like, I just wanted, I wanted to watch these movies.

I was super. And my parents, because my mom was a painter, she's like, you know, I was really interested in recreating those effects. Like, how did they do that? Yeah. I didn't think they were really killing them. I'm like, and I started reading about Tom Savini and Dick Smith and getting really, really into makeup artists.

Yeah. And people were like, what do you want for your birthday? I was like liquid latex. fake blood, videotapes. My parents are like, he wants carosur. He wants like corn syrup and like caro syrup and food coloring. Like there were people that gave me. They were like the really expensive videotapes, like 12 bucks each.

And she's like, here you go. And I could shoot films on them. To me, that was like film stock. I was like, that's all I wanted. Oh my God, fake blood. There was one makeup store in Boston called the makeup place. And they had professional makeup and clay and liquid latex and fake scars. And now all of a sudden I could try stuff out.

I wasn't one of those kids that like got an oven and could bake latex. there was like a whole other layer that I know some other kids did. But for me, it was just like a magic trick. Like, how do you saw the woman? I love magic. Like, how do you saw the woman and a half? How do you levitate someone? Yeah.

And I never saw horror movies. It's like, I was like the best behaved kid. I was the babysitter. I was the camp counselor. I was like the nice kid that you could trust. Like if the teacher left the room. Who would get murdered in the movie? Who would get murdered in two seconds.

Yeah, yeah. But like the teacher, the teachers would be like, oh, let's leave Eli in charge. He can handle it. Like, I was that kid. Yeah. So the mischief all came out in the horror movies and chopping arms off and chopping heads off and stuff. Was it, do you think it was, I mean, what it was, I mean, aside from sort of artistic curiosity and kind of, and I, and I totally understand and relate to like what you're saying about not knowing what low budget means, but finding something fascinating about it. Like I'm, like, I'm the same way with, like, I don't know why it matters so much to me, but I always.

want to know where something was shot. And it's one of the first things I look up. And I absolutely, you know, and the fact that like, you know, Night of the Living Dead, it's Pittsburgh. Yeah. Just I love that there's all these kind of, and or that like even, you know, to go beyond that, like Robert Altman starts in Kansas City. Yeah.

You know, just making movies, industrial movies in Kansas City. And I love that kind of, and I don't think it, well, I guess maybe it can again. regional filmmaking happening like that. Well, regional filmmaking is the best because you get local actors like in Dawn of the Dead, that guy with the eye patch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like, the dead come back,

the dead are eating, the living. Like, the guy who's just on the news who looks like Francis Ford Coppola of the iPatch. He's awesome. And then Ken Fari and Scott Reinerger and Galen Ross and the cast of the movie that it's so fun to see local actors. Like whether you're, you know,

whether it's the children, which is a 1980 movie where everyone's trying to hide their Massachusetts accent or like, don't go in the house, which is one of my favorite ones, where you get like these kind of local New York actors, Mother's Day did that Friday 13th because they couldn't fly people in from L.A. Suddenly, you know, Kevin Bacon is a regional actor, and he breaks out. But there are also, there are a lot of these actors when you watch those low-budget movies that become like your favorites.

You're like, I love that dude. And they're in Oliver Mero's movies. Or anytime you watch another movie by that director, you see them having these little parts. They're like a regional actor. was Cabin Fever, my first film. You find all these local actors and people have never been in movies. And, you know, I'm still doing it with the ice cream A. And you find the local people in Thanksgiving. You know, I think horror movies are great vehicles to give actors a break and for them to shine. And they wouldn't normally get cast in a studio film. But, you know, the great thing about horror is the scare is the star.

Yeah. But to get back to your question, I was not a popular kid. I was like a short, fat, you know, nerd who was like wearing a Texas Chanseye's Masker's shirt. And there is a thing of like, okay, so you're not going to be one of the popular kids. and then everybody jumps. You're like, ha ha ha, got you. I've heard, like, Guillermo del Toro talking about that. It's a little bit of, it's a little bit of Revenge of the Nerd where you're like, okay, if you can't beat them, scare them. Yeah.

Like, and not terrorize them, but I, sort of my movies, by the time I was a senior, everybody wanted to be in them because I would do a film with Jeff and then I would slip the throat and then you show it, your friends are hanging out. Kids were like, wait, you did that? Like, I had a retrospective of my Super 8 films in fifth grade, and kids were like, what? You did these?

This is what you do. And then they'd say, okay, well, next time you do something, tell me, I'll be in it. And you go, really? Yeah, yeah, come over. And so, okay, now I'll do scene with you. And I'll do a scene with you. And so by the time I was a senior, I was just sort of known as the director. And anytime I was shooting, there's a whole gang of kids that would like want to appear in them and get killed or get there.

Everybody sort of, everybody wants to get killed in a horror movie. That's my series. You know, the one thing we can't see. Or do the killing. Or do the killing. Yeah. The one thing we can't see is our own death. Yeah.

We will never get to know what that looks like. So there is a morbid curiosity of what's it going to look like when I'm dead that everybody has. It's only natural. And doing it in a horror movie is a fun way to explore it. Now, to know all the practical effects, like, are you reading about them in Fangoria? And that's how you find. Because, I mean, at the time, I don't. There wasn't much.

There wasn't like, yeah, the making of and segments about like, well, you take a knife and you cut a semicircle out of it and then drag it across the throat. No. Yeah. And it's funny because I had a book called Film Tricks. which talked about Maniac and Tom Savini with the fake, you know, how he did scalping where he ran a tube underneath and like when the actor would squeeze it as he slices the neck.

