SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello, my fellow Dread Lights. Welcome to Dread Alert. I'm Vince. Today I'm joined by Aaron Anya and Kyle Valley from ZombieCon Volume 1. And I have a guest host today, which is not normal. We have Erin from A and B Horror Movies here to help us with this podcast. And we're so excited to have all three of our guests with us today. Erin, Kyle, thank you for joining me. Erin, thank you for joining me as well.

SPEAKER_03 0:27

Thank you so much for having us.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Thank you, Vince.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Yes, and thank you for having me on. I'm very excited to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Erin, I really appreciate the support. I've been on Aaron's show a few times on A and B Horror Movies Podcast a few times, and I'm just so glad to be able to return the favor. But for ZombieCon Volume 1, I have to say I had a blast with this film. As someone who goes to conventions three to five times a year, I really enjoyed how you captured the essence of convention friendships, the essence of cosplay, and I really enjoyed the sort of underlying theme of not being an asshole to the people you care about. And I don't want to give too much about the film away, but those things really spoke to me. And I think the film is exceptionally well done. I highly recommend everybody get a chance to check it out. I want to know where did the inspiration for ZombieCon come from? Where did this idea sprout from and how did it sort of materialize for you?

SPEAKER_03 1:22

So we had gone through a very long process doing uh short films, web series, and kind of getting our feet wet and the whole production side of things, and a lot of the stuff really wasn't hitting, and we decided we needed to do something a little bit bigger. And, you know, we're a little bit crazy and decided, okay, let's go for a feature film, poking around the ideas, you know, zombies were an obvious choice with a low budget. And as I was walking through my brother's house in Florida, he's a big movie prop collector. I don't know, there are a couple props in the background here. This is my father's house, so it runs in the family. And I saw I saw a Captain America shield on the wall, and I don't know why I had this idea. I was like, wow, that would be an awesome thing to kill a zombie with. And then I was kind of, you know, going through the creative database, and I'm like, well, who would have a Captain America shield? And I was like, well, cosplayers would. I'm a cosplayer. Okay. Cosplayers versus zombies. I don't think I've seen that before. And then one thing leads to the next, and samurai swords get involved, and that's where the fun really jumps off.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

That's fantastic. Aaron, I know that we had chatted on your channel, and that episode will be available soon as well, but I wanted to toss it over to you to maybe tackle some of the questions that you hadn't had a chance to ask the last time we talked to the ZombieCon Volume 1 gang.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Oh, yeah, of course. It was such a blast um chatting with you all last time. I love your film. It's wildly fun, it's charming. Um, my gosh, I don't know. I could say so much uh praise for your movie. My first question, though, is and I think we talked about this a little bit before, but what was it like making a movie with all of your friends? So I know that a lot of the folks involved with the film um were your friends from previous project projects and are still your friends to uh to this day. So, what is it like coming together with friends from past projects and making a film like Zombie Con Volume One? Like I said before, I love saying the title of your film.

SPEAKER_04 3:27

Well, thank you so much, I love hearing it. So please feel free. Yes, oh my gosh. I would say production-wise, and then also as an actor, being able to act with your friends, both of them, I'm gonna give a soaring A plus two. It is always amazing coming in on a new film, web series, whatever it is, and meeting cast and crew, and you become tight-knit super fast because you're living this crazy chaotic life, like super crunched in together. But when you already go in and your friends and you have that close dynamic and you have a really good rapport and your communication is like faster and that trust is there as well. From the production side, I think it makes it a little bit easier because you don't have to beat around the bush at all in the beginning. You can like say it like it is, and everyone falls into a rhythm faster. And as an actor, thank goodness, other than I would say Manny's character who plays Rocket, everyone's kind of similar in a lot of ways to their character. Manny's the nicest guy in the world. Rocket is going through his um possible slight asshole phase in a lot of this film. Um, but it really helps when you're really good friends with the people that you're acting with because you just again with like production, you have that rapport and it just makes everything easier and feel deeper and richer faster, I think.

SPEAKER_03 4:48

Yeah, and I would say as a coming from the directing side, when you have that like not only the friendship, but it's the loyalty you have to one another where you trust each other, you've worked on projects, you've worked through challenging circumstances, you develop a really great shorthand, which really is super helpful on like a low budget set because time is your worst enemy. You've such limited time to get all these shots, you know, three hours for one location, six hours for another. Going over time is not an option because even going over by a minute in some of these locations, they'll ding you with like a $500 charge here or a $1,000 charge there. And with a $60,000 budget, it's a significant hit to try to find that now and you know basically beg family members to be like, oh, we went over budget. Can we get $500? It's just not gonna happen. So having that shorthand and having that trust and loyalty between each other, it just helps everything get done and push through the most difficult parts of the process, which you know, exhaustion is always on the table. Uh, you know, injuries that you know happen, and just knowing people's basically endpoint, and when they say, you know, I've had enough, I got a cut here, you know that this person has pushed beyond, you know, what would normally be their endpoint. And you know it's best for the film to just step away, there's no questioning, and kind of redirect and find a creative solution to work around the problem or come back to it at a different day if you can. If we, you know, we the apartment was actually our location. Like that was our house. So it was easy if we got, you know, a little bit of trouble there. Okay, let's sh shut it down for the day. We'll come back on one of the off days. Is everyone okay coming back on one of the three off days we have? Groans a little bit, but everyone's like, all right, whatever's best for the film, which again goes back to that friendship where people are willing to go the extra mile. You know, I'm sure if giant paychecks were flying around, you know, they'd be like, Yeah, I'll come back an extra day for you know $200,000. I mean, I would come back every day for a fraction of that. Not yet.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Not yet, let's say. Maybe those paychecks will come. And I'm glad to see that you two are on such great terms still, um, and that you're still friends with everyone that you worked with on the film. That that's just amazing.

