Chelsea Stardust:
You wake up one morning to find the bank account is empty and your credit cards are maxed out. There’s nothing left for food or housing, and there’s a horde outside the door clawing at you with hungry, needy eyes. Sucking away your sanity and will to live. No, this isn’t an apocalyptic nightmare. This is Indie Cinema, baby! Today, we’re going to discuss three feature films all made for less than a tenth of what Marvel films pay for catering. Movies whose ideas soar well beyond their budgetary constraints and prove that all you need to create something that lasts forever is a good script, a camera, and a dream. This is Sitting in the Dark, the ultra-low-budget version.
Okay, so I’m really excited to talk about three movies today that I love and adore, that inspired me as a filmmaker by showing you that you can really make miracles happen with a low budget. I think these are good examples of that. Today we’re talking about 2012’s The Battery, 2014’s Starry Eyes, and 2021’s Hellbender.
I saw all of these pretty close to when they came out. The Battery was recommended to me by a fellow filmmaker friend. I think I saw Starry Eyes in the theater, and I saw Hellbender when it came out on Shudder. I loved all of these, and I picked them — first because I was thinking of movies I love that I think are very well executed on a lower budget, and also because they have great scripts and great actors. If the cinematography’s not great, if certain things aren’t quite in line, I think so much can be forgiven with a low budget when you have a great script and great actors. And these movies, because the writing was specifically done with the budget in mind, they’re not trying to accomplish too much. So it’s just the right amount, but it still feels big.
Also, there’s sort of a through line of death and rebirth in these movies. Transformation is big and it’s something in all three of them. That was sort of the through line I was looking at. Because obviously we know there are movies like Skinnamarink made on a very low budget. But in terms of something that flowed together as a set, that’s how I sort of paired them.
Pete Wright:
I forgot — you have to drink every time somebody mentions Skinnamarink.
Tommy Metz III:
Great connections.
Pete Wright:
All right, where do you want to start?
Chelsea Stardust:
I’m going to do them in order of release. So we’ll talk about 2012’s The Battery, which is written and directed by Jeremy Gardner, who I’m a big fan of. Just to give a little recap of the film: the personalities of two former baseball players clash as they travel the rural back roads of post-plague New England, teeming with the undead. So this is a zombie movie, and Jeremy Gardner is one of the leads — writer, director, and actor. We also get the voice of Larry Fessenden in this, for anyone who’s a fan of Larry. Budgetarily, the rumor is that Jeremy asked about ten friends for six hundred bucks each. So around six thousand dollars is what’s speculated to be the budget, which is amazing.
Pete Wright:
You can see every dollar on screen.
Chelsea Stardust:
Yes! So first I want to ask if there are any axes to grind for this one.
Pete Wright:
How about that.
Tommy Metz III:
This one really snuck up on me. I thought a certain way about this movie and then it really changed throughout, and by the end I became an enormous fan. That being said, some of the sequences — and this happens in low-budget filmmaking, this happens when the director is also the star — some of the sequences go a little self-indulgent, a little overlong. I understand that you want to get the audience to a place in order to then flip things. And I think this movie has amazing restraint at certain times. But other times it’s like, they know, and just call cut. Some of the sequences I think can be cut down a bit.
But maybe part of the idea is the mundanity of living in this world — because it’s not focusing on the zombies, it’s focusing on the people, that your days would be filled with brushing your teeth in real time for what seems like an incredibly long amount of time on a driveway. So I go back and forth. I think it has purpose. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I enjoyed some of those sequences, but I definitely respected them.
Kynan Dias:
I’m with Tommy on that. I admire what it’s trying to do. And it sometimes really works — just letting the camera be there and watching these people and then questioning the reality of the situation. What would you really be doing here? But then, yes, sometimes it doesn’t. Now we know that even in a zombie movie, thirty seconds of brushing your teeth is not interesting on camera. They did it. So if some kind of French New Wave filmmaker tries it, we can say, listen, even in a zombie apocalypse movie, it’s not going to work.
Tommy Metz III:
They crawled so others could walk.
Pete Wright:
You’re right.
I’m irrationally forgiving to anything with zombies in it. I’m a huge fan of the oeuvre. So I only had one of those complaints that Tom and Kynan are talking about, and we’ll get to that. But that’s actually not my axe. My axe is Mickey. I think the performance is great, but Mickey’s denial is the emotional engine of this film, and while the performance is super compelling, the script consistently positions his paralysis as poignant and not dangerous. Ben is the one constantly doing all the unglamorous stuff — he’s killing the zombies, he’s fishing, he’s hunting, doing everything necessary to stay alive in this world. And Mickey is the one the film aestheticizes. He’s made into this figure we’re supposed to aspire to, I guess.
There’s this shot where Mickey sits in a field with his headphones on and Ben is dealing with a zombie a hundred feet away, and the film lingers so longingly on Mickey like he’s just such a symbol. And I’m like, come on, man. You are a rube and you are dangerous to everyone around you. I think that’s a choice, and I know the film wants me to reckon with that. But it sort of suggests that Mickey’s attachment to his headphones and his inability to let go of his rich former life is somehow evidence that inside he’s really a good guy. And I don’t think that’s true. He’s repeatedly a liability. The film never commits to the idea that his refusal to adapt is self-destructive rather than something we should aspire to — this idea that there’s always room for dreamers even in a zombie apocalypse. I just struggled with Mickey.