In his hand. Squeezing it in his hand. So film tricks was a book that I had, which went into all of it in the Dick Smith makeup book. But it's really those two books in Fangoria. And then there was a place in Harvard Square called Million Year Picnic. I mean, my dad was an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard. So he would often go into Harvard Square.

And, you know, I would just go or we would take the train. And a million-year picnic had old issues of Fangoria and comics. Wow. You know, we would just go, you know, Cine Fantastique. And sit there. Yeah, yeah. And look through all of them. Maybe you could pick one that you could afford.

You saved up your allowance. But sit there for two hours and read. And I would read about the thing. I still had, there's a great Cine of Fantastique about the thing with an interview with Rob Boutin and John Carpenter. And, you know, just reading about how Rob Boatine did the public. tearing. The guy was like 17 when he did that movie or something 19. It was crazy. And then just reading about Dan O'Bannon and special effects and reading about

Eraserhead and David Lynch trying special effects. You know, a lot of directors started with special effects makeup. Tim Burton did all. Everyone's kind of figuring it out. And it's really just, I did claymations. So I really liked animation and drawing by hand and stop frame animation with action figures. So for me, I was always really, really into, you know, special makeup effects. That's why, you know, I had the guys of K&B, Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger doing, you know, we did cabin fever and hostile. I was so into practical makeup. And I am. I still am. I mean, it's terrifying when you're shooting with it because you don't know if it's going to go right. I mean, it's organic. Blood can blow anyway. It can really fake. And, you know, it's the whole

movie rests on those kills. But when you nail it, like when you drop a piano on a dummy and it lands on the dummy and it looks hilarious, there's just nothing like it. It's the best thing. It's just so primarily satisfying. Yeah, yeah. So it's, but yeah, doing the special makeup effects, I was reading those books and then just trial and error. Like, borrowing your friends VCR so you can do VCR to VCR editing, play, pause, record, play pause record. So you could cut stuff in sequence. Then Super 8 trying to do stuff with the scissors and scotch tape and those little splicing tapes. You only have like 30 of them.

You want to make every edit count. So I think there is a discipline when you're shooting in order and editing in order. You've got to make those decisions ahead of time. I really would sit there and storyboard and work out a movie. I mean, I was like 10, 11, 12 years old, stick figures, whatever. I would draw it out. I would figure out the whole thing before I shot it. And you'd have to edit in camera when you're starting.

Yeah, you'd have to like, yeah, there's no, you hit record and you hit stop. Yeah, and that's it. Yeah. I mean, at some point, you know, you're a little kid and you're blowing things up and cutting heads. but at some point you have to realize, well, I got to tell stories. Like, I have to learn the story part of it. And when does that...

But I'm 14. Yeah. I mean, I was always doing little stories, but maybe I was like splatter in the linoleum. It's like you'd start making a movie and then someone has a dream, and then halfway through we'd just lose interest. But I remember when I was in ninth grade,

there was a super eight film class that this teacher offered in high school. Wow. And I did like a five minute. It was like, okay, now do five shots and a punchline. at the end. There was like little assignments. And at the end, I did this film called Tempus Fuget of Jeff trying to get home to dinner. And he just, he's like, he's late for dinner. And he's like,

runs and he takes a bike. And then he gets in a car. And then the guy tries to kill him. And he jumps out of the car. And then he sees a boat. Because Jeff had a boat. So like a speed like a motor boat. So then Jeff like jumps in the boat and he takes the boat and he runs and then goes down through the chimney. And then sits down just in time for dinner. It was like a beginning, middle and end. And like, and I remember being feeling it was like, perfect. executed. Yeah. And it was so far ahead of what the other kids were doing. It was so complex. That was my freshman year film. That's what got me into film school. That was the one that I would show everyone. People were just like, this is really, they were like, like, you really understand

shots and details and composition and moving right to left and screen direction, all of it. And the gram, like the editing grammar of like all of it. I was so clear on how to do it. And I was really studying at that point, I was studying David Lynch and, understanding art direction and watching blue velvet and looking at the clock and then the car he used and the costumes and the color and the rug and what wallpaper was really understanding, approaching, directing like an animator or like a painter where every color in the frame matters, the light matters, the texture matters, the colors, like all of it. And I thought that should be applied to horror films. I think that somewhere in the mid-80s, they stopped trying to make them

good. They kind of became a joke and it just sort of these straight-to-video. There are a few that poke through that come out that it's like a masterpiece but yeah sort of by you know by in 1985 86 the slasher boom kind of dies down and all of a sudden it's just like they're making these sort of knockoff sequels which are fun but it didn't have the craft of what they did yeah in the 70s and early 80s kind of get you know i mean all the like honestly it's i'm i bet there's probably one on arbor day you know what i mean well arbor day was the mad magazine parody is that what it was oh i don't even i don't know that's why you said arbor day yeah yeah because it was There was the Mad Horror movie.

That was an issue from 1982. It was called Arbor movie. And the movie that's the parody is called Arbor Day. I took the font from Arbor Day to use in Thanksgiving. Oh, you did. Of course. Oh, that's fantastic. But Arbor Day was what made me think, why isn't there a Thanksgiving movie?

Yeah, yeah. But it was actually Arbor Day. That is from Mad Magazine. Yeah, yeah. Probably why you said that. Yeah. No, well, it just seems like every, they started. Everything.

Really running out. Yeah, Valentine's Day. Yeah. Well, that's why I'm running out of them. They're not out of them. Yeah, yeah. I have a great one I want to make. Which is?

