SPEAKER_01 0:00

Dread Alert Media. Hello, my fellow Dreadites. Welcome back to the Dread Alert Podcast. Today I'm joined by Martin Melnick, director of Lily Lives Alone, a film that just released and a film that I am extremely excited to talk about. This is Martin's first feature, and it is a commendable effort from the entire production team and the cast. This film is excellent. I highly recommend you check it out. But before I ramble on too long about how much I enjoyed this film, Martin, welcome to the Dread Alert Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

I'm excited to talk with you. I think this film dives deep into some very substantial themes and still leaves me with more questions than I have answers. And I think that's a mark of a good film when you're still thinking about it a week or two or three after you've seen it, and you're still thinking about it after a second viewing like I had today. So first and foremost, I want to say how commendable that is and to say congratulations for getting this out into the world.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Thank you so much. Yeah, it's been a multi-year process. I'm very excited about it. I'm excited for people to actually see it now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Yeah. I and I hope people check it out. Um so let's start at the beginning. What got you started as a filmmaker? What got you interested in film? And you know, give us a little bit of your backstory.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Sure. Uh it's a long one. Um, don't talk about it often, but when I was a kid, I was an actor. Um, I was like one of those uh one of those child actors for a while, um doing small things, little indie projects, indie films, um little commercials here and there. And then um as I got older, uh I discovered that it wasn't really my passion, but was on set enough to sort of speak with people who are working on the projects and became enamored with the idea of making films and uh sort of took off from there. I went to I went to film school in Montana. Um I live in Portland and I've been working in the film industry uh since uh here since uh 2010, um doing production and post-production. And um yeah, so it's been kind of a a lifelong effort, I guess, on my part, but uh sort of a uh really committed effort for the last um, I don't know, last uh 20 years really.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Yeah, well, it shows honestly, and I I relate to that a lot. I I started as an actor, then a director, and now doing whatever this is, uh making content on the internet about horror movies. But um it's wild how your history can add up to more than the sum of its parts and lead you to a moment. And this certainly is a moment. Um I'm curious, what got you interested in horror? Because Lily Lives Alone is a horror film, uh, a horror film unlike what your traditional horror films might be. It's it's a psychological horror film, it's a ghost story, it's a number of things all wrapped into one. What drew you to the genre?

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Well, I love horror. Um I've I've loved horror since I was a kid. Uh the first horror movie I ever saw was Poltergeist, and I saw it when I was maybe six years old, seven years old, so probably a little too young for it. But uh enamored with ghost stories, really. I mean, I like I like all horror films, but um I'm I I've I've said this in other in other uh interviews, but I um, you know, I I really gravitated towards wanting to tell sort of character dramas, like like small character stories, first and foremost. Um, but the more I sort of developed characters, the more I wanted to work on scripts and really like get deep into sort of the root causes of like drama, I realized that horror is the nth degree of drama. That that the more you sort of deep dive into a character's psyche, the more you realize that everything we experience, everything we go through together, uh leads you back to what we're afraid of. And you know, that um people talk about that in NVC, um nonviolent communication, that like there's usually like an internal, like uh something you're insecure or afraid of that uh leads you to project or leads you to something else. Um, and and to me that's that's drama. Drama is horror. And uh horror just allows you to investigate it in a dark, in a dark and really, really deep way. And I already love horror movies, so it was like a natural extension of what I was interested in. I was like, okay, we can do this. And that's why it's a little non-traditional. It is, you know, it's a horror film, it's a ghost movie, like you said, but it's also um it's also heavily dramatic. It's it's it's it's it's a character study um in addition to being a horror film.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Those are some of my favorite style of films, the character studies. And also I really love ghost stories. And I think you're onto something there. I think horror might be the most ancient form of catharsis. It's the you know, what we were literally, it kept us alive. It was what we were afraid of, and we had to exercise that in some way. Um, I talk about this on our we have a sub-channel where I talk about horror theory a lot, and you hit the nail right on the head. I could I couldn't have said it better. It's interesting to me though, this film does get really deep into Lily's psyche, uh, to the point where, you know, if you're if you're engaged in the film, you're unsure what's memory, what's not memory, what's real, what's not real, um, what's paranoia. I wonder what was the inspiration for Lily herself uh or for the the film in general? And I know you've answered this before, but for our audience's sake, give us a peek behind the curtain. Where did this all come from?