SPEAKER_04 7:12

Absolutely. Yeah, and just to add one more thing, I think it's always tough as well when you wrap a film and you've just, like we said, you know, when you don't know them ahead of time, you've developed all these close bonds and relationships and rapport, and you hope to get to work together again, but you don't really know when. And when it's your friends, it's like, oh, thank God, like I'll see you next month or whatever. Like we'll be able to debrief, decompress, you know, celebrate, work together soon. It's it's that knowledge as well that makes everything better.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Yeah. That's that's the benefit of creating your own opportunities as well. You you kind of control the flow of when your next jobs come in, whenever you're working on your own stuff, which is beautiful. I'm curious, Kyle, as a director, uh you know, this is a very distinct film. Who are your inspirations visually and also with your general approach to the work? And also, Erin, sidebar, I'm a former actor. I'm interested in process. So maybe after Kyle is done talking about his inspirations, I'd love to hear about your process as an actor, how you approach the work as a performer, or you know, just where your head's at from an acting perspective.

SPEAKER_03 8:16

So, general inspirations, I mean, obviously, all I'm a kind of a cinophile, so horror-wise, you know, go back to the Romero series and almost every zombie film that was ever made, you know, uh it, uh Carpenter's It, or Thing rather, and then uh It, well, actually, it is also a great movie. But in terms of like directing style and you know, behind the scenes features that I watched, I'm self-taught, so I never had like anyone walk me through any of this stuff in film school. It was really just digging through DVDs, bonus features as a kid, trying to, you know, reassemble how everyone did what they did. I would have to say on the top of the list is probably like a James Cameron in terms of a visual stylistic element, uh, especially, you know, in the tunnel scenes, I don't want to give anything away, but that, you know, very vibrant red lighting. I feel like internally, while it probably wasn't intentional, uh in my in the back of my brain, I was really thinking about that scene in Aliens, you know, where Hudson goes down and the aliens come through the ceiling and there's that great firefight, and they crawl then through the tunnel scenes. Vasquez pulls out her side piece, and you know, her and Gordon, you know, evaporate themselves with the awesome grenade. So I feel like I watch that movie, you know, obviously I watch it every year a couple times, and I kind of put the pieces together, and I'm like, I'm pretty sure that directly inspired the lighting for that scene. Unintentionally at the time, but that movie's so baked into my psyche that I'm sure it had a lot to do with it. Apart from that, you know, a Robert Rodriguez, in regards to the way that, you know, he developed his entire basically film catalog and where he started, you know, Rebel Without a Crew, showing that it was really possible to do it all, not necessarily by yourself, of course, but to take on that many hats and to do that many things and to do it successfully was a great place to know, okay, it's not like I'm breaking totally new ground here. This stuff has been tried and tested. It gives you a little bit of a blueprint to follow. And in regards to other directors, you know, obviously the big ones, Spielberg, Kubrick, but I feel like that's you know, anyone who watches movies, some of the best movies ever made. Like the obvious things in terms of like off-key directors, uh I wouldn't be able to name enough to like I would definitely leave a lot out, and then the ones I did name, I would butcher their names because faces, I'm a face guy. Names are not my strong suit. Uh, but yeah, I think that would be the kind of that'd be the first couple layers of the onion. And we'd be sitting here all day if we went to the interior of the onion.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

I think that's a really good start. I I think that uh I'm sure a lot of our listeners will like those directors as well, and that's a good sales pitch for the film. Aaron, how about your acting process? How did you approach the role and how do you approach acting in general?

SPEAKER_04 11:13

Every role and definitely every product is different because especially I'm a different person at each stage when I'm you know approaching this. But for Claire and for ZombieCon Vol One, what I was really thinking of is what is her role in this group, in this friend dynamic? How does she relate to them? How does she fit into this family? And with each of the scenes, even where, as a producer and co-writer, where is her role taking the story? What is its purpose? And not, you know, looking at it from that angle, which, you know, usually maybe I would dive more into the acting to begin with, but kind of looking at it from a top down in that regard, and then going into the acting, and okay, what kind of emotional peaks and valleys am I hitting? And how am I gonna make sure that I get there as Claire and not as Aaron? And I use a variety of methods. I I've taken an acting class or two, but I never enrolled anywhere because I always felt like it just was too rigid and it took away the creativity. I know everyone's different, but for me that's how it felt. So I'm not formally trained. I rely on a couple of different methods and tools, but one of the unique ones with our journey on Zombie Conval 1 was that Kyle had a copy, multiple copies of Ivana Chubbak's book, The Power of the Actor, which is incredible. Anyone out there, whether they're a seasoned actor or not, just looking to refresh, definitely read it, take a look at it, try it, see if it helps you. Kyle had each of The Rockets Rockets get a copy, go over it and say, as a shorthand as a director, this is one of the ways that I'm going to be asking you and prompting you, how are you getting there? What are your tools so I can have a shorthand? Because we don't have, you know, a ton of time when we're filming all of these. And especially with Manny, it being his first ever acting role, it was really important to give him a basis and some tools to start with, which he knocked it out of the park. But that was also cool because I'd never delved into this method. And so it was in the end kind of a mixture of all the above. And with Ivana Chebik's method, the last step of any preparation is the day of onset. As soon as you're about to go, you let it all go. And that I think is just so crucial, regardless of how you're approaching any role. It's like the moment that you're actually acting, you can't be in your head thinking about anything else other than living as that character and trusting in your prep work. So it was definitely a mixed bag on this one of me drawing from different inspirations and really heavily leaning into also the producer and co-writer side because I couldn't get away from that and be just the actor until it was time to act. It was always in the back of my head, you know, what can I do to make sure that I, as this character, am bring the most that I can to the story as a whole. And I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_03 14:01