Leapier Massacre. The killer strikes every four years and just goes fucking crazy on February 29th. And in the world of Leapier massacre, everybody has like huge, it's like the next final, like huge leapier parties. Everyone's like, Leapier motherfuckers! And then he shows up at a leapier party and there's a cop that's been trying to stop the leap year killer. So he's like, he's like, I first encounter the son of a bit. bitch when he was six years old. You know, like, he's been trying, he's like, he's got to be at least 11 now.

And like, but then, and they tell the cop at the beginning, they were like, here's the bad news, like, you have 365 days and 11 hours to live. And he's like, how do you know? He's like, no, we know. It's like, he's like, if I don't catch him this year, it's like the cop has to catch the leap year killer. Because he's going to get me next. Well, because like he's been tracking his whole life.

The cop's like 70 and now he's like terminal cancer. But like the leap year killer has been eluding him because every four, he only comes out every four years to kill and she's going to fucking crazy. What a town full of dummies, though. Like, just go out of town that day. You know what I mean? Yeah, well, it's, you know, it's leapier. The guy just, you can't help us up.

People love fucking partying on leap year. They love it. Exactly. And you know what? They're going to get fucking killed. So I want to do, I'm going to put it out on leap year, the next leap year. And then, but then four years later, I'm going to put out, I'm going to put out leap year four.

Yeah. And then I'm just go raise a leap year eight and just have a fucking trilogy. leave your eight will be in outer space and like I won't even bother filling in the blanks it's as if right as you all know what happened exactly like we're so far down we're at four now now we're number eight

you don't remember anything flying pants and electric cars but yeah but I want the trailer to be like for 365 days of the year but on the 366 I'm just like leap year massacre so that's the next one I want to do

can't you tell my loves it grows I love that idea I hear an idea like leap year massacre. And my friend Noah, I wrote Ice Cream Man. We've been talking about leapier massacre and stopping the leapier killer. And now it's like he's seven years old. You know, it's like he's probably 13, but he's like, is he an 80 year old? Or is it someone who's continuing the tradition?

All right. But yeah. I got a new pitch and it's got a built-in sponsor, Toyotathon. The Toyotathon killer. Say, okay. You know? Toyotathon comes and this guy starts fucking, and it's all automotive related. It's true.

Like, you know, like peeling out on someone's face, and then their face slides off and hits the wall. No, but the two are to be like, you'll see this hand on a hard body. And there's someone a hand, a hard body. And there's just like 75 arms stuck to a truck. Nailed to the hard body. Yeah, yeah.

Just fucking chopping him off. And it's like, who won the hand on a hard body? It's just fucking 600 hands, just arms. Now we're talking. Yeah. Well, I mean, you had such an up, I mean, such an artistic upbringing in indie and in horror and in effects and genre movies. Like, was it, you just weren't going to go to Hollywood and try and, you know, start as a DP or as a, you know, as an assistant camera and work your way up to anything. Like, you were all, you had, was it, was it, was it in fact, Evil Dead that made you that set your way?

I mean, I mean, I looked at Toby Hooper, John Carpenter, Sam Ramey, you know, all those directors, David Cronenberg, the directors of George Romero, they just did it. They did a low-budget horror movie, and they just took a sub-genre, and Evil Dead was the pattern. You know, I mean, I looked at structurally, I looked at Friday the 13th, okay, scene one, they're in the car, scene two, they go to the general store, they get the warning, scene three, they go to the cab. And, like, I looked at sort of, I broke down, I was like, okay, all these movies are like between 42 to 48 scenes, by scene three, this happens, by scene six, this happens.

I looked at it like mathematically, I mathematically broke down all these films into different grids to see, like, what are the structural elements? Okay, by page 30, and it was stuff I learned in film school, but specifically with horror, and slow burn horror, and body count horror, and this was specifically body horror. But I was like, what can I shoot? Who are the actors that we know?

It was like Jay Moore, Zach Oath, Mary McCormick, Steve Zon, like anyone that we knew at the time that we were going to ask them if they wanted to be in it, and then Randy, who I wrote it with, was going to act in it. And then, you know, that doesn't have. I was 22, so it was very hard to get anyone to give you money. We thought, okay, if we could get half a million dollars in a 16 millimeter camera, we can go to a cabin and make this movie.

And then, you know, everyone said, well, can you, Blair Witch is a big hit. Why can't you just shoot it with video? I was like, well, it's not going to work. I don't want, I want to shoot on film. It's not the same thing. It's not the same thing. It's not, you know, it's going to look dated. It's going to be this.

They already did it in Blair Witch. Like, this movie is a film. And then I held out until we finally shot Super 35, and I'm so glad I did, because we put the 4K out, and you look at that negative, and it looks spectacular. But it took six years, and I raised a million and a half dollars, and people put up their houses, and my dad took his retirement money, and we got shut down by the unions. It was a whole thing, but we did it, and then we sold it for three and a half, the Toronto Film Festival. And then it became Lionsgate's highest grossing movie of 2003. Yeah. And that's what kicked off the horror wave for them.

Then they bought Saw. Then they started doing all the, you know, hostile, all the horror. films because it was House of Thousand Corpses in Cabin Fever in 2003 where they're number one and number two number two is House of Thousand Corpses which they didn't even believe they put a million dollars into that's Rob Zombie. Rob Zombie advertising it made 12 million they were shocked so cabin fever you know they put 12 million and made 22 million and so they were and then on DVD that's where you could really make money. Everyone was buying DVDs so they made millions so suddenly they're like this is a real this is actually the future of the company and I would say you know look at Universal was built on

horror. A new line was built on horror. You can build your company on horror. Yeah. And then look at this summer. You know, what's the biggest movie? It's, it's obsession, a $750,000 movie, backrooms, $10 million. Yeah. These movies are making hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah, no, I know. My plan was to, no one's going to let you be a director. And I remember my father saying, he's like, you know, it's like a pyramid. And at the top, there's very little room. No one's going to welcome you with open arms and say, here's a job. You have to, like, kick the door down with a movie that says, here I am. You can't fuck with me.