Chelsea Stardust:
All of that is definitely valid. It’s funny revisiting this now, because it’s been a minute since I’ve seen it. It’s also kind of hard to come by — I’m really glad it’s on Prime, but it’s also on Kanopy, so it is accessible.
To speak to Tommy and Kynan’s note, I definitely felt it in the third act. That’s where I felt it the most. But I’m also a sucker for character slice-of-life stuff, so I kind of toggled back and forth on that, because you just want them to go out and get the keys. And I think there’s also something that’s really pushing you as a viewer, which I think is interesting.
And then to Pete’s note — yeah, how can you wear headphones when there are zombies around? It’s such a fascinating choice. Because he’s still likable. The actor is great. But you also know this person’s fate, because Ben is doing all the work. They’re the battery — they’re the catcher and the pitcher, actual baseball players. Both Jeremy and Adam, who plays Mickey — you can tell they’re actually throwing and pitching and hitting. There’s no manipulation to that. They’re so good.
Pete Wright:
You can tell they’re much more athletic than me, even though they don’t always look it. And Jeremy is legit. He has real charisma on screen.
Chelsea Stardust:
He’s so good.
Pete Wright:
He’s so good. And to be such a one-man band and handle this movie — to conceptualize it, perform in it, and direct himself — I was very impressed with the result. I feel like I may have lingered too long on my disdain for Mickey as the undoing of their friendship. I really don’t mean it that way. It’s kind of hard to find an axe to grind for this movie because I was genuinely impressed around every corner.
Chelsea Stardust:
And I think Mickey is a challenging character, an imperfect character, which I really respected. This also came out during The Walking Dead — I think that premiered in 2010 — and it’s tough to do a zombie movie in that context. And to see Jeremy grow as a director: he has another film called Tex Montana and one called After Midnight, and to see how he’s graduated as a director is something I always look out for.
But to get into this a little more, and to hear what you all like about it — the masturbation scene, to me, was a turning point for this movie. I was like, wow, this is something we don’t really talk about in apocalyptic movies.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Tommy Metz III:
It was really brave.
Kynan Dias:
Really brave, yeah.
Tommy Metz III:
It did go on a little too long for me. But I thought it was really brave, and yeah — a point of view that has just not been explored that I can remember.
Pete Wright:
Wait — are you saying it was brave for Mickey to masturbate to a zombie trying to get in the car, or brave for Jeremy to include that scene?
Tommy Metz III:
A hundred percent both, I guess. But putting that in the movie — there are certain people who would check out because of that. It’s just a bridge too far. But if you’re in this situation, that is the kind of thing you have to deal with, which is really interesting. I thought that was super brave to put in the movie, and to great effect.
Kynan Dias:
We’ve seen a lot of zombie movies, some of them covering a long period of time, but this is the first time some of these questions have even occurred to me. Like, not sleeping in a bed — just that human need to be in a bed. And then yeah, the real human need — just because there are zombies around, you’re a young guy and you have sexual urges, and how do you deal with that when there’s only one other person? And you’re not in a Walking Dead situation where you all have your own little rooms in a train station or a hospital or what have you. It’s interesting how you think the genre has covered everything it possibly could, and this film is discovering things you hadn’t considered — potentially because of its low-budgetness, because they can’t afford fighter jets coming in and blowing up the zombies at the end. It’s really having us confront things.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. The whole take on masculinity and the apocalypse — what does male friendship look like when there’s no more professional athletic performance, no more social performance, no more audience? Ben and Mickey’s relationship is intimate in a way that the pre-collapse world would not have allowed. They would never have arrived at that place. And I thought that ended up being really surprisingly special.
Chelsea Stardust:
And I love their relationship — also with that scene we were just talking about. The woman he’s attracted to looks like his girlfriend. They make reference to the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype. And there’s also this timelessness to the movie. He’s using a Discman — when this is 2012, the era of the iPhone — and I love that we don’t know where in time we are. All the places they stay, there’s nothing that reads modern. So many movies try to figure out a way to avoid current technology, but this does it so effortlessly. Obviously you can’t charge things without power, so you’re just using batteries. I thought that was a really cool choice that makes this film feel timeless whenever you watch it.
Kynan Dias:
Part of the technology they end up using are these walkie-talkies, and they can contact this other group of survivors. I really felt like we might encounter this orchard — this special place. But of course it’s impossible to geolocate them because they don’t have that technology. “Hey, stay away from us. We don’t know where you are. You don’t know where we are.” And having gone twenty years backward in technology — not even having a MapQuest to figure that out — with Mickey sort of hoping they’ll just come across this orchard and be accepted with open arms is really kind of tragic and beautiful.
Pete Wright:
Especially because the film spends a lingering, montage amount of time actually in an orchard. So I kept expecting, surely we’re near the orchard, this has to be a leading indicator that we’re going to find it. And they never do. And it leads to a really bleak ending after a very surprisingly brief interaction with this other group. I think I probably expected the Walking Dead transformation — that this is the brave new world era of the movie, they’re going to find them and it’s going to be good or bad. But we never even get to that point. They simply approach each other, there’s a small conflict, and they leave. That was surprising. I think that’s bold filmmaking — to leave us in that kind of uncertain emotional space by the end of the movie, and to see how their friendship has to be ripped apart. It was a surprise to me.