I don't mean to retread, but I just I would be remiss if I didn't name just a few more directors as my brain was like, okay, names are filtering in. Uh Guillermo del Toro for his visual styling, of course. Uh as I said, Carpenter for basically his entire film catalog, and of course, Tarantino for his usage of dialogue in all of his films, and also they're beautifully shot. And you know, I could go down Wes Craven, you know, but anyway, so I'll I'll stop there. But I had to name a few more.

SPEAKER_04 14:30

That's a really good question, clearly, to ask a director. And Kevin Smith.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

I'll also say Kevin Smith. Oh wait, you're you're name and all of my favorites. And honestly, Aaron, I think it must have been such an advantage to be a writer because one thing I find that as an actor that I always lose track of is the relationship. And when you're crafting that relationship on the page, it has to be so much easier to approach. And when you're working with friends, it has to be so much easier to approach building realistic relationships within the within the performance.

SPEAKER_04 15:01

Oh, a hundred percent. I mean, the second that action was called, I was looking at Punky at Christian and Manny, the four other three other Rockets Rockets, and it was like family already behind the scenes, and then you throw us into these roles, and we just fell in so naturally. So knowing them super well and coming at it from the producer and co-writer side of things, it made this just a really, really amazing experience, and hopefully it translated to being really authentic and grounded when you're watching it.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

It certainly did. It certainly did. I'm gonna throw it over to my illustrious co-host for his next question. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Oh, please do. Um those are fantastic answers. Um, I have sort of a fun, a practical and a fun question. So now that we have Zombie Con Volume One, when you work on volumes two, three, four, and five, let's say, um, what are some lessons learned that you will apply that you learned from the first film from a director's perspective and from an actor's perspective? And also beyond filmmaking, what have you learned about how to survive an actual zombie apocalypse if a group of cosplayers were to accidentally start one?

SPEAKER_04 16:17

Okay, that's good. I'm gonna jump in real quick and say everyone on set, the moment that that director starts saying we'll fix it in post, you all need to step all over him and say, absolutely not. I'm protecting you from yourself. We're not going down that road because once you start, it just sometimes there's no end.

unknown 16:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:40

So no, no, we'll fix it in post.

SPEAKER_03 16:42

Yeah, and that would have been my number one takeaway from the entire thing. Fix every problem you can on set as soon as possible. Uh, and it's funny, I thought you were actually gonna say, whenever the director says, Okay, everyone, five minutes, it usually means about 20. You're good.

SPEAKER_04 17:00

Don't fret, don't stress, finish your coffee, like finish your conversation on the side, whatever you're doing, you got at least like 10 to 15. But nod. Always make the director know, absolutely. Five minutes, you got it. I'm gonna be there.

SPEAKER_03 17:14

Yeah, and I would say, you know, in terms of a logistical standpoint, uh, the paperwork and just kind of making sure that there is a, even if you have to stretch the budget a little bit further, find a way to get someone who is solely responsible for all of the paperwork and all of the onset kind of, you know, legal ease making sure all your I's are dotted and your T's are crossed because Erin was responsible for a lot of that alongside doing all of her other jobs. And I saw how difficult it was for her, even though she did a fantastic job, but I would never want to put someone else in that position to have to, you know, track down extras and other just get releases signed. And there was one release I was responsible for the location releases sometimes, and we sweated for a long time getting a location release for the anime con hall scene because we had tried to get as much done ahead of time as possible. But the gentleman who we rented the set from, or the location from rather, uh, he for whatever reason didn't want to sign anything until money was in hand, which is understandable given you know the level of production we're working with. And he signed it on set that day, and I very carefully folded up the paperwork and stuck it somewhere. And after about, you know, a month of literally ripping apart our entire house, trying to find this piece of paper as we were kind of netting up all the stuff for the lawyers, I got desperate because I couldn't find it, and I couldn't find the gentleman again either. He had left the space, so I didn't know where he was. He had no social media presence, and I was like, I don't I'm gonna have to hire a private investigator to find this guy because I don't know where he is. And I opened up, I was like, maybe it's in the camera case. Maybe I opened it up, and with the the laser pointer that lets you measure distance, it was folded up underneath that one tool that I hadn't pulled out of the case in literally like six or seven years. And I was like, Oh my god, it's right here.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

I can feel your anxiety that you had that you went through for that.

SPEAKER_03 19:14

Oh, and we and I'm kind of I was a pack rat too. So, like, you know, we I didn't want to throw away a single prop from any of our production. So we used to have a guest bedroom in that apartment that we uh were in in Los Angeles, which turned slowly into the storage closet as I acquired more and more metal racks. So when I say like it took a month to go through everything, it took a legitimate month going through boxes of props and paperwork and mail that I was like, this is sensitive, we need to shred it. Well, we'll we'll buy a paper shredder at some point, but for now, just throw everything in this box.

