By BILL REICK
“Indie film” has come to mean many different things over the years. There were the Fox Searchlight-level “indie” movies, still made for millions of dollars and with studio backing. Sure, they weren’t tentpole releases, but those flicks still had A-listers and awards-season campaigns.
Real independent film is perhaps best represented by the likes of Mallory Drumm, Jay Drakulic, and Alex Lee Williams, the team that comprises Blind Luck Pictures. Together, they embody the spirit of independent filmmaking in the truest sense, forgoing salaries and comfort to get the job done. The task at hand was a new horror film, DREAM EATER, a feature-length “available footage” parasomniac nightmare. Along for the roller coaster ride is legendary filmmaker Eli Roth, who is distributing the movie through his exciting new media company, The Horror Section.
Eli, first, I want to thank you not only for your movies, but also for the work that you’ve done to make sure I was always up on some obscure horror and cool Italian shit while I was growing up. I feel like every DVD extra, every interview and every article I could find, I was really scouring for movie recommendations from you. And the work you’re doing now with The Horror Section just feels like an extension of that. I feel like we all get a super well-curated bunch of movies coming out.
Eli Roth: Yeah, yeah. And I also want people to find new filmmakers. If they haven’t seen a filmmaker like Joe Begos’ work, go back and watch their catalog if you haven’t. That’s what it’s all about: finding filmmakers you love, discovering new ones and making sure people get to see these movies in a theater. You want to help someone in their career, elevate them, give them that shot at a theatrical release. There’s just nothing like it.
Absolutely. I saw that DREAM EATER is playing here in Chicago. That’s phenomenal.
ER: Yeah, we’re in about 350 theaters. For a little movie like this that cost… Well, I thought it cost a million, maybe a million and a half; they made it for $40,000. These guys just put in their blood, sweat, tears, and literally froze themselves for it. The last 15 minutes of this movie are among the scariest I’ve seen in anything. It’s so tense and so frightening, and I rarely get scared like that. As a fan, it was such a delight to watch.
We horror fans are adrenaline junkies. The only way to get that fix… You can’t get it from a TV or an iPad. The only way to truly get that roller coaster–level adrenaline rush is to see these movies in a theater.
I wanted this movie to have its best shot, and I wanted the fans to have that experience of getting to go out and see it on the big screen.
To see Alex freezing his nuts off on the big screen.
Alex Lee Williams: Yes, yes. Anything for the movie.
ER: Look what these guys did. Actors didn’t want to do it, so they said, “We have to do it ourselves.” And you feel that pain. That’s one of the great things about found footage. You can’t fake it. What these guys put themselves through is a landmark. I hadn’t seen anything like it in a long time. You feel the pain.
Yeah, it’s brilliant. The movie kind of has its cake and eats it, too. Making Mallory a documentarian was such a clever tactic. It’s beautifully shot while also being a found-footage movie.
I also wanted to ask, Mallory, I heard you had lucid dreams, and Jay, you sleepwalked as a child. How did those real-life scenarios help ground the movie in realism?
Mallory Drumm: For me, it got so bad that I ended up teaching myself to lucid dream. When I was having a night terror, I could tell myself, “Okay, Mal, this is just a dream. You can change what’s happening,” so I wouldn’t get zero sleep all the time. Those moments definitely came into play when we were building out the scares.
We also did a bunch of research. One of the first things they tell you when you have parasomnia is that a partner is to record the episodes, so your sleep clinician can take a look. Everything that happens to Alex, those are real-life dangers that people with parasomnia face. We wanted to take that stuff and weave in the horror, amp it up to eleven, so you really feel like Alex is going through it.
Jay Drakulic: I definitely had sleepwalking as a kid, and there were some creepy things told back to me. I never remembered them. My brother would say, “I found you standing in my doorway in the middle of the night, staring and mumbling.” Or my mom would say, “You walked into the room and said, ‘Dracula’s in my bedroom.’”
Those were things we used, like the “standing-in-the-doorway” moment; it’s literally in the movie.
We used it as a jumping-off point. Once we started researching sleep science and parasomnia, it started to write itself. Then, when you look into how violent parasomnia can get, it’s crazy. There was a guy in Canada who drove to his in-laws’, murdered them, drove back home and went to sleep. He got off because he was sleepwalking. That’s the kind of real danger we drew from, then put a horror spin on it.
Also, shoutout to Mike Katarina, our cinematographer. He’s incredible. His handheld work is unparalleled. When we were developing the look, we thought about The Visit, which is amazing, but it feels slightly overproduced. We didn’t want that. We wanted beautiful cinematography, but not jarring to the narrative.
There’s that dinner table shot with Alex’s face reflected in the vase, creating a literal split personality. That was Mike. He used the location and set design to give the movie a unique, elevated look beyond shaky found footage.
I’ve heard someone from your crew mention that one of the hardest parts of found footage is justifying why the characters keep filming. Did that limit any ideas or lead to any cuts?