Tommy Metz III:
I was really glad that we never got to the orchard. I thought that if there was going to be a time that the lack of filmic resources was going to show, it would be that.
Instead, I love how it wasn’t like, “We don’t want you to find us because we’re perfect — we’re Alexandria in The Walking Dead.” It reminded me of what we actually know about them: “They’d put me over the fence if they knew I was talking to you. They’re very vengeful. If they find me, I’m a dead man anyway.” And then my favorite line: “This place… is not what you think it is.”
Pete Wright:
Yeah, because it is The Walking Dead effectively, which has no good communities.
Tommy Metz III:
The orchard isn’t great.
But keeping it like a show like Lost — just giving glimpses of the Others and not robbing them of their power. Instead just have it be this other situation we can’t understand because we’re not part of it. What are they really doing and what have they done? They talk about tremors — they obviously have capabilities we don’t — but don’t assume that means it’s any kind of utopia. I love that kind of unknown. Those glimpses into another unknown culture are really exciting.
Chelsea Stardust:
To sort of pay back on that a tiny bit — when Mickey meets her, Annie, in person, he can’t help himself. He can’t help himself but say something to her when he thinks it’s her. And it just kills you because you’re like, bro — they were letting you go. But he couldn’t help himself because he’s so clearly a serial monogamist. And frankly, as we all know from Walking Dead, that’s not how that would have normally ended.
Pete Wright:
I was surprised that no one had an axe to grind about the title. That seems to be a favorite axe for you two — Kynan and Tom. Do we universally like “The Battery” as the title?
Chelsea Stardust:
That’s what they are.
Kynan Dias:
I don’t like it.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Chelsea Stardust:
That’s what they are, though.
Kynan Dias:
I wish the title had come up beyond Act Two. I expected that in Act Three they would have some resolution to the themes they’re bringing up with it being called The Battery.
Chelsea Stardust:
They do reference the title because they are a battery. But I don’t know if the average viewer knows what a baseball battery is — what that actually means.
Kynan Dias:
Right. Not at all. That was the first time I’d heard it.
Chelsea Stardust:
So in terms of the transformation in this movie — and it’s more obvious in the next two movies — but the key transformation is that Mickey decides: I got us into this, I’m the one who’s going to fix it. They get stuck in a car. The orchard people throw the keys into a field, so Mickey and Ben are stuck in this car with zombies all around them, shaking the car, and they just won’t go away. Days and nights pass.
Tommy Metz III:
What a smart low-budget way to handle that.
Chelsea Stardust:
Right? And they even cover the car on the inside so the zombies can’t see them. It’s just the car softly rocking, but the sound is driving them insane.
Tommy Metz III:
And you don’t have to hire those people to be there for most of the third act. You just have to have one PA doing this on the car. You can see through it, but it’s still smart.
Chelsea Stardust:
And that shot of them in darkness — “Do you hear that?” — and they turn the headlights on and there’s a horde of zombies. So he decides, I’m going to go out and look for the keys. They’re in this field, I’m going to do it. And obviously he comes back and he gets bit. And Ben is very much against conflict: why did you say anything? We were so close to getting away. And his turning point is that he has to lose his best friend — Mickey gets bit, Ben has a gun, and has to take him out of his misery before he turns. Ben then decides to take vengeance on the orchard people. Tells them, “I’m coming for you, wherever you are.” Gets out and starts going, whether the zombies are coming for him or not. That to me was the transformation for this character. He had to lose his best friend. Now I’m going to get my revenge.
Tommy Metz III:
Another transformation was the shocking way that Ben decided to force Mickey into violence — by shoving a zombie into the room, yelling “Wake up!” and then closing the door. Like the world’s worst prank.
Chelsea Stardust:
Horrible. And I don’t know if I’ve seen that in a zombie movie. Maybe you guys can speak to this — I was trying to think. Obviously you shoot them, but to physically put a zombie in a room and lock the door?
Tommy Metz III:
I’ve seen it not to teach a lesson but to sacrifice people — to weaponize zombies. And that’s also big in the graphic novels — using zombies as a first force when you’re trying to take a town. You drive a car, open the back, and zombies pour out.
Chelsea Stardust:
Yeah.
Kynan Dias:
That scene is really interesting. Again, they’re doing it in the low-budget way — we’re going to be hearing it from the opposite side of the door. But it is so well justified. And what we’re hearing on the other side of that door is horrifying. We hear Mickey waking up saying, “No, what are you doing?” And then: “I know what you’re doing. I’m not gonna do it.” It works as a one-shot. Very effective. Very smart.
Tommy Metz III:
And the soundtrack is fantastic. It’s diegetic, but it really helps the whole thing. I love the cinematography. There are a lot of one-shots, a lot of movement, but then just these static shots. He uses depth a ton in a way I like. This is a very small movie clearly made to be seen on a big screen. Even on a small screen, sometimes it can be a little hard to see certain things — but not in a bad way. They’re just so far away. He loves putting people very big in the foreground and then really pulling back. That takes courage because you’re going to lose all the emotion if you can’t see their faces. Instead they just let the music, let the movement do it. I thought it was really cool.