SPEAKER_04 19:49

Looking for a needle in the haystack was never so ridiculous. And also along those lines, because I totally agree, get someone whose dedicated job is just solely on paperwork and organizing, like he said, releases and production schedules and sending out the call sheets, all of that, because it is a mountain and you don't want to have a single thing go missing. But also the social media aspect, like definitely make sure, again, I don't care if it's someone's mom that you can bribe to come in for a day, slap them with an iPhone, a nice camera, and have them take behind the scenes photography and video because it's great when you can pull together the actors at the end of the day and say, Hey, can you send me at the time? Snapchat was a thing, like that was huge. So we were saying, send me your Snapchat, send me this, and we'll keep it organized. And some actors are better than others at you know, being very organized and falling through, and a lot of the stuff either wasn't taken or totally hit the trash can and never made it to, you know, our behind-the-scenes drive. So definitely for promotional purposes, it's very important, and for marketing, make sure to have someone getting really good photography videos, at least like anything, and save it twice. Always save it on a separate hard drive because things crash, computers crash, and it's stuff that you can't pay to replace.

SPEAKER_03 21:12

Yeah, and the last thing I'll add is batteries. You can never have enough, you know, camera batteries. Like it was one time I forgot the battery, and the other one was only half charged, and that was the park location, was an hour and a half away. So there was no way to get back and forth. So we had to shoot that entire scene with like half a battery, you know, quickly stopping it after every single take and then restarting. And that was a nightmare. And the Ronin had its own battery issues. Two of the batteries, even though they were licensed from DJI, were um they were ineffective and they wouldn't power the gimbal. So they'd run power through the gimbal, but the yoke would just you know, flop everywhere it would go. So for a lot of the film, I'm holding the camera with my teeth while it's in the yoke to Try to get you know camera moves and stuff, so batteries.

SPEAKER_04 22:04

And a lot of his shots in ZombieCon Volume One are very purposeful, of course. But it is funny when we're listening to a lot of the reviews now, and they're like, Oh, this specific shot, he was really going for this, and I know like that specific day, right? The yoke was not behaving, and it's like all he could do to get the shot and to frame it in a creative way. But that is also just filmmaking and directing in general. You have to make you know it work regardless of the chaos, and everything is chaos, everything's going wrong.

SPEAKER_03 22:31

Right, and a lot of things, right, overcoming those challenges, as long as you do it with a good attitude and creatively, sometimes turn into happy accidents where you know it can affect a different styling because you're being forced to adapt to those circumstances. And I I I believe that that's kind of one of the ways that some of the most iconic things in film happen. I always go back to Jaws for that. It's like if the animatronic shark worked for all of Jaws, we would have had a totally different movie. So I never try to get too down about that and just say if it if it worked for him, maybe it could work for us.

SPEAKER_04 23:07

If it's good enough for Steven, it's good enough for us.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

I love that. You can make t-shirts with that one.

SPEAKER_04 23:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

It is interesting how contact with reality becomes like another collaborator on your project. I I can think of a number of times where David Lynch called it room to dream in some ways. You take your time and you allow yourself to be inspired by your limitations. I love hearing that onset story. Um That's another director I would add to that list from earlier. Honestly, uh he was when I directed theater, he was the biggest influence I had, or biggest influence on me. Just lighting-wise, how how dramatic everything was and how obtuse everything is. I I just I don't write. So, and and and you know, I'm sitting with writers here, so I have a lot of respect for that. But uh, I don't write, but boy, as a director, he was um just at the at the centerpiece of my artistic vision. He what a loss this year. I know.

SPEAKER_03 24:04

He was a true visionary, and the way he did his entire creative process, I've seen a lot of I I try to watch as many, like I said, a lot of behind the scenes features and as many interviews as I can snack up on the internet, now especially with YouTube, makes it so much easier. Oh, yeah. But just his process with his little art studio and the way he attacked his creative work was I think it was extremely unique. I I've never heard of anyone you know who directs who handled the creative side of it and kind of forging into it in the same sort of way that like almost a painter kind of grapples with a canvas type, very like I don't know, it was very artistic, his mentality. So it was very big loss, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

I agree. My favorite parts of rehearsal would be sitting around the table and breaking down the script. Like when we started to get into blocking, it became more challenging for me, but breaking down the script. Uh, those are like some of my favorite moments in the director's chair. And if you want to treat, as of the time of this recording, David Lynch's complex, three properties, uh, is on sale right now, and it's on Zillow, and you can see inside his home, including his screening room. Yeah, he bought the house from Lost Highway. It's beautiful. Go check it out. Just a little cherry on top of those interviews you're gonna be watching.

SPEAKER_04 25:18

I never need an excuse to go on Zillow and go surfing, so now I have an even better one. Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

It's my wife's guilty pleasure too. She's like, you have to get on there. I was like, I don't have time right now, but yeah, no, it's beautiful. Um, yeah, no, and I I I hope whoever spends the $15 million on it, uh, I hope they preserve it in some way. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:42

Yeah, Stallone's house went on sale not too long ago, and I did see that, like it was somewhere online, and I I went on Zillow to check it out, or some one of these realtor websites. And the one thing I thought was like really funny about it is like there was a life-size statue, gold statue or something of Rocky, like standing out by the pool or something. And I was like, Oh, I wonder whose house this is.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Yeah. That's that is that's a choice.

SPEAKER_03 26:07

You you could do that.

SPEAKER_04 26:09

So, what would our equivalent with Zombie Khan Ball 1 be? What would the statue be?

SPEAKER_03 26:13

The blood on the wall.