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Sure. Um initially, so uh Sarah Johnson, the producer, um uh, she's also my wife. Uh, we sort of developed the initial story together. Um, a lot of it came from a challenge from her. So we've had other projects that we wanted to get off the ground, but they were beyond the scope of what we could do in our small with our indie budget and our in our smaller crew and all that stuff. So it came from a challenge with her where it was like, okay, you want to tell a story. What can you tell a story that's just a few, you know, two characters in a room kind of kind of story? And I was like, I can definitely do that. And then I came back with an initial pitch and it was like eight characters and a couple in a grocery store and uh in multiple rooms and some outside and some exterior shots. And she was like, this is still way out of scope. Um, but let's let's start here, let's start to craft it around this. This is at least, you know, this is more contained. So really it was like this idea of, okay, um, you know, we've talked a lot about uh generational trauma. We've talked a lot about things that experiences that both of us have had a lot um from her her life as well. And and so there's a lot of like, there's a lot of like long conversations that that no one will see, but went into this sort of listening and understanding and sharing and being vulnerable and and and all these experiences that went into this idea of, well, how can we put all those into developing a story that's really that's really contained, that's that's centers around this one person going through something so that we can have the sort of orbiting sphere of of what they're going through and in this in this one place. Um and it sort of becomes this like idea that it's all centered around one time and one place, and and everything that's been like sort of bubbling up, everything, this, this whole like historical this culmination of all of Lily's trauma, all Lily's all history, her childhood, everything sort of comes to a head in this one one space in one night. And and that was sort of the the initial sort of jumping off was this this discussion between my wife and I.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

That's really interesting. And I want to put a pin in that because Sarah, my wife asked in this interview to talk about Lily's relationship with her mother and how that affects things. But I want to put a pin in that for a moment because I think this film has such a distinct visual style. And I wonder, were there any filmmakers that uh contributed to your cinematic vocabulary or served as an inspiration for some of the more surreal aspects of this film? Because you do some really interesting things with this film.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Cool. Oh yeah, awesome. Thank you. Um yeah, um, so there's a lot of inspiration from from other genre filmmakers and and non-genre filmmakers that I love. Um uh Bergman is a bit is a big inspiration. Um, I said that there's a lot of like a, there's a there's a it's a there's a lot of references to um Hour of the Wolf, which is a favorite of mine, with this sort of like uh if you've seen it, it's it's great. It's this sort of this this long like sort of death march, uh, I guess uh that becomes surreal and and and and sort of greeted by ghosts in this this party scenario. Um and it's and it's uh very surreal. Um uh Kyoshi Kirisawa's Cure and Pulse actually were in the initial, like, so I shot the movie as well. So the the a lot of my mood boards and all that were were from like cure and pulse and honestly a lot of uh Japanese cinema from like the early 2000s and late 90s. Um but uh but combined with some some some other, I guess, more surrealist uh uh references. But yeah, I really like the idea. Initially, um my boards were all uh everything draped in shadow. I wanted I wanted pockets of light. So uh if you if you watch it, and there's there's other aspects of the film that that change over time that sort of reinforce the sort of um the unreliable narrator that she's going through as the night progresses. And part of that is like the movie gets uh as as things get weirder, the movie gets more saturated. Um so the movie starts a little bit less saturated at the beginning and it becomes a little bit more rich. So it becomes darker, richer. Um, as we get more in her head, uh uh shots become more subjective. So like certain certain shots will be literally just a patch of light in a corner where you can see what you need to see, but everything else is draped in shadow. And that gets more honed in as we get further and further into her head space. And that was sort of designed as like a um as like as we get further and further along in this um narrative, how can we reinforce that sort of internal psyche with Lily by by you know really planning out not just the aura aspects, but the way it looks?

SPEAKER_01 9:14

I'm so glad you mentioned uh that you shot it. Uh and you were also the writer. We should we should give you all of the flowers.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Uh but we had a wonderful crew too. I don't want to take take all the credit, but it was a lot of hats.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Yeah, I I I totally relate to that. Um, but it has uh you know really interesting cinematography from these Dutch angles to the appearance of those uh specters off just right outside of your like focal point. There are specters appearing left and right. And one thing that really struck me, specifically at the beginning of the film, but also as we progress through the night, is the haziness of the film. That scene in the bedroom at the opening of the film after the initial montage-ish sort of uh exteriors. We have this haze, and it it's evocative of cigarette smoke, but I also wonder if it's not the sort of haze, a visual metaphor for the haze that Lily's going through. So now that I'm at my question, my question is how did you achieve that with such clarity in the foreground? And also, am I onto something? Is that was that a was that a distinct choice that was made? Of course it was a choice that was made, it's on the film, but was that a distinct choice that was leading us as a visual metaphor somewhere?