Chelsea Stardust:
I’m so glad you brought up the music — I love the Rock Plaza Central “Anthem for the Already Defeated.” That moment. The “We Can Take Our Bones” song is so good. I’m a sucker for a great musical moment in a movie. And the way it plays with the headphones — it’s all very purposeful. None of it is just thrown in. You can tell the director loves these songs and they all have a place.
Kynan Dias:
The last thing I want to say is that the long sequence in the car at the end is really interesting. In a post-apocalyptic movie, you sometimes get the obligatory happy moment — hey, we can’t just be awful the entire way through. But this one makes it feel so organic. They’re being driven crazy by the zombies around them and they get to have this euphoric moment because they are willing themselves to have fun so they don’t go crazy. So it doesn’t feel like a happy montage thrown in the middle. I would be doing exactly that in that car.
Tommy Metz III:
Right.
Pete Wright:
The fly-on-the-wall question for me is, do we need twenty minutes of that field? Could we get that same vibe in ten?
I know there’s a real filmmaking reason to have it. I mean, for God’s sake, I sat through Jeanne Dielman. It’s fine. But I just felt like it was a bit exuberant for this movie to give us twenty straight minutes in the car with them. I was ready. I’d learned my lesson. I was ready before the film was.
Kynan Dias:
Sometimes the long takes worked on me really well, and sometimes they didn’t. So I totally understand how that wouldn’t work for some people. The teeth brushing, for me, was a miss. The car sequence actually worked.
Tommy Metz III:
But isn’t the movie coming in at just around 83 minutes? Much shorter than that and you don’t have a feature — there would be certain places that would not consider that an actual feature film.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, it’s tight. But that’s about choices. Ten minutes off the car gives me ten more minutes elsewhere that I really felt good about.
Chelsea Stardust:
You can tell it’s his movie. Nobody has touched this movie. It is Jeremy through and through. And as a director, there’s something refreshing about that. As a viewer, should there be a cut there, should it be shortened? Absolutely. But as a director, I was like — make them sit through it. Do it. So I’m conflicted.
Any other final thoughts on The Battery?
Tommy Metz III:
When it turned out that he was actually bit — when I said this movie snuck up on me, I was devastated. I really thought, partly because of how long we’d spent with them really bonding at the end, that he was going to be like, “Did you get bit?” And he’d be like, “Who’s the prankster now? I got the key.” I really thought that’s what was going to happen.
And then when Jeremy fully turns into this Casey Affleck in I’m Still Here mode — the huge beard, the “oh god, oh god” — I was really, really affected.
Chelsea Stardust:
I highly recommend seeking out Jeremy’s two other movies. He’s just such a great filmmaker. And any time you can see him act in something is a delight.
Okay, so transitioning to 2014’s Starry Eyes, which is written and directed by Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch. It’s a Dark Sky and Snow Fort Pictures production — Snow Fort is Travis Stevens’ company, who I’m a big fan of. This one stars Alex Essoe, Noah Segan, Amanda Fuller, Pat Healy, Nick Simmons — good on Pat Healy — Marc Senter, Maria Olsen.
Starry Eyes is about a hopeful young starlet who uncovers the ominous origins of the Hollywood elite and enters into a deadly agreement in exchange for fame and fortune.
I remember seeing this film in the theater, and I recently got to see it again at what I’ll call an anniversary screening, on the big screen again, which was such a treat. I’m close friends with Dennis and Kevin. In terms of budget — whereas the last one was around six thousand dollars — this was in the fifty-thousand dollar world, I think. They never really share the true numbers online, but I think that’s the neighborhood. And this movie resonates with me on so many levels. Before we get too far, are there any axes to grind?
Kynan Dias:
Just a minor axe. I love Pat Healy. I love this tater tot version of Hooters. But I think we went back there one too many times. Once she’s out of there, I’m okay with not getting down into the logistics of paying rent and all of that. I loved it at the beginning — that world, and what she has to put up with, and him leering at her while pretending it’s because he’s wondering where she’s keeping her phone while getting these audition notifications. That’s really wonderful. I just think we went back one too many times. At that point I was like, no, I’m done with Tater Tots. She’s a demon. Let’s do demon stuff.
Pete Wright:
But they were so happy with the tater tot restaurant.
Kynan Dias:
Oh, yes.
Pete Wright:
You have to go back.
Tommy Metz III:
Mine is only that I was enjoying this movie so much, and then it hit one sequence that felt a little clichéd. Everything up to her going and performing for the producer in order to get the part — all of that was great. Everything was pitch-perfect. So weird and interesting and Lynchian. And then you saw the pentagram hand and the two black-hooded figures come out from behind a curtain and I was like, ehh. And then the obligatory “I’ve made the decision” slow-motion walk through city streets. Just that whole sequence — I was like, this is real low-budget in a way that the rest of the movie shines past. It just took some air out of it for a while. And then the movie gets legitimately upsetting, but we’ll get there.
But everything up until that moment — the line, “I want to see your fit, Sarah” — I was locked in. I just wish they had kept that restraint. We didn’t need that. That’s all.