SPEAKER_04 26:17

It fits, it fits.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

And and if you've not seen this film yet, there is so there are so many great practical effects, and they're played for laughs, and they're played for shock, and like it covers the entire gamut of uh emotions in their practical effects in the execution. And when I talked with with the team here on Aaron's show, and and go watch this interview, once it's once it's live, it's a really great conversation. It's it's you know, it's similar to what we're doing here, but we ask different questions. But um, we talked a lot about the special effects and how they were how they were done. And I think one of the correct me if I'm wrong, there were you were scrubbing the floor to remove stains just to make sure everything looked good. Am I recalling this correctly?

SPEAKER_03 26:59

Yeah, so uh basically fake blood has a beautiful property that it hardens like concrete and smells terrible after a specific period of time. And because we were basically dealing with a live set, and I'm like, well, we own this location, we might need to reshoot, so just leave the blood where it is. So it stayed way longer than it ever should have. And after about like a month of laying there, and it had bits and pieces of uh paper towels that were like half used by the characters and seemed to clean it up stuck into it, and it was on like the uh, you know, they weren't real wood floors, they were that little you know, the fake wood floors, but still you really don't want to scratch them because I'm like, this could destroy the house. But yeah, you have to use a paint chipper very carefully to just slowly chip away at it, try to get underneath of it. Occasionally you get lucky, get a little piece that popped up, and then you could peel, peel it like a really stuck-on sticker a little bit more, and you'd be like, Oh, look at the big piece I just got. Oh, it was so satisfying floor, and it's like, uh, it's only like you know, 50 more square feet to go with this.

SPEAKER_04 28:08

You know what? You're reminding me for the first, I can't believe it's been so long, I haven't thought about this. But do you remember how we used to put those floor mats on so that we like, you know, move things easier or put stuff down? And on some of the areas where we put the floor mats down, those like foam floor mats.

SPEAKER_03 28:25

It was the EVA floor foam mats like you'd use for cosplay.

SPEAKER_04 28:29

So yeah, we had a ton of we hadn't cleaned, Father to clean the blood off underneath there for whatever reason.

SPEAKER_03 28:35

I didn't know it was there, I didn't know it had seeped seeped underneath.

SPEAKER_04 28:38

So, like, right, we would be uncovering like patchworks.

SPEAKER_03 28:42

Well, as you ripped up those floor mats, and that happened years later. I was ripping up these floor mats, and chunks of the floor mat were just stuck to the floor.

SPEAKER_04 28:52

That's what made me think of it, because you said the paper towel little bits, and I'm like, wait a second, that was nothing compared to the big floor mat.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

I forgot about that. Yeah. It was awful.

SPEAKER_04 29:01

Because we would put a couch or something on top of it, and we had no idea it was under there, and so it was it was disgusting.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

I've never I've never used fake blood and let it sit on so obviously you're mopping a stage when you're doing performances every day, but we did find some costumes in storage that after a few years um that were fairly concrete-esque at that point. Yeah, so I I have a lot of empathy for this. Erin, I think we have time for one more question from each of us. Did you want to take a crack at something?

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Yeah, absolutely. Um, I have so you're like I said, your film is a lot of fun. Um, there's a lot of humor in it. So my question for you is why do you think um comedy and zombies work so well together? Sean of the Dead, Zombieland, Zombie Con Volume 1. Um, what would you say to that? And then I also want to throw in what was your gateway horror movie? What got you into uh horror movies? So I cheated there, I added two questions. But go for comedy, zombies, and gateway horror.

SPEAKER_03 30:04

Well, first off, what an honor to be included in the same sentence with those two other films, Sean of the Dead and Zombie Land. Thank you very much. Uh I will take that and I'll add that to the memory banks to always remember. Um that's a great question. I don't, I don't, I couldn't tell you I guess if I had to guess for at least our perspective on the film, I guess it was just zombies are such uh part of pop culture and have been you know explored in so many different ways, and they're terrifying really because it's really like unbridled rage of humanity, and humans are kind of like the most dangerous, I don't know, in my mind, like the most dangerous game would be a human. I I could deal with fighting a shark, I could deal with fighting and you know a crocodile, but I wouldn't want you know a human hunting me. One I can get out of the water with, the other I can climb a tree with. But if a human's hunting me, I'm like, uh, this is what can you do? Like it's your options are severely limited.

SPEAKER_04 31:06

So I think it's a a little bit of the high intensity of kind of the monster in this case, and then the way that they've been dealt with, it's just I'm not I think my first thought at least was that like you can't really reason for most zombie films, you can't reason with the zombies, and it's almost like they were a human, they're no longer human, they still look kind of like a human, but there's nothing going on upstairs where you can reason with them. If you get turned into a vampire, like there's still apparently some, you know, some intelligence there, they're still the personality there. A werewolf, one they're a werewolf, you can't, but other than that, they're kind of human with a zombie. It's like they're just mind-blowingly violent and hungry, and they're not stopping until they're trying to get to you at their own detriment, right? But there's no reasoning with them. I think I don't know. That that was the first thing that I thought there.

SPEAKER_03 31:59

Yeah, and I'm I'm that's a really good question because I don't know why it works. It just it just seemed to, I guess also, especially in that first attack scene. I'm trying not to give anything away, but that first attack scene, your care the characters are naive to what's happening. And with the human body shape, it's like, well, this could be a person. Is it a person? Is it a zombie? So it kind of plays into the you know, did we just kill a real human? What's exactly happening? You know, are we all gonna be arrested for murder?

SPEAKER_04 32:33

You know, small questions. Yes, yeah, trivial.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

It's like in Shauna the Dead when when they say, Look how drunk she is, that whole scene. Yes, yes, exactly. That's the moment in your film, but just different.