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Uh I mean that's an awesome question. Um, I don't know how much the aside from the fact that I uh that I wanted the whole atmosphere, like the the the film, though the whole house is supposed to feel sort of lived in from her past. So, like this idea of like like a house where her her mother and her father would have smoked for you know decades before, where you can't really show that on camera that that this is a I mean aside from seeing Lily continue to smoke in a sort of diegetic way, you can't really uh illustrate that well without getting close that wallpaper is tobacco stained, or that um that you can't smell a movie, so we have to show how it smells. Um, and and it really give you that sort of visceral aspect. And yeah, so so now I wouldn't say that the the haze that we added and controlled was designed to necessarily replicate the sort of haze of the narrative so much as it was to give the space the lived-in amount of like weight that Lily would feel when she's in each room. Um but I love that idea, and I love the the fact that that that felt like that to you because that's that's great that it reinforces that. But it was definitely meant to feel like you could sense the place. And and it's unfortunately without you know cutting to a thousand flashbacks where someone is, you know, on a diatribe smoking, uh, the the best way we could do that was was really show you that there's, and if you really look close, it's crazy. This is props to our amazing production design team or art team, but there's um dust lines around the picture frames. There's there's cigarette burns that you will probably never see unless you were to somehow, I don't know, frame by frame through this movie, but there's little curls where someone put out cigarettes on a table. You know, there's like there's all these different little um little blots and little marks and blemishes that really, and then the haze just adds this like extra layer of it wasn't really so much a cinema cinematography uh uh choice. We weren't necessarily trying to, you know, we weren't necessarily trying to cast beams in in the room. It really was this like, how does this feel like a lived in, smoked in, um organic, you know, house that's been there forever, you know, in her mind forever.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

It really put my my dad was a smoker, it put me right back in that place. So it was extremely effective. And the the cast felt lived in as well. These performances felt lived in. What was the casting process like? And how how did you arrive at these actors? They were all so perfect for their roles, including, and I want to just highlight Jeffrey Combs, who was playing against type or the type that we would typically expect to see him in. He this was not a campy performance, but it was some of his most brilliant work.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

Oh, thank you. Yeah, I mean he's he's a genius. Everyone knows that. I know it, y'all know it. Uh, but that was actually really important to him. It was important to me that like, and I and I said in our first, um, I'll come back to the other casts, but um when I when we first brought on Jeffrey, you know, him and I had long conversations. He read the script, he he understood the script immediately. He was he was so into it. Um, he he had so many insights to the character and to the story. And um, it was like honestly, like it was so touching. Like he he put so much heart into it. And um, I I told him right off the bat, I was like, you know, uh, I'm a fan of yours from growing up, I'm a fan of yours from your genre work, but I'm also a fan of yours and Star Trek. I'm a fan of yours uh because of the huge range of dynamic characters you are capable of playing. He is like one of the most versatile actors uh ever. He's iconic for a reason. Um, but we had these long conversations about how real and he understood the assignment. Like it wasn't like a question. In fact, to the to the degree where he was sending me texts with um images of like six different pairs of glasses uh that he owned that he thought Russell might wear, and he'd be like, no, this one maybe he'd wear, but you know, it's it's a little smaller, it looks a little more studious, a little more academic. I don't think he would have worn this. I think he would have done this. Like he was sending me all these different ideas. He did he had these ideas to wear gloves, like when he was outside while he was smoking, all these different things that he was bringing, he was really helping shape this character along the way. Um, and we both just knew that it needed to be this, this really like lived-in, believable character that wasn't, you know, wasn't, you know, in no shade to the other ones that are big because he's in so many, so many fun, campy movies. But we both knew that this was not a campy performance going in, that this wasn't a comedy, that this was a very, you know, um, because it's dealing with such heavy subject matter that we both needed to be in like a really dark headspace together, and he needed to be in a dark headspace with the other characters, with with Shannon, um, and and especially in those scenes that they have together where they're you know both in it so much. Um they just I don't know, it was just a conversation from the beginning, and we understood. And it was exciting to see. Like I've had people talk to me and they were like, I'm waiting for Jeffrey Combs to be on screen. And then they they're like, Oh my gosh, you know, because you don't usually see him not clean cut, you don't see him um in in the way he's presenting, and it's such a transformative performance. And and it just for me reinforces why he's the greatest of all time. He's amazing. Yeah, it was all an honor to work with him. It was so great.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Uh, we had the chance to speak with him doing press coverage of Nightmare Weekend, and he not only had amazing things to say about you, but he was really grateful for the opportunity for the genre audience to see him in something that wasn't necessarily what they would expect. And uh that the first thing we did, I was like, I love you in Reanimator. Will you sign this poster? Also, Lily lives alone. And he was like, How did you see that? It's amazing. It was wonderful. Uh, that's awesome. So I love that. Making connections for me here. You're fantastic. Uh but tell me about Shannon and Ryan Jones and how they got involved in the project.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Yeah, so the the parts were written for both of them. Um, they're awesome. They're friends. Um, I met them at a film festival in Portland in 2014. They were touring with another friend's uh film, The Demon Deep in Oklahoma. It's an incredible short film. It's like 35 minutes long, and maybe the best thing you go look it up. I think it's online now. Um, her performance in that is also just astronomically good. Uh, and um it's beautiful. It's it's it's an incredible horror film. It's great. Um, uh, and it's a drama and horror. It's it's wonderful. Um, but uh so I I was at this film festival and I saw I had a film there and I saw their film and I was just enamored. So I ran up and introduced myself afterwards to the director and to her, and and I was like, oh man, I would love to talk to you. And we ended up spending the whole weekend that they were here in Portland for the festival, uh, going out to karaoke and getting breakfast and talking, and and then we just sparked up a friendship and um we worked on multiple projects together. And and Shannon was actually in a short film uh that I directed in 2017 that uh released in 2018 called Circle and actually a sort of little Easter egg, the what she's watching on TV, uh that she's falling asleep to when she starts to sort of envision herself in the TV. That's the short film that Shannon and I made in 2017 together. Um, which also works because the film, uh, if you watch it, look it up. That's also available online. It's uh it's a uh it's a modernization of a myth, and it's basically about a couple that are uh driving around at night in sort of a purgatory style loop um and sort of stuck in stuck in their ways.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