Pete Wright:
I’m right with you on that. I feel like the pentagram is kind of first thought, best thought. We need a symbol, we need a shorthand to show a cult, so we’re going to go with pentagram. And it just has so much symbological baggage that I feel like the movie doesn’t necessarily even want to interrogate.
And I think that’s part of my axe. Again, this is another movie I really liked. But I think the movie tries to distinguish between the system that is obviously exploiting Sarah’s ambition and Sarah’s ambition itself, and figure out which is the locus of horror. What is the thing to be afraid of? Because we know that her transformation is sort of like punishment for wanting too much. And “wanting too much” is a charge that has been leveled at women more than men in Hollywood for decades. I think there’s a version of this film where that’s the point. But the pentagram makes that distracting.
I kind of wanted to see a film that fully committed to one or the other of those tropes and delivered something really original. Instead the film just lands on Alix’s performance and her ability to lock into all of these stages of transformation. And I just wish everything around that performance, thematically, had lived up to it. Because it almost did. It just walked me a little bit out of the film.
Chelsea Stardust:
I’m right there with you, and that’s where my notes landed too. I almost wonder — they’re trying to get a sequel to this movie going — but if they were making it today, I don’t think you would have that in it. Because now, when you create a cult, you create your own mythology. It doesn’t have to be Satan. It could just be an Astrayus Pictures cult. Make it its own unique thing. I think in 2014, that felt like, oh yeah, let’s do this — and I think now it’s, no, let’s create something new.
Pete Wright:
Weinstein didn’t need a pentagram.
Kynan Dias:
Mm-hmm.
Pete Wright:
This movie would be very different now, because making it after 2017 completely changes the dialogue.
Kynan Dias:
Mm-hmm.
Chelsea Stardust:
Absolutely. And NXIVM didn’t need a pentagram — they had their own brand. So I just think there was opportunity there to be a bit more original.
Digging into what I love about this, though — the movie feels big, in terms of everything going on. There are a couple of places where you know they’re stealing their locations a little, like the Hollywood Bowl — you can tell we’re just out here shooting and can’t properly light it. But I want to take a moment to recognize how incredible Alix Angelis is in this movie, who is also a friend, and this put her on the map. She has gone on to do so many things, including working with Mike Flanagan. Any time you see her, she’s doing her own full-commitment take on a possession film, and that moment — and the makeup on her — talk about a fearless actress. She is so fearless in this movie and is a hundred percent committed. As a director, I see that. And I don’t think the movie works without it.
Pete Wright:
No, I don’t think so either. I think this has big classic Polanski energy and some Cronenberg energy, and all of those require a certain kind of performance commitment from an actor. I think she just crushes it.
Kynan Dias:
There’s a crazy irony in the movie — the fake movie-within-the-movie that they’re promising her is this wonderful actor showcase that will put her on the map. And at that point we don’t really know where this performance is going to go. But she’s able to play that mousy version of herself really well — the one with this kind of self-harm OCD, internal struggle thing. And then the one who is falling apart and terrified. And then the one who is the sexy, confident killer. She goes in this crazy direction. And it’s exactly what they promised us at the beginning of the movie. That’s a risky promise to make if the rest of the movie doesn’t deliver. But she’s flawless in this.
Tommy Metz III:
It reminded me a lot of Mulholland Drive. And it’s both Mulholland Drive and Requiem for a Dream, in that when she sees the dolled-up version of herself as she herself is Dorian Graying — becoming grosser and grosser — that’s really interesting.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. It turns into The Fly, in terms of some of the body horror stuff. Even at a fifty-thousand dollar budget, that was gross. I was in it.
Chelsea Stardust:
Yeah. And my favorite part — because I love practical filmmaking that isn’t necessarily gore — is when she’s having her audition nightmare and they keep cutting to the script with words and letters disappearing, and then she starts bleeding on it. That costs a dollar to make, and it’s a million-dollar idea. It’s so cool. That reminds me of something we talked about with Smile — when she answers the phone, and then the phone rings and the phone is over there again. It costs nothing to do, but it’s so smart. I love that kind of thing.
And when I first watched this movie, as someone who has been in casting sessions before as a director — the beginning is so painful. Marc Senter is doing his best Patrick Bateman as the casting assistant.
Tommy Metz III:
He’s such a creep. I love it.
Chelsea Stardust:
So good. The “We’ll be in touch” is so painful to me because it is so real. I can’t imagine actors watching this movie and not relating to it. It’s an exaggeration of the experience, but also kind of not.
And I really want to take a moment to talk about the friend group — Danny, Tracy, Aaron, Poe, and Ashley. Tracy is the closest friend to Sarah. Danny is like, “I’m trying to make a movie.” Poe is the photographer, always taking pictures. And then there’s Aaron — God, she’s so horrible, but I know people like that.
Tommy Metz III:
Is she the mean one? Yeah, she’s the worst.
Pete Wright:
Super passive-aggressive. Oh God.
Chelsea Stardust:
When I first came out here, I knew people exactly like this in both the acting world and the filmmaking world. Sometimes it’s really hard to watch because I felt it so deeply. This was also a time when we were taught — as women — that there’s only one seat at the table, and you are in competition with each other, because only one of you will get the job. That’s what the Hollywood system wants you to believe, because heaven forbid if all the women get together to make movies. Now it’s so different. Now we’re in it together. We’ve decided we’re not going to play that game anymore. But at this time, that was so real.