SPEAKER_04 32:49

Perfect. Yeah, that was such a good question that uh you'll have to remind me the second part.

SPEAKER_01 32:55

Oh, what was uh a gateway horror? What was the movie or event or experience that got you into the horror genre and you knew from that moment on that you wanted to make horror movies?

SPEAKER_03 33:06

I'd say one of what I mean, this is again would be a forever long list, but I'll isolate it to one scene that gave me repetitive nightmares for like I'd say at least a decade. Uh the movie in the second hollow or the scene in the second Halloween when Mike Myers uh is in the hospital uh with the the hot tub and he turns up the heat and he drowns the person in the hot tub, but like their flesh is falling off. I was and look, it I never was in a hospital hot tub. I was never in a hot tub or a bath that ever went that hot, but I had an irrational fear of like getting into a hot bath, like constantly, like basically it ruined any kind of enjoyment in taking a bath for the next 10 years of my life.

SPEAKER_04 33:51

And see, I can't believe that that's your answer because I have some more like the shining, you know, and like other films, the thing that really got me. But one of the ones that stuck with me forever and messed me up with baths too was What Lies Beneath with Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer. I wasn't supposed to be watching that movie. My friends and I were peeking around the corner because her older sister was watching it and we watched the whole thing. And oh my god, that bath scene and with the like dead wife coming up, I wasn't taking a bath either. I think horror and baths. Yeah, weirdly. We need to do that in a feature film.

SPEAKER_03 34:24

Well, I was about to say also, I mean, and this is a very, I think it's a very universal answer is psycho with the shower. And like I would, even if I was just going to use the bathroom, like wasn't gonna get in the shower, for my entire childhood, and I watched it probably way too young, I would always pull the shower curtain back and like just make sure nothing was behind the shower curtain.

SPEAKER_01 34:43

I still do. I love that you both went to horror and baths. That's I don't know why.

SPEAKER_03 34:51

I think maybe it's supposed to be like the safest place where you're like alone, you're protected, and there's like something animalistic about like you're constantly on guard when you're using the bathroom type thing.

SPEAKER_04 35:02

Naked and afraid.

SPEAKER_03 35:03

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

I think there's a vulnerability there for sure.

SPEAKER_04 35:06

And you know, now I have to plug with ZombieCon Vol 1, our DVD release coming up October 14th. We've got bonus. We have a bonus scene where I was in a bathtub in Zombie Con Vol 1, and there's a horror element to it, and I won't give anything away because you gotta watch the DVD. But I guess we did get our bathtub scene.

SPEAKER_03 35:25

We did get a bathtub scene.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

Yeah. I cannot wait for this. First of all, physical media forever. Uh, if you're watching this, you're probably uh a physical media collector. So grab this when it comes out on October 16th, you said?

SPEAKER_04 35:37

The 14th.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

14th, October 14th. That's fantastic. I'm so excited for this. Uh, I want to ask, before we ask the questions we normally ask uh most of our guests here, and there are a few that we go through like not a rapid fire round, but there's some there's some good ones in there. Uh, I have to talk about one thing that really stuck with me from this film, and without spoiling the film, I want to talk about the themes because I think this film, aside from being extremely funny, aside from being surprisingly gory, and as aside from being just extremely well executed, knowing the size of the team that you had and and well executed in general, I want to talk about the themes. So, is there something you would like the audience to leave thinking or doing or feeling after they've what witnessed the the chaos that is ZombieCon Volume 1? Is there something you want them to take home with them? And then I'll maybe say what I think I see in the themes of the film after you're done answering.

SPEAKER_04 36:32

Overall, don't lose hope and definitely not only rely on your family, your friends, the people around you, but dig deep and rely on that part of yourself that you're holding on to that's like, I know who I am, I know who I want to be. And um, regardless of if the world is falling apart around you, if there's a zombie apocalypse, or if you know you're just dealing with some really big assholes bullying you for things that you love to do, you always have that inside you, that knowledge that be true to yourself and who you really are, your passions, your friends, and don't get through it.

SPEAKER_03 37:07

Yeah, and I would say to add to that uh inner strength, you know, I think we're all so much more capable than we ever allow ourselves to believe a lot of the times. And you're really if you believe in yourself and you have a direction that you want to go in, it may be, you know, a group of friends that help you get there, it may be family members, it may be a community online. But at the end of the day, keep reminding yourself that you can overcome anything as long as you persevere and uh decide to do it yourself. And I think that that, and again, I don't want to give too much away, but that ending um scene that's what I was trying to translate with that. And uh especially in the end a little bit, you know, just because you've made a mistake in your life or just because you've done something that you regret doing, it doesn't define who you are, and you are responsible for defining who you are and the actions you take in the future. And there's always a chance uh to basically reinvent yourself or to be to re recover from anything that you've done as long as your heart is there and your mind is there and you keep pushing for what end you would like to see.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

That was really beautiful. Honestly, both of your answers. I I think that's a lot more new if you're the production team, right? Uh of course it's gonna be more nuanced than what I took away from the film. Uh and I'm really glad I asked that question because I think that was very beautifully stated. I saw a lot of found family and the importance of loyalty, and also, and I think I said this in my review, and I'm gonna just reiterate it here because I think it's a good message for everyone to hear. So you have a choice in how you walk through this world. You could walk through this world with kindness, or you can walk through this world with judgment, or you could walk through this world with bitterness about circumstances that you don't have control over. And I think your film encourages everyone to choose kindness, choose loyalty, and choose love. And uh I really I wanted to end on that note today because I think that's a message that we could all use a lot more of these days in general.