And none of you can come up with this, and I'm not afraid to do something crazier than anybody. Your dad told you that? No, my dad said, just like, don't kick. Like, he's like, you're going to have to work harder than everyone else. You're going to have to never quit. It's going to be tireless. It's going to be thankless.

But no one's going to welcome you. No one's going to want you there. So you should do something. You have to do something, you know, that's original. Yeah. And I remember thinking, like, yeah, I'm going to do what Sam Ramey did with Evil Dead. And that was exactly what Kevin Fever was.

And then I was like, I have to top it. And that was hostile. So, yeah. And look, I was offered to go in the studios and I've done movies in the studio system. And I much prefer to do independent. Yeah. Just who I am. How do you even start?

Like when you say, like, we need to raise half a million dollars or whatever. Very hard. Just got everybody know. Like, what do you do? Yeah, you go to people, like your dad's friends and banks? You can't go to a bank. It's like, they go, what's the collateral? What am I doing?

What's a risk? You just need that first investor to believe in it. And that was Sam Frailic. And he really put the money. in and he's like, I'll put $250,000 in your first $125,000 and your last $125,000. Well, he wanted to putting up his house in the first $600,000. Because, like, we had these group of dentists. We called them the Lunderguards because they sounded like Jerry Lunderg from Fargo.

They're like, yeah, you know, Mario Lopez is like the Beatles. I'm like, no, he is. They're like, you should put Mario Lopez in your movie because he's like the Beatles. I'm like, no, I agree, but I don't think Mario Lopez going to do it. How is he loves the Beatles? He's like, they're like, because we went to a, we had a parade in town and Mario Lopez was there. And let me tell you, he's like the Beatles. Like, the girls come out and go crazy for Mario Lopez.

I believe that. I'm not saying any, I do not disagree. I just don't think that Mario Lopez. He said God is dead. Yeah. Well, they, so, but these guys, three days before shooting, they were like, one of them was like, you have to cast my daughter in the lead.

And I was like, we're already cast with, like, professional actors. We're not doing that. And he's like, well, then you're not putting a movie in. I'm not putting the money in. And it was half a million dollars. We're like, what the fuck do we do now? So we started shooting without the money.

So it was terrifying. I was like, calling my aunt Gladys. It was like, hey, can you give us money? She's like, okay, send you five. $5,000 and Jeff's dad's like, okay, I'll kick in $5,000. My dad's like, well, I can put $50,000 of my retirement, but like, that's it. That's all I got. And then we're like, okay, we can buy film stock.

We can get through the first week. And now we had a little footage to show. And we could raise that. So terrifying. It's terrifying. We all developed, all the producers developed different kinds of like stress-related health problems from cabin fever, high blood pressure, high retention, because we were just panicked.

Yeah. We would give people, it was the time. It was shot this in the fall of 2001. So we could give people the paycheck, a physical check on Friday. And then on Saturday, raise the money and get it wired in. So when they, because we wait into the bank closed. So they couldn't like deposit it until Monday. But by Monday we had to have enough money that the check cleared.

It was, I would not recommend making a movie that way. But we did it. Jesus Christ. But then the union shut us down. We shot most of the movie. We had to limp back to L.A. and get a borrowing and editing system. We just gave back in points.

They shut you down and were you done shooting? No, we were halfway through. Because after 9-11, there was nothing shooting on the East Coast, just us. and we were in a right to work state, and they came in and they threatened the crew. They went to their hotel rooms at night and knocked in their doors, and they said, you better sign this fucking union card.

And if you don't fucking sign it, you're never getting in the union. And they did that. And so the people signed the union card, so we flipped and became, they're like, now you're a legitimate movie. And they took all of our money. They took all of our profits.

And I was like, hmm, how about I go to Prague for my next movie? I don't have to do with any of that bullshit. So I'm not an anti-union person, but there has to be some leeway for like first-time directors that are scraping. together with like people putting up their houses and they're shooting a 24 day shoot in the

middle of the woods. Yeah. And you guys driving down from New York City and fucking threatening them and bullying them like really in their hotel rooms in the middle of the night. It was that. It was like, okay, when you have money, you can use the do union. I, I'm shot union movies in movies. But like, I'm in unions. We're in unions too. But I was like, that was, that behavior was so fucking disgusting. I was like, guys aren't, you're not helping me. Like, we can make a deal here. Like, I could actually be an asset to the union

and a cooperative, you know, filmmaker. But look, this is ancient history. It's 2005 years ago. It's got to be terrifying, though, because you're saying to your dad, give me basically all you can of your retirement. And I swear I promise. This movie will make it back.

You know. Terrifying. Jesus Christ. And then it's really terrifying because, you know, it's like a faith, movies are a faith-based system. You just have to, like, pray to God it works out. Yeah. Mind you, I have no track record. I'm just like 100% certain this is all going to work out. Yeah.

No question. It's like, I've, my life has been geared towards one thing since I was like eight years old and it is this. And now I'm 30 and I've got to make sure this works because everyone else I know has a health insurance and I'm completely broke. And I've like put a million and a half dollars of other people's money. I have nothing. I don't have a fucking penny to my name. borrowing money for my parents to pay my $725 a month rent. Yeah.