Anyway, clearly I was triggered by it. I just needed to take a moment to talk about these characters, because they’re so good. And of course Sarah turning against her friends — I have friends in my life that have gone on to be very successful and they really pull back from their circle in a big way. Just like Sarah says, paraphrasing: “I’m destined for something greater than you will ever understand.” She is ready to leave them all behind. Kill. Do whatever it takes to be the best.
Tommy Metz III:
She’s ready to transform.
Kynan Dias:
That monologue that evil Sarah gives at the end is really affecting — calling them all losers. And I like how in the beginning the movie captures both the terrors of being out in Hollywood and the joys of that life — you know, talking about projects, feeling sophisticated and wonderful, laying around in the pool and feeling like you’re part of it. When you’re in your early twenties, that’s also lovely. So when she’s demonic and calling them losers, it is about as emotionally violent as smashing someone’s face with a barbell.
Tommy Metz III:
Emotionally violent, sure.
Kynan Dias:
Really, really shocking.
Pete Wright:
That just reminds me of my days living in California where every day ended at two o’clock at the pool, living in an apartment complex called — no lie — the Melrose Place. That was a really important life. But by the end you realize that the machinery of the work means that you get, let’s say, everything you want like Sarah has, and then you lose everything that made you who you were in the first place. And I think that was an interesting choice for this movie, and an interesting one to ask: is there any Sarah left? Was she already insufficient for everything that was to come next?
Kynan Dias:
That’s an interesting question. If we’re taking the movie’s word that this is what Hollywood wants — this perfect woman who has nothing left of herself, torn out the hair completely, a different wig, different eyes, none of the past or her friends — is there anything of Sarah at all? Or is it that you have to completely become a vessel, a nothing? As opposed to a lot of depictions of Hollywood where it’s, “I see something in you, I’m going to turn that into a star.” She becomes a star by having nothing in her.
Pete Wright:
Oh my god. The fact that her peers are what she’s afraid of becoming, and so she chooses a satanic cult instead? That’s crazy.
Kynan Dias:
Yeah.
Tommy Metz III:
And at the end, after she crawls out of that weird naked pit and puts on all her outfits — the black dress, the wig — and we flash to all the old movie stars on her wall. It’s kind of hinting: this is what all of these stars had to do. This is how you make it in Hollywood. You don’t get Entourage and keep all your friends and go to parties. No — you sell yourself completely.
Kynan Dias:
They flashed to Marilyn Monroe and Rita Hayworth, who — it’s documented — experienced serious sexual harassment and abuse. And Marilyn Monroe — it destroyed her. She’s on the wall as this famous person, but she was killed by it.
Tommy Metz III:
When I said the movie at some point goes from a really dark satire to genuinely upsetting — the violence against the friends is when that shift happens. The lack of veneer, combined with the budget, makes it feel more… this is hyperbolic, but more snuff-adjacent than how movie murders are usually depicted. They don’t hold anything back, and it just gets worse and worse. The dumbbell moment is like a jump scare — not the buildup to it, just the cut to her holding it over someone. I woke my dog up before she even swung it. Because it’s so muddily lit, if that’s what you’re looking for in terms of feel, it is really an asset. It feels dirty. It feels too real. It feels unsafe. Some of these people were really nice and trying and were the last shred of her humanity, and then she crawls into bed and kisses her roommate to death.
Kynan Dias:
We’ll tell you when you’re older, Tommy.
Tommy Metz III:
Oh no! Apparently it was cooties-related.
Chelsea Stardust:
She sucks the soul out of her.
I love the practical effects in this movie. Even re-watching it, every time I’m just — you don’t feel the budget there at all. It’s very violent, very intense. The blood is at an eleven. She leaves these people in her wake, and her transformation — those effects, the maggots — she is literally purging everything from inside of her outward to truly become this vessel for whatever Astrayus Pictures has planned for her.
And there’s a moment where she says, “That’s something I’m not going to do to achieve fame.” And then as it goes on, she’s going to do it and not question it. She goes through this crazy transformation, can’t get a hold of anyone, is clearly very sick. But my other thing is: Tracy, if my friend looked like that, we would be getting you help right now.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. There were some real red flags well before you even got to the rest of the face. Her nose alone was like, let’s get you to a doctor.
Tommy Metz III:
Just allergies, right?
Kynan Dias:
I don’t think Zyrtec is going to do that, yeah.
Pete Wright:
Get you to an ENT.
Kynan Dias:
This is the kind of movie where at a film festival, people in the audience are always asking, “How much was the budget?” And they have to patiently explain they can’t tell you. This is a good case for that — you could imagine hearing it’s a fifty-thousand dollar movie or a two-million dollar movie or a five-million dollar movie and still be within the realm of plausibility. Whatever ultra-low budget they were working on, they did very well with it.
Chelsea Stardust:
Absolutely. And then they went on to do the Pet Sematary remake, so this helped get them to a studio movie. Because of what they were able to achieve on this.
Tommy Metz III:
Oh, okay.