I I noticed that they that they saw a sign and they were like, I we passed that sign before. And I I might have been reading too deeply into the thematic elements, which we're gonna talk about a little later on. But um, we could go down a Greek rabbit hole here. I was gonna say that the setting feels Aristotelian with the with the well-made play, one location over the course of a day. I we I I we would be great friends in terms of our love of myth, I think.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Um but before I go circles of modernization of of the myth of Eurydice. So like it's it's all Ovid. So like, yeah, I definitely could talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

I I will be checking that out as soon as we're off this call for sure. That is awesome. Uh I'm impressed with the performances. They fit these actors like well-tailored suits. Uh, and and knowing that that was written for them is enlightening because not that it felt that way, it just felt like really skilled performers doing really great work. Do you have a method of developing a performance with an actor? And I know we talked about this a little bit with Jeffrey, but was there something on set that you were doing to sort of coax these performances out of the actors? They were so believable. And one other thing I'll notice is that my allegiances to the characters changed over the course of the film. I thought, wow, Jed's sleazy, and then we end up at a place where he's really sympathetic. Or, oh, you know, Lily is uh so empathetic, and then maybe later on it might it might shift a bit. And I thought that was just very interesting and very nuanced, lived in and grounded performances.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Awesome. That's amazing. Yeah, um, that's the the one hard thing is that it is that we wanted these characters to be really complex. And unfortunately for for a lot of folks, you know, it means it's hard to to it's hard to just like I guess passively latch on to somebody. The thing is that all these characters are going through different levels of pain throughout the movie. They're all they're all in their own, their own way, their own, you know, heads, and they're they're all experiencing different things and they're sort of colliding in this one night together in different ways. And and so yeah, it it's it's gonna push and pull you. It's definitely not like, you know, it's not easy to digest. It asks a lot of you, it asks you to be in it with them. And um, it's a heavy experience. It is a real experience. Um, in terms of working with the actors, so uh I don't like to do read throughs so much. I mean, we did do a read-through to to answer questions, and I don't like rehearsals. Um, so we don't really do that. Um, for me, I I want to find an actor and actresses and actors that that um I want to work with that I already know that they're gonna bring their sort of uh empathetic uh perspectives to the roles. And so for me, what it is is two things. Um, and and this, this is, you know, not that I'm an expert in anything, but in my experience, this has been the best is once you find an actor that you want to work with, it's uh it's not about trying to, I'll never feed them a line. Um it's about creating a really first creating a really safe space for them. So recognizing that these are not easy things to do, that these are really vulnerable, really, you know, emotionally dangerous for for some characters, some scenes, emotionally dangerous for for people to get into this sort of psyche. And and especially when you have to do it over and over again. And you know, there's horror stories about directors in the past who've just you know pushed to the limits and they might get great performances out of it, but what at what cost? So for me, it's about giving them a safe space where they can feel comfortable uh to be vulnerable. As long as they feel supported, um, you'll get those kinds of performances. And then the other thing is when we're going through the script, uh it's answering questions. So the whole for me, I'm a I'm a question, I'm a question and answer person for them. It's well, uh they they you can have the best actor in the world, but if they don't understand what some motivation on the page is, it really doesn't matter. Um, then they're just guessing or you know, uh trying, trying out a performance. And I don't, I didn't want anything, any part of this film to be a performance. I wanted it to be uh I wanted them to be in it. And so um really carefully explaining and discussing and collaborating over what almost line by line, what what is the underlying desire here? What's going on? What are what are these characters trying to get from each other? What's the motivation here? How are you feeling? And then once we sort of were on the same page of that, then it's just creating the atmosphere and giving them a safe space and then working through it from there. And yeah, there's some redirection, you know, and and some changes and some notes and things like that. But in general, it's it's really just crafting that space for them to be able to be vulnerable. And um, that's that's usually how I approach UDN.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