SPEAKER_04 39:22

So yeah, I beautifully and eloquently put. Absolutely. I'm so glad that you found that in the film as well. That's definitely in the writing and in our intentions, and hopefully what we were able to go for. So thank you for saying that.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for putting this out into the world as yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 39:42

Uh that's how you go that's how you would survive a zombie apocalypse. Going back to my earlier question. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

Yeah. Uh cooperation, teamwork, and and just good old-fashioned compassion.

SPEAKER_03 39:55

Um a couple of good samurai swords thrown in the mix.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

Honestly, there there's one just off camera. It's within arm's reach. I'm I'm I'm personally ready. Just come down to come down to Pennsylvania. We'll all hunker down here. Okay. No, I I really appreciate this film, and I can't encourage our audience to uh enough to go and see this or to get the DVD release on October 14th or stream it now or whenever you can. Um, but before we wrap up today, there are some questions we ask all of our guests, and I want to know what is your favorite zombie film of all time? And you can have more than one answer here. I know we talked about a few of them, but if you had to pick a winner, what's it gonna be?

SPEAKER_04 40:39

Right now I'm on the train de Busan train. I keep going back to it.

SPEAKER_03 40:44

Sean of the Dead is like always a close second as well, but and uh I'm gonna go old school uh right now and go with Dawn. Dawn of the Dead. Yeah, it the mall motif was like that was revolutionary as a kid, and I think a lot of that inspired kind of the utilizing or the utilization of available resources from the cosplaying aspect in ZombieCon. If I had the budget for a mall, it probably would have had a mall. Or to be honest, you know, we probably would have been in a full-fledged Comic-Con and we would have been pulling, you know, swords out of a booth or something like that. But I love, I always love the idea of using creativity with the available resources in such a plot like a pleth with a plethora of items all around you.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

As I sit here, I am about 35 minutes from the mall where they shot that film. And I go frequently, yeah. They actually have a Living Dead weekend at the mall, and it'll be in October. So if you uh reach out to me offline if you want a piece of that escalator or something like that, they they have them available. I can get one for you. Are you serious? That is wasted. Yeah. I'll send you some links of the Living Dead Museum and our in our tour of Monroville Mall that we did recently. But yeah, we'll talk offline about this. But hit me up. Aaron, do you have a favorite?

SPEAKER_01 42:09

Yeah, yeah. I probably have to go with the Night of the Living Dead. The first one, Romero's very first one. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 42:15

Nice. That's a great film. I um I recently picked it up on 4K Criterion, and I'm thrilled to have it in my collection in 4K. Yeah. Did you have you ever seen Night of Anubis? Uh, have you ever seen the the work print? No, I haven't seen that. If you get a chance, it's on the Criterion collection, and it's m minor differences, but it's really interesting to see Romero's work. And I know that I know that you all from uh from ZombieCon, the ZombieCon team, is a very uh the you guys are fans of special features, so I would absolutely check that out if you get a chance.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

Absolutely. I have the Criterion edition and the 4K edition of the remake from 1990, which is also great. Just came out with some additional stuff.

SPEAKER_00 42:57

I didn't get a chance to pre-order it. I'm and it broke my heart.

SPEAKER_03 43:01

I will tell you, Night of the Living Dead was a huge, not only uh creative inspiration, but it was a great legal inspiration when making the film. Because I don't know if you guys know this story, but uh there was a huge copyright snafu that allowed it to get released, you know, all over the place without him ever getting paid and the crew not getting paid and stuff, so for royalties. So that was something that I had in the back of my mind after watching those documentaries before he made this film like, okay, add the copyright to the credits.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

Yeah, 100%. So do you uh Zombie Con team, do you have a favorite horror movie in general of all time? And again, this is the one that trips most people up. Most people want to give me three, and you're absolutely more than welcome to give me more than one. But if you had to pick a winner, what would be your favorite horror movie?

SPEAKER_04 43:51

I'm going with the shining. I think it's creepy, it's epic, it's classic, it's Kubrick at one. He's always at his. Best form, but um just very psychological and the blood uh amount of blood out of the elevator also just very inspirational.

SPEAKER_03 44:09

Yeah, and actually this is an easy one for me. I'd go with the original it. Uh I watched it like my dad had a Laserdisc player back in the day, so we gotta watch it with the Laserdiscs, which was both awesome for the quality and terrible because you'd be terrified getting up and you have to flip this thing and then change the disc. And it's such a long movie. There were so many discs that you know. Anyway, it was in the room that I was watching, I'd always watch it, and there's a big window right behind me that opened up to our backyard, and like I never knew if someone was gonna like come right over my shoulder. And yeah, that was that in influenced me a lot when I was younger, which I was super happy when the remake happened. I was like, oh good, this'll kind of get a second life here.

SPEAKER_00 44:53

Yeah, and both of those are solid choices, and it may be interesting for you to know that our last podcast guest, CJ Lead, who is a horror novelist, also selected The Shining. So uh I was fabulous. I was upset that I didn't wear my Overlook Hotel shirt. And today I thought, you know what, what are the chances? I'm just gonna wear goosebumps, but uh here we are.

SPEAKER_04 45:13

Goosebumps and scream. Can't go wrong with them either.

SPEAKER_03 45:16

And those are both Stephen King books, right?

SPEAKER_00 45:18

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:20

Connected thread. He might know what he's doing. Curry is petty one of those books.

SPEAKER_00 45:25

I I want to toss it over to my co-host here. Do you have a favorite horror movie? I'm interested in hearing from you today, too.