And, like, charging spaghetti to my dad's credit card. Yeah. I mean, I'm 30 doing this. It's not like, but I shot on film. And my parents are like, yeah, we believe in you. It's great. Like, go for it. That's incredible.

My dad was like, we'll figure something out. So I don't know that I could do that. I don't know if I could give my kid my retirement, you know? You don't, but that's where, look, look, I'm very thankful and I've certainly repaid my dad many times over, but we, but then the lights went down at the Toronto Film Festival. I remember thinking, fuck this better work. Nobody had seen the movie. And like, I watched it at the lab. They asked this, they're like, what, they said, what slot do you want? I was like, why don't you put us last? Because I didn't have the movie finished. I was mixing the movie. I was on the

sound stage. And like, there were these people that were going to wire $350,000 for us to finish the movie. And we were on the mixing stage. And they had to wire the money. And I remember it was like nine in the morning. They're like, we haven't gotten the wire yet. We can't start. And we're calling these people and they're in Connecticut. These are not the Linder guards. It's a different group of people. And they're like waiting and waiting and waiting. And then we're finally, by like 930, they wired the money. We're like, what was the delay? The delay was they had a VHS tape of the avid rough cut. They were showing it to their 12 year old kid saying, what do you think? And the 12 year old kid said, dad, this is better than American pie.

And he goes, okay, they wired the money. I mean, literally like your career, it's like something out of a David Lynch film. It was in the hands of a 12 year old. So you're just like, I can't fuck I believe this. And then, so they wire it. And then Toronto's like, you're in Toronto. We're accepted. So, so everyone wants, so because it was a year after 9-11, nothing was really shooting. So it was kind of a dead market in 2002. In September 10th, they just weren't a ton of films. So the buyers were waiting around. And it was, you know, Harry Knowles on Aynical News wrote like, hey, I have a feeling about this movie. I heard about it from the K&B effects guys, like, don't go home. So I was really scared that people were going to leave. And I talked to Harry and he wrote this

great article going, don't go home. So I remember. I watched it at Deluxe because you were just doing the color pass three times. Yeah. Carrying the seven reels of the film in my hand, dropping it at the film office at Toronto for like this press screening the next day. And I ran

and it's like still warm from the lab. And someone came up to me and said, hey man, everyone who's seen your movies said it's fucking amazing. And I was like, yeah. And I was like, that's true. I was the only person that's seen it was me. But the buzz was so crazy. People were like, what is this cabin fever?

We hear it. It's like, it just was like, the hype was so insane that people like, And how did that start? And how did that start? That started with Harry Knowles on Ane Cool News writing, I have a feeling about this movie. Oh, wow.

And everything just spiraled, it just like grew from there. He could like really dictate what buyers would buy. And so then the movie delivered on it. So that first screening, it was like the press screening. I remember getting up off the escalator and I couldn't move because the line was out the door

of the theater back to the escalator. And they had to add two overflow theaters. And by the end of the first screen, We had nine offers. And the bidding was like $9 million, $10 million. It was like life-changing. But none of them would guarantee theatrical. And at the time, to mention Miramax's revolution,

they would buy a movie for $8 or $9 million and then shelved it, then wait till the test. And Lions Gates, like, we'll pay $3.5, but we will guarantee $12 million in P&A, which is 2000 screens would be the biggest release we've ever done. Yeah. Then did four wide releases a year at that time. And we said, okay, because the $3.5 million got everyone out.

Like you've all made your money back. Paint your dad. We're on profits. It's my dad makes money. We're all doing good. Like the investors can breathe. And now we could do really well from it. So that was it.

That was like, that was that. But that was terrifying that feeling. But it was everything I believed in. I bet my life on one thing and it worked. Yeah, yeah. But if not, I was like, I would have been financially ruined. I'd still be paying off that debt 25 years later. I mean, there's no way to get out of that kind of debt.

It was like totally insane. Yeah. But I just believed. I was like 100% certain. But I also prepared for it. It wasn't like, I didn't know what I was. was doing. I mean, I'd gone to film school. I'd worked on movie sets. I'd worked with David Lynch. I'd worked on like, done a bunch of short films. I did animated shorts. Like, I was fully ready

to make my movie. And I'd worked on that script for six years. You worked on private parts, which I did. Don't want to remember. That was fun. Pass that over. I was working on the script. I was like, and sitting outside Howard's door. I loved Howard Stern. You worked on the script? I mean, I had the script and I would sit there at night and just like, write all night and just like sharpen the and look at the scenes and work on writing. I just sat outside his door all night. Because he was shooting at Silver Cup in Brooklyn. Yeah.

And it was too much for him to drive home and then get up and do his radio show. So he would film and they built an apartment for him. And then he'd have to wake up and go to his radio show. He didn't want to be there alone. So they needed someone they could trust. And I knew the production manager and the line produced. And they were like, Eli, would you just show up at rap

and basically stay there all night with Howard? Yeah. And they had a security guard, but he wasn't like a film PA. Right. He was a cool dude. He was like a, but I would just sit there as like the PA in case anything went wrong and I'd wake him up in the morning. And did you take it on yourself to do rewrite? Yeah.

And did he, did he accept them? Did he like look at them and go? No, no. Howard, how, I knew it's, I was working on Cabin Fever. Oh, Cabin fever. Oh, no, no, no, no, Dan Goldberg wrote. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, no, I'm sorry. I totally misunderstood. But I was like, that's pretty fucking ballsy to be the PA and go like, I'm going to rewrite this. fucker. I'll show you guys. Trust me. A lot of people had that opinion. But on any movie. But Mary McCormick, who plays his wife in a movie,

Mary was who I originally, like, a year earlier, which was written Cabin' Fever for us. So I was friends with Mary. And so then Mary got cast to Howard. Coincidentally. Wow. So the first day of shooting, Howard had just, like, love scene with Mary earlier in bed,

and he's like saying goodnight to her. And it's my first time meeting him. And I'm, like, waiting him, standing to the elevator, just like awkward, you know, especially awkward penguin, and just standing there. And I'm like quietly waiting.