That's really refreshing to hear. I think that in a visual medium, it's oftentimes the tablework that gets sidetracked the the question and answers. And uh in my experience, and again, my background is in theater, not film, the best performances are crafted with the script in hand, and then letting people rip and be free uh whenever it's time to go. I that's really refreshing to hear. There are some things that probably required a lot of planning and a lot of Not script work, a lot of hands-on work, and that was the practical effects. And these are fantastic. Now I had the pleasure of seeing the featurette that was in your press kit. I don't know that my audience will have had the benefit of seeing that, at least at this point. Can you talk a little bit about how you achieved this sort of cell division in utero and the fetus, the appearance of the fetus? And it's no big spoiler. This does have to deal with pregnancy. So yeah. Oh no. But the the the effects here were so believable. And it wasn't until after I watched that featurette that I was like, oh yeah, I can I can see how that might have been the case. Then that's how that was achieved. But when I was watching it on my first go, I was like, what how did they this looks absolutely believable, 100% realistic? So I was sold. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Awesome. Um I actually just released an article on Fangoria about it. Um, so that's pretty cool. Uh check it out on their website. But um I sort of did like a little uh expose on how how I did it. But yeah, essentially, um, so onset all of our practical effects were done by our effects artist Carlo Mary. Um, and he killed it. He designed uh like a pregnancy rig for Lily, um, like that could pulsate and move um and everything. I don't want to say too many spoilers, but all the gore effects, and then um, I'll just say, and and this is in promos, but like uh uh the bathtub of blood, which is actually one of the hardest things to do because if it's not just red water, it's got the viscosity of blood that actually took probably the longest on the whole set to do, the whole shoot. Um, so all the stuff done um on set was done was done by him and and and really and designed beautifully. And then uh for all the stuff that you're talking about, the womb and the cells, um, I did that in studio later. And um I have a background from just from making music videos and projects of my own that uh where I uh used to build miniature sets and stop motion um rigs for for different projects. And so uh when I initially tried to do a couple CGI tests in early pre pre-production, and I hated everything that I came up with, mostly because I'm not good at CGI, but also just because I didn't like how it would sell, but it was like, there's some CGI. Um and I was like, okay, there's just no reason. What's how can we figure this out? So I looked at a few other references, I looked at other projects that have done something somewhat similar, and I sort of scaled it down for our production. I was like, okay, well, I only need these kinds of shots. How can I achieve this? So um, yeah, it's all done in studio with fish tanks and miniatures, um, and uh experimenting with everything from dish soap to oil to milk to fake blood and other things, and then shot with different like lighting and setups. And um I'm yeah, check out that featurette because it's pretty interesting. But um, it's fish tanks with cut-up garbage bags and rubber and and suspended miniatures and um it's it's in my opinion, beautifully simple. It's simpler than you'd expect. Um, and uh, but we got really awesome results with it.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