SPEAKER_01 45:31

I've got to go with the original Halloween, 1978. It's one film that I have so many editions of the very first movie. Um, and I'm always looking for more. I don't know, I always go with the first Halloween.

SPEAKER_00 45:45

That would be my answer as well. Oh, excellent.

SPEAKER_03 45:48

You really can't go wrong with that.

SPEAKER_00 45:50

That's a fantastic film. Of course. I I know that I I I know that's the uh pumpkin spice latte of uh answers to that question, and I'm shameless about how much I love that film.

SPEAKER_03 46:02

Oh no, that's that's that is not the I feel like that is one of the highest bars. If I'd given it another thought, I probably I might have said that, but I'm happy I didn't. So a little variety. Um interest, I'm sure you guys already know this, but they had like one jack-o'-lantern for the entire film shoot of that that they kept placing on all the different front doorsteps because they couldn't find anything in California at the time.

SPEAKER_00 46:26

Three bags of leaves, you know, collecting leaves after shots. That is just it's brilliant independent filmmaking. That is uh, I'm sure you all relate to how many hats they all had to wear to make that film happen.

SPEAKER_03 46:38

Oh, oh, absolutely. And I mean, the story behind the Mike Myers mask. I mean, I don't know how Will William Shatter could be so terrifying for so many years. Right. That I think it had a lot to do with the pull of that mask and kind of the distortion that it had. It was like way wider than his actual face. It was just a horrifying representation of who he was.

SPEAKER_00 47:01

Yeah, it was it was definitely lifeless uh you know in a lot of ways. So the actual cast of his face was very lifeless, and uh really worked for what they were going for. Yeah, that little tuft of hair just made it eerie. Oh yeah, the one, yeah, yeah, totally, totally. Can I ask, where can people find ZombieCon Volume 1 right now and then talk about your DVD release if you like?

SPEAKER_04 47:25

Right now, don't miss out. Stream ZombieCon Vol 1. It's available in North America on VOD on basically any VOD platform that you can buy and rent movies. So I'm talking Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Fandango at home, YouTube movies, you name it, you can find it there. And also DVD release October 14th. Stay tuned for that. We'll have links out, everything, all the information is on our website, ZombieConVol 1. That's number one.com, and on social media, which I'm the one who runs it. Kyle runs TikTok, so you can communicate with us. It's at ZombieCon Movie across all social media.

SPEAKER_03 48:03

Yeah, don't judge me too harshly. Um still, I feel like I'm still learning TikTok.

SPEAKER_04 48:07

Aren't we all?

SPEAKER_03 48:09

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 48:10

That was my next question, though. Where can they stay uh tuned in for the updates of updates about the film? Uh, what about following you all specifically if they want to hear about what you're working on next?

SPEAKER_04 48:21

Absolutely. So Instagram, I'm at Aaron underscore Anya. That's A-I-N-E. And that's pretty much the only social media that I'm officially on.

SPEAKER_03 48:32

Yeah. And I'm at KYKY V71. It was my original AOL handle, so I stuck with it for a bit.

SPEAKER_02 48:41

I love that. You're representing. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 48:45

I love it. Um, that's fantastic. And for my last question, uh, I just want to, I was curious, what are you working on next? Is there anything you can share, plug, or give us a sneak peek about?

SPEAKER_04 48:57

We have a feature film in post-production right now, probably also up y'all's alley, because it is traditional horror. There's a lot of comedy snuck in because we can't help ourselves. But this one is a horror bottle film called It's Watching, and it follows a frustrated filmmaker who is desperately trying to make one last film to make his dream come true. And let's just say it's not going how he planned.

SPEAKER_03 49:20

Yeah, you know, really dug uh deep on the creative well on this one. Uh, you know, it was so difficult to embody a uh frustrated filmmaker.

SPEAKER_00 49:30

I was gonna toss it out. Who who is your who's your lead actor in this one? It's me. That's outstanding. I see, I knew the answer to that. I had to tee you up, but that's fantastic. I I know I am very excited to see what you all do next. You had such a heartfelt and funny and gory film uh that you that you gave to all of us, and I am so thrilled that it's in the world. I cannot wait to see what you do next.

SPEAKER_04 50:00

Um thank you. Thank you both so much for having us as well. This has been incredible. Last one was incredible on Aaron's YouTube and now on yours, Vince's. I can't thank you both enough. It's been an absolute pleasure.

SPEAKER_03 50:13

Love talking to you guys. Anytime you want to chat about anything.

SPEAKER_00 50:18

Same, same. I'm so glad to have you. Aaron from A B's Horror Movies, anything that you'd like to add before we wrap up and sign off?

SPEAKER_01 50:28

No, just thank you, uh Vince, for having me on. Aaron and Kyle, it's always a pleasure to chat with you. Um, keep us updated on your upcoming film. We'll have to do it again. Vince, you and I play off each other well, and I appreciate the invitation to come on. Had an absolute blast to do it again soon.

SPEAKER_00 50:45

I certainly enjoy having you with me today. This is our first time with the co-host, and I I'm just I'm so glad it was you. Kyle and Erin, anything you want to leave us on?

SPEAKER_04 50:55

Happy Halloween. Get out there, go enjoy it. Cosplay is for like everyday occasion, but it is only once a year that it's the uh Grand Mecca that is Halloween. So go enjoy it.

SPEAKER_00 51:07

Absolutely. I absolutely love that message. Halloween is one of my favorite times of year. Thank you all so much. As always, stay spooky, my friends.