Chelsea Stardust:
Okay, last but not least is 2021’s Hellbender, which is written and directed by what I’ll call the Adams Family — Toby Poser, John Adams, and Zelda Adams — and stars Zelda Adams, Toby Poser, John Adams, and Lulu Adams.
This is the story of a lonely teen who discovers her family’s ties to witchcraft. This young teenager, Izzy, lives on a remote piece of forested property — upstate New York, I believe — and her mother keeps her close nearby, kept being a generous word. She slowly realizes that there is witchcraft in her family in a big way.
Would love to hear any axes to grind on this one. In terms of budget, you cannot find anything about this movie. I think I read under five dollars. We’ll get into more of that.
Tommy Metz III:
Because they’re actually witches.
Pete Wright:
Ha.
Tommy Metz III:
It’s just a quibble, and I thought I would have much more of it throughout these three. Some of the acting is a little flat or amateurish — and I guess I’m calling out Amber specifically. I think she’s fine, but maybe it’s the fact that she spends all of her scenes against one of the most magnetic actors I’ve seen in a while: Zelda. She is just so magnetic, so interesting looking, even when deliberately done down — her hair has literal twigs in it — and you’re still just like, the camera loves you.
So maybe it’s not Amber’s fault as much as just the contrast. Amber feels like the character in a Ben Affleck movie set in Boston where someone says, “You think you’re better than me?” and you’re like, that’s clearly a childhood friend and they’re not going to be in the movie much longer. That’s what Amber felt like to me. I’m sorry, that came out ruder than I meant. That’s really more of a compliment to the other actors throughout these movies.
Chelsea Stardust:
Cold.
Tommy Metz III:
This was the first time I was like, oh, a little underfunded actor.
Pete Wright:
Well, I didn’t know until I’d finished watching that this was a family affair — that Izzy and Lulu are siblings. Watching them have their weird friend relationship together was, for me, legitimately compelling.
My axe is more about the Hellbender lore. I think it earns so much goodwill through atmosphere and performance and genuine family chemistry — the mother-daughter performance is just so good, I love the mother — but the internal rules of what a hellbender is and what they can do are sort of elastically defined. Frustratingly elastic for me. It serves the film really well because it stays in this dreamlike space. But when the third act hits and the stakes are concrete and violent, the looseness of the rules gets in its own way a little bit. Who’s doing what to whom, what it takes to power and transmit — it gets a little tangled. That’s a dumb axe to grind. I really enjoyed this movie.
Tommy Metz III:
I don’t think that’s a dumb axe.
Kynan Dias:
I think I’ve got a dumber one.
Chelsea Stardust:
That’s valid.
Kynan Dias:
Because I really like this movie. I think this is special. I think this is the capper of these three.
But it’s sort of endemic to this subgenre of the child who’s kept in the woods or a basement, and when they come out even slightly normal — like Izzy — I was bumping on that a lot at the beginning. I was like, she should be more like the kids in Dogtooth, or like Jacob Tremblay in Room — these are seriously messed up people. So in the first act I was stuck in that question: you’re telling me she’s never been to the grocery store, she doesn’t have a TV — why is she articulate whatsoever? I wish there had been some fix for that. But by the end of it, I didn’t care about any of that. I was very, very moved.
Chelsea Stardust:
I came to this movie when it came out on Shudder. It was 2021, so still pandemic time. I didn’t see it until maybe 2022 or 2023 at the latest. And ever since then I have sought out everything the Adams Family has done. I’ve been in communication with Toby because I’m just floored by them. The idea of: let’s make a movie, and we’re going to make a lot of movies, because we can all do it together — to have this cohesive family collaboration. They just had a new film come out called Mother of Flies, which is on Shudder, brand new. Festival darlings.
When I saw Hellbender, it blew me away in terms of feeling so much bigger than it had any right to. They’re basically shooting in their backyard. The forest itself is so incredible — the production design. And they’re doing very smart things with the camera to make it feel bigger: there are drone shots, and the cinematography itself is gorgeous.
I realize I didn’t mention an axe to grind. Maybe there’s a little bit with the lore, as Pete mentioned. But part of me likes not being told all of it. I was okay with that. I genuinely don’t have an axe that feels valid enough to bring.
Kynan Dias:
You can just like things, Chelsea.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, you can just like it.
Kynan Dias:
Just because you’re a podcast host now, you don’t have to be a critic about everything.
Pete Wright:
You don’t have to have an axe.
Chelsea Stardust:
I just genuinely like so many things. Sometimes I feel like, no, you’ve got to be more critical. But I just don’t, not for this.
Tommy Metz III:
There’s no fallacy that says you have to have something bad to say. Don’t worry.
Chelsea Stardust:
Anyway — I want to talk about how we learn things through this movie. Learning about Izzy, not allowed to leave the property, told she’s sick. There’s a quality to how that information is revealed. They eat things you definitely cannot eat in real life — all these plants and berries and pine cones. And I remember as the movie starts, I’m like, what is this world? The way the information is given to us as a viewer is really smart filmmaking. We’re not going to explain everything to you. Oh, we’re going to put our hand on this symbol and a key is going to come out through the back of our hand. What!
Pete Wright:
Awesome.
Chelsea Stardust:
Incredible. I want to hear your thoughts on how the information is parceled out — and whether you felt you got all the information you wanted, or whether you wanted things more explained.