I'm so glad you went with the practical effects. It just it contributes to the heart of this film. I think that the CGI would have probably taken me right out of it. So I'm glad you made the choice you made. And if you're looking for that featurette, we'll probably have that link in our roundup on our Substack. So go ahead and check that out over there as well. I did see that on Fangoria now that you mention it. Um yeah, so memory, and I'm I'm gonna shift gears away from the practical effects because I think that at the for me, at least what I've taken away from this, and you can tell me that I'm wrong, please. I would love to be enlightened. But memory is how you open this film. You open with a monologue about memory, and there's that scene from Circle where they're passing the same uh sign, they remember that sign, and I may be picking up breadcrumbs that aren't there, but I feel like memory is at the heart of this film as a theme. Um when you're what when you're talking about memory in this film and death in this film, uh, thematically, without giving any spoilers, what what kind of ground are we treading here? Is this is this a film about memory, about death, about we'll talk about more themes later. Uh, but yeah, am I on the right track? I guess is the question. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Yeah, so the the importance of memory. So this comes back to generational trauma for me and the idea that that, and this is this is this is something you can kind of like deep dive into, but uh memory is incredibly unreliable when you have extreme, especially like CPTSD. Um there's a whole reason why people do EMDR therapy and other therapies, but like like crafting not only reliable memory, but even trying to piece together like a sequence of events that's happened to you in your past to try to understand or even work towards healing becomes very, very difficult when you've experienced extreme trauma. So, from a trauma-informed like perspective, uh memory is like at the crux of everything. And uh this idea that um it it sort of comes to what was interesting to me was this idea, this intersection between that and the idea of ghosts as memories. So for me, the idea of ghosts and memories don't necessarily have to be at odds with each other because in many ways, whether you believe in literal ghosts or you believe in like this like idea of like a figurative haunting of some of sorts, that memories are something that you carry with you that you can't necessarily get away from. They keep you up at night. Sometimes they keep me up at night, or you're sitting, you know, in a dark room and all you can think about are the thoughts in your head. And and so in that way, I liked the idea of the sort of intersection that like uh traumatic memories aren't really different than ghosts, in that they both haunt you and they're both they're both can be completely possessive. Um and so yeah, that was definitely a major part of it. And this idea is actually more, and I'll give you a little secret. So the opening shot is is there's a shot of the ocean. It's like the first thing you see is this sort of almost monolithic spire in the ocean as she's talking about making a memory. So there's little, even more Easter eggs than what you're on to, there's other Easter eggs built into the edit. As soon as she says this, and this is like the one thing I'll give away that's like built in the edit, there's other ones you can have fun finding them if you want to. Don't if someone wants to. Um, as soon as she says that, uh, the shot actually repeats and you wouldn't know that it repeats. Um, it's it's it's very, very subtle. In fact, you you won't see it unless you're looking for it, but the same bird flies back in the same line in the background twice, right? As soon as she says you make a memory, um, it it comes back. And it's the first signaling in the first shot that I wanted to let everybody know that the movie is going to play with memory and play with fragmentation as you go. And it does that through, but it's very subtle.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

I love that so much. Um, I mean, I could go into oh, what is the water symbolizes that our deep collective undeep uh subconscious mind? I I could go there for hours, and I don't think that this is the venue to do that. I'll I'll bug you another time. Because I I still find myself wrestling with this film and in in the best possible way. I think that's the mark of a good film. Um, and I think it's clear that I want to be delicate here. I don't know that everyone we see or everything that we see in this film is real. And I suspect maybe a few characters, this is my suspicion, this is not coming from Martin. I suspect that a few characters might not be real. Um can you ballpark me here? How much of what we're seeing is actually occurring on this night and how much of this is Lily alone in her house, uh going through some real dark stuff? And you don't have to answer. I like I if you want to say I don't want to give this away, that's a fine question to do that on. This is your pass.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

What I would say, and this is gonna sound like a cop-out answer, but it's not. What I would say is that answer will change for you each time you watch the movie, depending on where you're coming from and where you're at. And and and I don't want it to say like, oh, I I don't have a decision. I know, I know it's explicitly what's what's going on, but I think it's important that uh the the main takeaway be what Lily is able to do for herself by the end of the movie, rather than um how much of it was literally happening and how much of it is um, how much of it is supernatural, how much of it is is is is you know, there's little hints about what's real. You see moments um from external perspectives that are not necessarily hers. But um I would say that that's one of the things that I found most interesting about making the movie is that the and what rewatching the movie um is that the your perspective will shift each time you watch a little bit. And um I don't want to, yeah, I think that that's I think that's that's I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

That's perfect. No, that's I I would be remiss if I didn't ask the question, but that has certainly been my experience of the film. Um, even after watching the film this afternoon, and then my wife watched it this afternoon uh adjacently in two different offices. Uh I was like, hey, uh what about this moment? She's like, no, no, no. That moment, if you look in the corner of the frame, you see this, which anchors us in reality. Like we had a discourse about one frame of the film to kind of like prove our theories. And again, like I said, I think that's the mark of a good film. But we we talked about uh sort of thematically and what Lily's going through. And it's clear that this film is exploring things like grief and guilt and generational trauma, and again, my opinion not coming from the director here, repression versus acceptance. Um, is there something, and we talked a lot about you know different models of of uh sort of psychically healing uh yourself, uh healing your own psyche. Is there something specific you'd like the audience to take away from this film? And again, that's a loaded question that I always ask, but it's always a loaded question.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