And he's like, I'm married. It's like, I was a great scene. And blah, blah, blah. And she gives me a big hug. She's like, okay, I'll see you tomorrow. Good night. And then she fucking grabs my face and gives me the biggest kiss on the lips. She goes, good night, Eli.

I'll see you tomorrow. And I was like, oh, my God. She did it to fuck with me. Yeah, yeah. Because she knew I was like, I was friends with her. And she was just like, mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, either I'm going to get fired or Howard's going to live.

And the door is closed. It goes, Eli, all right. Scoring with my movie. How do you want? The hell was it? Like, from that moment on, he just thought, it was like, Mary's a friend. She just did that to fuck with him.

So, yeah, it was fun. It was a great time. And I would listen, he would talk about me on the air. So that in New York currency in the 90s, there was like, no more than Howard's saying you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They probably got you money for the movie

because I'm sure there was people listening to Howard and you could say, like, yeah, I'm the guy Howard's talking about. Can you give me 100 grand? It was hard. It's hard to give anyone money because they're like, well, how am I going to get it back? And also horror was dead.

There was no horror culture. It was Blair Witch, and then there was scream, would come along. But then I know what you did last summer. So then all of a sudden you get into, well, you need, you know, screenwork because we had the cast of party of five and then Campbell. And I know that had Jennifer Love Hewitt. So you got to get a TV star. So if you can get a TV star, if you can get, you know, Brendan Fair from Roswell will give you a million dollars. If you can get Amy Smart from Varsity Blues will give you a million dollars.

And I was like, no, low-budget horror works when you can actually. get names. We did get Ryder Strong who did it, but if Ryder wanted to, it was on the Disney show, Boy Meets World, but he wanted to reinvent his image. So Ryder was willing to do it for scale and think, it was incredible. It was huge of Ryder did the movie and Jordan Ladd, Serena Vincent, Jim McEllo, Joey Kern, like, everyone else was like, they had credits, but they weren't known. And that's part of the fun with a horror movie. It was like, you just need great actors. Yeah. You just need great actors. Yeah, yeah. It's like Ice Cream, man. The kids are amazing. These kids are so fucking good. I didn't want kid acting. And there's a thing that I loved in, in Bad News Bears in the 70s

movies, the movies that we grew up on, the kids swore. Yeah. They were just like kids. And so part of doing, part of, I realized when you're watching the scenes, kids like, you fucking dead, you fucking plus. They're like 11, 20 years old. It's hilarious watching kids for it because we never see it in movies anymore. Yeah, yeah.

Because movies have been so sanitized that kids don't talk like real kids and the bullies talk like bullies. So it was fun to shoot. I mean, the movie is like the first 20 minutes, 10 minutes. It's like you're in a bad news bears. Yeah. the kids just start killing all the other. Yeah, and there's a baseball game.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a baseball game. There's literally, so you're in an ambling, you're in a Spielberg movie. Yeah. You know, it's just like kids riding bikes. It's summertime. It's fun. And then it just all goes to hell.

Yeah. Now, you did, I mean, like you mentioned that you did a couple of, like you did, the house of the clock and its walls and borderlands. And those are studio movies. Yeah. Like big budgets and stuff. Yeah. And is that, I mean, are you having as much fun on that?

Or is it just. It's different, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Like, Death Wish was a challenge. Yeah. But I was happy with how it came out. And I worked with my, you know, you finally are getting like a budget.

You can do helicopters and have like more time for lighting and shooting. Yeah, yeah. And but then I got to put Cammy Morone, who's now in, you know, blowing up from her Netflix show, something very bad is going to happen. Yeah, yeah. It was 19. I could say, no, I know this girl. And I knew Cammy.

And I was like, I know this girl. She's amazing. She's a star. Trust me. She's like going to be Julia Roberts. And so getting to put her in the movie, that was, that was really fun. House the Clock and it was a dream because you're working with Amblin and Spielberg

and Jack Black and Kate Blanchett and Conradleckland and Renéleys Goldsbury. It was such a fun time. Borderlands was tough because it was COVID and there was just chaos. It's like there was no, the way decisions were made, I wasn't fully in control of the movie the way I could be on a low-budget movie.

It felt like I was sort of... It took a few years to come out too, didn't it? It took years because the editing process, there were just a lot. I mean, look, I'm not going to relitigate what happened, but basically there were, there were a lot of cooks where I was not in creative control of the movie. Oh, I see.

You just have to be a good soldier and play along because you've kind of agreed to do it. You said, yeah. And you're just, but it's all these like little, it's, you realize these things aren't, you know, the decisions aren't yours. And it's very hard to do a movie that way. Whereas Thanksgiving, I could be in more creative control. But really, I was at the point now where I was like, I don't want to deal with the ratings board, even though I love the ratings board and they've been great.

If I'm going to make a horror movie, I want it to be like full on, like terrifier level, horrific, like insane. Like you can't fucking believe someone did that, which is what I had on hostile. Even in cabin fever, people were like, whoa, this is shocking for the time it was. Hostile, people couldn't believe that I put that in a movie. And it was still, every movie I've ever done, people are like,

you gotta take that out. That's too much. You got to take that out. And I was like, I can't do this anymore. Like, why even do this? If you're just going to listen to these other people's opinions, it doesn't work that way. I'm either going to live or die by my own film. But at least it'll be mine. So, do you ever, does it ever cross your mind like worrying about, you know, the desensititization of people to violence and to gore and that it somehow is, no.