ALW: No, I think, honestly, we came from the perspective of like, the camera has to be on, so we have to start there, as opposed to like, “Oh, we have this gag, but why would the camera be on?” We’re such found footage fans, and we actually call this movie “available footage.” We don’t call it found footage because there are obvious things that exist in the film that directly tell the audience this is not found footage. So, we’re taking the rules that are there and expanding on them, and we feel comfortable breaking the rules because we respect them.
There are clues in the movie, and there are open conversations between the characters about, well, why are you filming this? And then, you know, why is there a score? That’s a huge thing with found footage purists – that we knew we’d be sort of toeing the line a little bit, but we included it because of a specific narrative choice that we made based on conversations that Alex and Mallory are having, and some of the dynamics and things that are happening with those characters.
So, with us, with the gags themselves, it was always, we have our rules that are here. We have the three security cameras that are active, and we have Mallory’s camera on. And so, you know, things are obviously happening off camera. There are obvious reasons why she turns the camera on at night because something woke her. So, like, let’s leave that off. We don’t have to show every single thing. Let the tension exist in the points that exist within the frame of the film.
JD: And with that, too, by making Mallory a cinematographer and her backstory as the character. Now, the moments that she’s shooting that aren’t directly related to the parasomnia are a window into Mallory. They almost feel like these diary entries that she’s making. It’s like her way of getting a catharsis.
It’s her way of blowing off steam. It’s her way of being creative at a time that she’s in this beautiful location. So, it’s a way of kind of showing the character without expositing what’s going on inside of her. That was also something we really wanted to do through the cinematography of the film, really give you a window into the character of Mallory and who she is as a person.
One of the things that I love the most about DREAM EATER is the way that it uses these found footage conventions that feel kind of familiar to lull me as the viewer into a false sense of security, being like, “Oh, I’ve seen things that this reminds me of.” But then, especially that last like 20 minutes, the rug just felt pulled out from under me.
Were there any surprising influences from outside of found footage that maybe shaped the film?
ALW: One of the biggest influences for the movie is the 1974 Canadian horror Black Christmas. And this movie [DREAM EATER] wasn’t even supposed to take place in winter. We were planning to shoot it in the fall of 2022, and then our DP wasn’t available, so we had to push it to 2023, and we were like, “No, we’re not waiting. Fuck it, we’ll do it in March.” And then it had a record snowfall in Quebec. So, it was very much just adapting to the elements that were laid out for us, and … the script had been written for months beforehand.
And there are a lot of references to Black Christmas in the film. It felt like all the movie gods were telling us, “No, this has to be the coldest movie since fucking My Bloody Valentine that’s going to reach the screen.”
JD: And in terms of surprising outside influences, you know, we go in so heavily prepped, and we have so many references within this film that were written into the script. But I think, to answer your question, from the perspective of what were some kind of surprising influences, this one wasn’t necessarily surprising, but one that wasn’t necessarily planned. So, obviously, Amityville Horror was a big influence on us in the sense of Alex’s transformation as a character. But then, when we were actually on location and we saw just how much snow there was, we had written this scene that was going to take place at the edge of this mountain in the Laurentians, but when we got there, it was essentially snow-blocked. We couldn’t get up there. It would have taken us like an hour and a half to get up there, and then the gear by snowmobile, and then get back down. And when you’re doing indie, you’ve got to make your day. We had to pivot. So then, we started bouncing ideas around with the crew, and it was like, “Okay, let’s make this a wood-chopping scene.” And then from there it was like, “Okay, cool.” That was an Amityville Horror moment that we had not planned to reference, but it was like, yo, you go back to the things you know and love, and you’re like, boom. And the funny thing was, Alex had no idea how to chop wood. I taught him how to do it five minutes before we went to shoot. And I swear to God, James Brolin couldn’t have done it better himself – splitting those logs like a maniac as he’s starting to fall apart and turn into this other person throughout the film.
I think that was one that wasn’t so much a surprise as it was already an influence on us going in. But it definitely was one of those scenes and moments that carried through Amityville Horror that once we were there and had to pivot, we were like, “Yo, let’s go to this.” That was a fun, happy kind of pivot in that way.
ER: Once you get there and you’re snowbound, all of a sudden, you’re in The Thing. You’re in The Shining. You know, they have this great claustrophobic tone. And what’s so impressive is that, not only did they pivot in terms of when they shot the movie, but the other actors read it, and they’re like, “We don’t want to do this. This is too crazy.” So then, two of the directors are like, “Fuck it, we’ll act in it.” And once they’re acting in it, they just keep pushing themselves and pushing themselves.
They push themselves to physical extremities I have not seen in a long time – in any movie, let alone a horror movie. Then, they would shoot the scene and they would go back and Foley it because they’re in such a great location that to get [sound]. You guys talked about The Terror and the noises and the terror of the ship and the ice and the creaking. So, they’re getting the footsteps in the snow and the sound of the house creaking and the howling wind. They redo the scene so they have clean Foley because the sound is so spectacular in the movie. They’re meticulous with the sound design. And then, they would go and edit the movie.
Even Alex – it’s like he has to be the director, and then Alex, and then sleepwalker Alex, and then Foley artist, and then editor. It’s like these guys are doing five or six jobs in one night. It’s months and months of prep. It’s a tight execution on set.