Yeah, um honestly, the film asks you to experience a lot of or to bring a lot of empathy to the character. So the big the big takeaway is is is not judging. So it was a big, it was really important that Lily, um, although she's complicated and and you know, makes mistakes that that and maybe makes decisions that not everybody would make based on what she has at her disposal. But um, I it was important to me to to ask people not to judge a person um that's in that sort of circumstance. And so the big takeaway here is that um is that and it's kind of almost said explicitly in the movie that that people are just people and they make mistakes. And there's not really I don't love the idea that there are there's no such thing as good or bad people, in my opinion. There's good or bad actions, and there's people making decisions based on what information they have or what tools they have or lack of tools or lack of resources or whatever. And you know, you can condemn actions, but you can't, you shouldn't really throw out people. And so uh yeah, I guess a big takeaway for for me, or that I want people to take away, is is is to just uh have some empathy for for for people going through situations that maybe you have never experienced or wouldn't go through. Um, and uh yeah, so yeah, that's why it asks so much of the audience to to to be in be in her head space.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Yeah, I also I love that answer, and I think that's a a beautiful answer, and something that I try and uh empathy is something I try and pass on whenever, you know, you get comments, you're like, ah, how can I respond to this? And um empathetically, maybe. Um but yeah, I I think that the interesting thing about this film is that it doesn't villainize mental illness, it doesn't villainize trauma, it approaches it with a with a I mean it's scary, but it approaches it with a sensitivity that I think is necessary to successfully tell a story like this. It was really well done.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 33:13

All right, we're gonna shift gears here to two questions that I typically ask all of our guests on the Dread Alert Podcast. One is tailored to the guest and one is general, and uh take as much time and you can also have multiple answers to these questions. But what is your favorite pregnancy-based horror film?

SPEAKER_00 33:36

That's good. Umsked me that, which is funny because I haven't been asked that many questions about the pregnancy, which is kind of funny. It's a major, it's a major aspect of the film. Um, well, let me see. I think it's easier if I can I break away from can I combine pregnancy horror with uh like with uh like I guess child loss horror. Um yeah, go for it. Sort of because I I think they go hand in hand at least with this film in terms of inspiration. So films that I really love are like don't look now. Um, you know, you know, I I feel like the the obvious one is is like Rosemary's Baby, but you know, the the the aspects I do like about that movie um are the idea of sort of gaslighting and and and putting yourself into the shoes of of the protagonist, um which is like some some aspects were pulled from that in that regard. Um The Changeling also deals with the loss of a child, even though it's not really about that. It's one of my favorites. Um, and um, you know, but I've seen some other great like pregnancy horrors, uh, proxy is wonderful. Um I saw um uh uh I just saw birth rebirth, which I thought was a was a was a trip. I really enjoyed that. It was uh it was unexpected. Um I'm trying to think about specifically uh pregnancy horror. I feel like I gravitate towards uh towards the sort of grief that someone feels from from the absence or the the extreme loss more than I I sort of gravitate towards anyone, like I guess, um, like I guess pregnancy horror or uterine horror, how it's usually categorized as. Um so I'm kind of at a loss to pick pick one. Um that's a that's a really tough question. I haven't actually sort of reflected on. Oh, just sit here and mumble about different movies that I like.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

But like um I it's interesting though, for for our audience who are regular listeners, you'll know that Sarah, our co-host, is actually six months pregnant right now. So as an interviewer or as a as a reviewer, coming at it, that was something that really struck both of us. Um, obviously, as a dad of a two-year-old, the loss of a child is uh just a constant drumbeat of a fear that I have. Uh so obviously that was more effective for me, but just watching my wife and watching what the process that I'll never understand, uh, that's probably why that was on my mind so much. Um so the next one should be a little easier for you. And and I'm I'm almost positive you've considered this. But what is your overall all-time desert island favorite horror movie? And you can probably throw a couple in there too.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

That's not easy, right? Also, you can throw a couple in. I'm gonna stay up late tonight and think about the pregnancy horror question and come back and just have to message you later. Um, because something will click right afterwards, and I'll be like, duh, I love that movie. But um, favorite horror film of all time is it almost has to be categorical, honestly. Um uh because I like all horror. I mean, I like different ones, and I I've talked about this. There's some of the sort of big, big, big overarching like style uh inspirations for this movie, or like my favorite, my favorite probably stylistic horror film maker is Kyoshi Kirosawa, because like Pulse is probably I I say this to everybody. Pul Pulse is the scariest movie I've ever watched, um, at least for me, uh and Cura I love. But like like Pulse doesn't have very many jump scares. It has a uh it almost doesn't, it almost has soft, what I would call soft jump scares, where your heart just sinks, but there's not like a bang or a loud like noise. Um it's just this un unending dread that you feel the whole time you're watching it that just makes your heart sink and and feel like you feel like you're sunk. Um so I love I love that. Um in terms of like favorite horror films of all time, oh it's really tough one. Um I might need to sit on it for a little bit. Um we can come back to it. Yeah, let's come back to it. Let me let me sit on it. I mean, there I I can give you it. That's almost easier if I give you like a like a slasher and uh and a giallo and uh Hey, that's fine.