No. I mean, I think people know it's fake. There's just a difference to be fantasy. Yeah. There's a good story and a bad story. Yeah. I think it's like you can have all the gore you want. It doesn't mean it's shocking.

Yeah. It's just gross or it's fine. Especially we're used to it. Everybody's seen everything. There's nothing that's, so to come up with inventive ways, people go, oh my God, that is perverse. That is sick. That's fucked up. People are like, want to see it because they're afraid,

but then they've got to see it to know what that looks like. So that's the zone I like to live in with, you know, with visceral heart. I mean, for years, I had ice cream, man. I had the script after Cabin Fever, a version of the script that Noah wrote. And I had the story written, and then I hired Noah to write the script. And I know it's like one of my best friends from childhood. And people were like, this is too sick. You can't do this.

And then when I, I think it was after Borderlands, I was like, I need to just start my own thing, where I saw what Terrifier did. And those guys put an unrated horror movie in theaters and made $50 million. I was like, okay, we're here, where it's acceptable enough that it's gore is mainstream. People love it. Horror fans have grown up with it. If you watch Hossil 20 years ago, you're a parent now. Like, you want to, teenagers want to be shocked.

And the great thing about horror is you can pirate a movie, but you can't pirate the adrenaline rush. You can get comedy on your phone. You watch funny videos and laugh. You can get drama on television. But to get scared, you have to be in a theater. It's not going to be the same. You can watch the movie at your house. You can watch it on your phone.

It's not the same. It's like Coachella. You don't watch Coachella. It's like, I saw Coachella. I watched it on my phone. It's like, no, you didn't. You weren't there. You have to be there.

It's like a roller coaster. You cannot, like, when you see obsession in the theater, you have to be part of that cultural moment. To get the maximum impact scare, you're only going to get it in a theater, screaming with other people. Yeah. And it's fun. So that, it's like you're giving people,

as the director, one of the most best memories of their life. You know, it's like, okay, did you watch the movies? Sure, you don't remember watching movies you saw on television, but you remember every theatrical experience. Like, I remember being in the theater, seeing aliens. I remember seeing Beverly Hills Cop. I remember seeing Blue Velvet. You know, I remember seeing all of these films.

And yeah, I have great experiences watching stuff on home video because it wasn't out. But those movies that you went out opening nights of scene in a theater, whether it was Blair Witch, when I saw Scream the first time, which was like, oh, my God, we're seeing something. And that's the experience you want to give people. So it still happens. That's what I love about, well, like especially obsession. Like, you know, I'm in it for half a second.

And I, they said, you know, my agent told me, hey, there's this young up-and-coming guy that everyone's real hot on. And here's some stuff on YouTube that he shot, which I watched. I watched like a little sort of feature act that they made for $4. And it was fantastic. And I read the script and it was the most bananas. Yeah. Fantastic thing. And I was like, yeah, absolutely.

And I kind of, I had this hunch. Like, this is, like, I want to see what happened. I want to see this on the screen. Yeah. And there's not a lot. You know, I do things sometimes. And it's like, you know, I might never see this. You know, especially with indie stuff.

Sure. And I, but I was like, I want to see what, how this comes out. I want to see this on the screen. And just from the poise that he had already exhibited in these YouTube movies. Now, he had such control. Also, like, you know, they talk about 10 years to be an overnight success. I mean, Kane Parsons was, what, 11 years on YouTube? Yeah.

Curry was nine years on YouTube. I mean, these guys were doing characters and sketches. It's like Zach Craigor with the whitest, you know, kids you know, like he had done character sketches died of Jordan Peel. They're shooting. They're doing character sketch, die. The comedy horror. overlap is really pretty interesting.

Yeah, it's the flip sides. Yeah, it's just set up and payoffs. Set up and payoff. Misdirect, yeah, misdirect. You're looking this way, hit him that way. Yeah. So there's a real, look, I always almost get accused that my horror movies sometimes are too funny or too sick or like it,

but again, it goes back to Holy Grail of laughing at someone in their arms and legs chopped off. Yeah, yeah. You're still alive. It's the funniest thing I'd ever seen. Right. And it's also two different ways of dealing with the death fantasy. Yeah.

Like you either are laughing at it or you're scared. by it and you know and often the scare is followed by laughter you know and sometimes like when i saw i've only seen obsession once and it was kind of the premier screening thing and there were times when and i i talked to curry afterwards and i was like there's some times in that movie where people are laughing and i'm like what the fuck are you laughing at and he's like i know he's like i'm like it's fucked up that you're laughing at this part. Like, I don't, I don't want you to laugh at this part. There's stuff in movies where the audience always surprises you.

Yeah. Stuff that you're certain is going to kill or jokes that aren't going. And then other things, I'm like, I guess that's funny. Yeah, yeah. I guess that's hilarious. That's just every movie, there's surprises. You have no idea what audiences are going to think. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, you've started your own company. I mean, I'm sure you had before, but horror section. Yeah, the horror section. And that is, and it's purely for unrated. Yeah, I mean, that's the idea is I just want to have an idea and now we can release it in theaters wide. Yeah. You know, and I went to all the theaters, it's the AMC, Regal, Cinemark, and said, hey, if I make these movies, we guys put them out.

And so it's basically started my own mini studio where I could just make my own stuff. Do you have that on paper? Like, are they like, yes, we guarantee or is it, you know? No, I've sat down with them at, you know, at CinemaCon in Vegas. Yeah. Like now they're booking the movie and booking the theater. have a great relationship with them. Yeah.