They talk about this squall that blew in, and they’re like, “Fuck it, let’s go out and put him out on the lake just standing there.” It’s this iconic imagery of him standing there. And that’s what it’s all about – being like, “Well, fuck it, we got to do it.” They never took the easy way out at any point in the movie.
And even when I saw the cut of it, the ending was a little different. And I said, “I think what makes these movies work is when you really can nail it in that final shot. Like, if you can do what they did in [REC], the movie’s going to work.”
And they said, “Well, actually, our original ending was this.” They explained what the original was, and I was like, “Why didn’t you fucking shoot that?” They’re like, “Ah, someone talked us out of it.” So, I said, “Let’s go back. Is there an even better version of that?” So they went back and they shot an even better, scarier version so that it builds right into the final shot, the final image of the film.
These guys don’t waste a frame. Every single shot matters. They’re meticulous filmmakers, but you just have to be possessed to want to do it and say like, “Fuck it, we don’t care about anything else.” That’s what I was like during Cabin Fever. I was like, “I don’t care if I never work again, if I never make money, I’ll eat pasta for the rest of my life. This movie will exist.” That’s all I care about. And they have that same passion.
I can see the economy in terms of time and effort. It’s amazing that you not only wrote it, but also acted in it. You didn’t have to communicate anything to any other actors.
Mallory, was there anything that you ended up feeling like, “Oh, I’m so glad that I did that, because I couldn’t have expected some other actor to do this thing”?
MD: You know, I think kind of what Eli was saying, the Foley… After we shot for camera, we did the exact same scene over again for Foley. And that was a lot, especially for the character of Mallory, who [required] lots of off-camera acting, a lot of vocal work and a lot of just crying and screaming and heavy breathing and physicality, too, with falling and running. So, when we would do the scene for camera, oftentimes, we were doing more takes for the Foley, and it gets really tiring. But I knew that there was no way I was letting these guys down, and I was going to do whatever it took to get it done.
And I was like, “Oh man, I’m really happy that it’s us doing it because I know that even if I’m exhausted or whatever, I’m just going to keep doing it.” It’s like, “Oh, do you need me to do it again? Do you need me to fall again?” Like, I’ll fall again. “If you need me to fall down the stairs again, okay, I’m going to fall down the stairs again.”
I think in that way, it was really helpful that it was Alex and me acting because if it meant we had to do the scene twelve times, we were going to do it twelve times. If it meant that I had to do Foley breathing for eight hours, I was going to do it for eight hours just to get it done.
JD: Her legs were fucking black and blue after some of these Foley takes because the camera would take a spill, so she had to now take a spill for that sound – to be authentic.
There was a moment when the camera went down the stairs. This wasn’t even for Foley, because she and Mike had this synchronicity where they were step by step in tandem; they were almost the same person. It was wild watching them work. It was that type of commitment, that type of dedication, that you really saw literally written on her body afterwards.
I saw that The Horror Section recently inked a deal with Blackcraft Cult to create limited-edition merch based on new movies. If you could mass-produce one item or idea from the movie, what would you put in stores and into horror fans’ hands?
ER: I don’t know. I mean, Bobby Blackcraft is a pretty amazing artist, and he really loves the movie and loves these guys. They’re throwing out some ideas. But, you know, I love the images of “vomit Alex” and Alex’s face.
There are a few I don’t want to give away. I don’t want to say it and spoil anything, but there are a couple of images that I think are pretty iconic from the movie that would work really well.
MD: Yeah, for sure. I don’t want to give it away, but there’s a certain character that I would like a little plushie of. I feel like that might be fun.
JD: Honestly, shit, it’s hard ’cause… Yeah, without wanting to spoil anything, I can’t say. Yeah, it gives too much away. But yes, the plushie? I want to see that.
ALW: Yeah, I think there are a couple of shots that are really, really creepy images that, with just Bobby’s flair and the way that they composite all their art at Blackcraft, are just stunning.
We were just in Salem with [Blackcraft Cult] at their flagship store, and they were giving out a drink called “The Dream Eater,” and it was three shots of double espresso. It was like, “This will fucking kill you. This will keep you awake for three days straight.”
JD: Won’t let you sleep. It was like an adrenaline shot to the heart.
Much like the movie.
Eli, you’ve particularly praised the last fifteen to twenty minutes of the movie. Is there any other sequence in an older movie that this rivals in terms of terror and payoff?
ER: Oh yeah. I mean, for me, look, if you say, “Is this scarier than Blair Witch or Paranormal Activity?” Those set the bar. I’d never been so scared as, you know, Paranormal Activity, with the assault and going up in the attic.
To me, the crawl space sequence in this rivals the attic sequence – going up and looking around in the attic in Paranormal Activity. And the crawl space here is right up there with the [REC] final five minutes. It’s unbelievable. And I just don’t get scared that easily. It’s hard for me to feel that. I’m always chasing that dragon. Can I get absolutely fucking bone-chillingly petrified from a movie? It just doesn’t happen. And these guys did it. It stays with you after. It’s not cheap; it’s just legitimately scary. Nothing’s cheap in the movie, except the price. It’s really incredible.