SPEAKER_01 37:40

You're more than welcome to. We we typically get multiple answers to that question.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

Um yeah, let me think about it. Let's come back to it and I'll I'll think about it for the rest of the interview.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

Well, I want to know what are you working on next? If there's any projects that you can talk about, and you can obviously say, I can't really talk about it. We got something on the fire.

SPEAKER_00 37:58

Uh have stuff on the fire. Um, I probably won't go into detail, but I have uh I have two scripts that I'm really excited about. One um I've been working on for you know six plus years. Um that's uh a really personal film to me. It's a it's a film also it's about substance use, also, and it's uh from the perspective of a child, and it has to do with uh a family member who came to live with with my parents and I when I was young and and my experiences growing up with them. Um and just um yeah, it's a it's a it's another horror film. And then um, and that one's been one that I've been like working and reworking for a long time, and I'm really excited to share that one. It just it's it's a pretty big scope, so it's it's it's a a bigger undertaking. And then um the other script I've worked on is actually an offshoot from Lily Lives Alone, and it actually follows one of the other characters in Lily Lives Alone. Um I love that that one I'm also very excited about, and I wouldn't have thought to have done that originally. I wrote it after we made this movie, but um, I sort of realized that I I really liked I really wanted to follow and investigate a uh the threat of another character in the movie more than than was in more than was able to in a movie that was about Lily. Um so it sort of deep dives into that character.

SPEAKER_01 39:14

Well, a peek behind the curtain, one of the questions that got cut from our interview today was what is Lily's relationship like with some of these other characters when it's not this specific day? And so maybe we'll have you back on when that film comes out and we can talk a lot more about that. Absolutely. Cool. Yeah. Uh where can people find you if they're interested in uh following your work or catching up with what you're up to?

SPEAKER_00 39:37

Well, I uh martinmel.com is a website. I haven't updated in a bit, but I definitely will start updating it now that sort of the movie is out and released and I have some time to work on that. Um, but uh I'm also on Instagram. I'm I'm I'm a sociable person. You can call you can you can message me on there and ask me questions and say, this is too ambiguous. Tell me what happened. You can feel free to feel free to hit me up. But uh yeah, and you can follow the movie on Dark Sky Films website, um, and they'll have updates about about that. But right now it's available for rant on all major platforms. And Dark Sky Films is um uh you know posting little promos and other things about it. So they're definitely the the people to follow and watch about that.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

All right. Well, I'm gonna give you one more chance for the horror movie if you want to go by genre.

SPEAKER_00 40:19

Amazing. Uh thank you. Um yeah, uh I hate this question. I love this question, but I hate it. Um, one of those ones I ask myself all the time, and it changes too. It changes dramatically based on on where I'm at in my own headspace. Um uh so this isn't it is a genre film, but not specifically like I wouldn't call it hard horror, but uh Carnival of Souls is one of my favorite movies of all time. Um, you can see a lot of surrealist inspiration from that. Um uh that's sort of imparted into Lily. Um, but um yeah, I it's such a huge range for me. I I I picking one favorite one is hard because I I feel like so many of them lead to this one like to a to a bigger understanding of of of the human condition. And uh, I don't know. I need to I'll I'll throw you some more picks, but but I love a lot of horror. Um Quieton is one of my favorite horror movies of all time. Um uh I really love uh coming back to our conversation earlier, I really love the idea of instilling uh mythology in in uh in in horror, and um, and I think it's a great vessel for it. And obviously some of that is steeped into the movie as well. Um so so I love those kinds of those kinds of horror movies as well.

SPEAKER_01 41:31

That's fantastic. And you gave so many good recommendations just over the course of the conversation. So if anybody's out there looking for what their next watch is, just rewind and re-listen and you'll find some great stuff in here. Martin, I cannot thank you enough for your time. I cannot thank you enough for the film. Like I keep gushing about it, and uh, even before we started this call, um, I didn't want to embarrass you with my love of the film, but I highly recommend everybody checks out Lily Lives Alone. It's available wherever you get your VOD. It is a stellar piece, it is a subtle exploration of trauma and grief and the human condition overall. And I know that's a very broad thing to say, but you'll get it when you see it, and I hope that you see it. Martin, thank you for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. As always, stay spooky, my friends.