And they know what I do. That's sweet. My name can attract a certain audience. So that's what I wanted. And there's a movie called Stiletto that we're going to put out in October. So I'm really, really excited about it. I just wanted to be able to make a movie because I know how to make stuff low budget. And I know how to make it look big budget.

Yeah. And just give new filmmakers opportunities and find new actors and write new cast members and just come up with something that's going to be the craziest stuff that anyone see. Like, just have fun. Yeah. Have a good time. I'm going to do a movie with Snoop Dog called Don't Go in That House, bitch. Which I'm so excited.

Nas is an investor in the company. So it's like, yeah, it's just like, what is that movie? It's going to be a fucking bad shit crazy haunted. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the plot? I don't know, don't go in the fucking house. Yeah, yeah. It's wrong with you.

No, it's pretty easy log line. Yeah, yeah. You know? Yeah. So like that kind of stuff, whereas you took that to a studio. They go, well, you can't use a movie of that. I go, well, no, but you don't get the joke. Right.

You don't get that, like, horror fans would. go see that. Yeah. I understand you're embarrassed at a dinner party. If you tell someone that your studio is making a movie called Don't Go on the House, Binge, I think it's hilarious and I don't care. Right. You know, you're not going for respectability. You're going for fun. Yeah. And is that kind of, you don't

have anything left undone. You don't have any like big, you know, high-minded, you know, merchant ivory type movie in the back of your head that you'd like to do. There's always that kind of stuff, but I would have done it by now. I have too many other horror movie ideas I've got to do first. I have like 600 movie ideas that I guess I should write down to short stories in case I croak tomorrow and have them out there somewhere.

Someone can make them. Yeah. But the whole point of the company was I have so many ideas that I don't want to waste them at studios. I'd rather just like shoot them and put them out there. And hand them off to other people? No, I'd rather just make them myself. Yeah. 600 is a lot though, Eli.

Okay, maybe I'll get to. Okay, but if I get to the top 10 or top 20, that's good. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. Well, ice cream man, do you know when it's coming out? August 7th. August 7th. August 7th. Yeah. I got to see the like the first half of it because I got a screening thing and I didn't notice that it turned off last night at 8.30 p.m. So when I sat down at 10 p.m. to watch it, I was like, oh no. No, no, but then I got it this morning.

I didn't decide those times. No, I know. I know. Well, it's always to me it's like and, you know, I'm not going to pirate the movie. I swear, you know, like, just you can let me watch. But you got to see some of the carnage. I did. I did. I got to see some of the old school gore. It's like the birds, but with children.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like saving Private Ryan, but with kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. You can't hide in a phone booth from children that want to kill you. Someone snarky on the, they were like on some comment about this is just weapons in a waffle cone. I was like, oh, that's a great tag.

That's me. I use that. very much. No, it's very fun. It's like, I've had this. You should tag that person, like in a blur. I know. So, look, I'm, uh, it's great.

I'm really proud of it. This is an idea we've had, it was invasion of the body snatchers, dawn and the dead, the children, the children, I saw when I was a kid that freaked me out with these school bus of kids go through toxic gas.

Village of the Dan. Village named killed. I did a whole episode of History of Horror on Killer Kids. I love Killer Kid, but this is something I've wanted to do. There was actually a Spanish film called Who Can Kill a Child.

That's so good. I actually had the script for Ice Cream Man. And then I watched You Can Kill a Child, then I went, oh, I'll never make a movie this good. And then years later, and having my own daughter, I was like, it's time. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming in. It's been great talking to you. Great talking to you too.

And everybody, go see Ice Cream Man and be prepared for lots of goo. A lot of the red stuff. Lots of red stuff. I tried to break my record for the most amount of, most amount of gold. And did you? I think so. Oh, good. It's the most kills per minute or pretty.

second. It's just, it's unhinged. Yeah. I just kept going. I wouldn't, there was no, off switch. Normally, I'm like, well, I can't do that or I got to pace it. I was just like, no, go, go, go more. What if that happened? That, let's add that. Let's add that. Let's add that. Is it hard to convince kids in Canada's parents to let them murder people on camera? They're like, yeah, go ahead. Go for it. They love them up. Chop them up. These kids, they all watch Walking Dead. They've all seen terrifier. The parents, like, we told everyone very clearly what we were doing. And actually, the parents have to have visual contact with their children. at all times on set.

So even if we're in a tight spot where, like, there's, we're in the school or in the classroom, in the hallway, we'd have a little, like, monitor, and I'd have all the moms around me. Yeah. And so they would all, they'd do that kind of quasi-flirting to get their kid in the movie more. They're like, wait, you're the director?

Oh, my gosh, you're really young. Are you also, you're like, wait, you're like an actor too. Yeah. I've, yeah, you kind of look like you should be in front of the camera. You're the beard, right? My daughter would love a fake head. Can you just put a severed arm? Can you give her an axe?

You can cover my child in blood. She loves it. She loves it. It was so fun. It was like Christmas. No direct and required. You put the kids in the blood and the makeup. They just go crazy.

They know what to do. Yeah, the parents are like, oh, this is my kid knows how to use the saw really well. Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. Well, thank you so much, Eli. What a pleasure. It was great.

And thank you all for listening. And I'll be back next week with more of the three questions. The three questions with Andy Richter is a team Cocoa. production. It is produced by Sean Doherty and engineered by Rich Garcia. Additional engineering support by Eduardo Perez and Joanna Samuel. Executive produced by Nick Leow,

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