Kynan Dias:
Those surprises worked for me. They were very fun. Not even knowing she’s a vegetarian until she’s forced to eat the worm, and then going backwards — that works completely for me.
And then kind of the biggest one — that thing they say to each other: “Winter eats fall, and fall eats summer, and summer eats spring, and spring eats…” You hear that and think, okay, that’s just good science. That’s just how time works.
Tommy Metz III:
Checks out.
Kynan Dias:
And then near the end of Act Two, they start saying it again, and you go: oh gosh, I see what they’re actually saying now. I liked those revelation moments. I understand how some of it is obtuse, but some of it hit me right at the right spot.
Tommy Metz III:
And they make up their own symbols — as far as I know — or use ones that are much more obscure than the aforementioned pentagram. So there’s something very Wiccan about it, but you can’t exactly tell why.
And then all the freak-out scenes. A little of that stuff can go a long way, but they get it right here. When the first one started I thought, oh no — because I’ve seen this go very wrong in low-budget, just going down the list of After Effects, like, just because you can doesn’t mean you should. But it was really smartly done and was really scary. Because that’s showing restraint even within a freak-out moment. You can push those effects so much further to worse effect, where all you’re doing is wondering what that effect is called instead of feeling how it’s affecting you.
Pete Wright:
I think it all serves the major themes. And let me just say, I know I’m walking a tightrope here — I don’t want an exposition dump, and it’s hard for me to criticize loose lore right after I complained about the lore being too tight with the pentagram.
Tommy Metz III:
You are a genuine lore Goldilocks.
Pete Wright:
I know. I know I am.
But what does work for me completely, lock, stock, and barrel, is the isolation motif as protection versus imprisonment. I love that. And hunger in this movie, especially for Izzy, is the body’s greatest honesty. The movie is at its greatest truth when she is hungry for something.
And we’ve talked before about “mama acts this way because she hates you” movies, and I think Hellbender does a great job demonstrating how female lineage — between mother and daughter — can be inherited monstrousness. That’s a really interesting thing to explore, and the perfect genre to play with. Wicca, nature, paganism — it all lands so hard as soon as you bring in the tropes of trauma and power and shame and the specific ways women can hurt each other. I thought it was awesome.
Tommy Metz III:
We don’t use a lot of folk horror in modern-day settings.
Kynan Dias:
Yeah.
Tommy Metz III:
One of the most surprising things for me wasn’t even scary. It’s when the film has been going on and on and suddenly we’re in town.
Kynan Dias:
Mm.
Tommy Metz III:
And it’s actually kind of scary when she goes into town and meets Amber again — like, oh right, town. I know we saw this pool, but everything else you just think they’re out in the middle of nowhere. And instead, yeah, there’s civilization. Right there. I thought that was a really interesting turn — to remind you that they’re in their own folk horror nightmare that exists right outside the world.
Kynan Dias:
I love the scene where the park ranger shows up and the mother is trying to do her normal thing, and he’s like, actually, I know things, and I could make trouble for you. That’s genuinely terrifying, because at that point you’re not really sure who you should be afraid of. You like them both so much — you don’t want either of them to dust someone and make things worse.
Pete Wright:
And the park ranger ends up being genuinely nice.
Kynan Dias:
Just a nice guy.
Pete Wright:
He’s just a good guy.
Chelsea Stardust:
He’s a good dude.
Kynan Dias:
And also, this movie deals with generational trauma in a way that a lot of millennial films do — though the Adams Family must be Gen X or Gen Y. Most millennial generational trauma movies end with the cycle broken. This one is like, okay, I did that before, a hundred years ago, and it didn’t take. I stopped the cycle. Did what I had to do. Now we’re in the woods. And then the next generation is like, eh, we’re gonna do it anyway. And sorry, there’s nothing you can do about it.
Chelsea Stardust:
I want to piggyback on something Pete said. To have this story about generations of women, of witches — mother and daughter — also told by a mother and a daughter takes this movie to a whole new level. I know John is involved too. But there are very few witch movies directed by women. I can maybe count them on one hand. They are almost entirely always directed by men. And so this brings a completely different perspective, for obvious reasons, that resonated so much with me.
And I love that ultimately Izzy has to make the choice. Who knows how long this would have gone on if Izzy had never accidentally eaten an earthworm? The idea that yes, you’re trying to protect your child — but it has to always be her choice. And I love choosing to rage. “You’re going to be scared of me because you should be.” Things are going to be fine, but you’re going to be scared of me.
I also love the — whatever you want to call it — the flesh cave, the tunnel of intestines and hair and grossness of basically consuming everything and becoming something new. That is so cool.
Tommy Metz III:
The flesh cave, yeah.
Pete Wright:
Individuation sucks.
Chelsea Stardust:
I love that so much. And that exchange they have. And I love that they have a band together called Hellbender — which is the title of the movie. All three of these movies we talked about today have incredible music in them. That’s something I wanted to touch on. And the band plays a part — “Why don’t we play in town?” “No, no, no. We just do it here.”
Pete Wright:
We just do it for fun.
Chelsea Stardust:
And I love that she’s like, “No. I’m going to do this and do it the way I want to do it. You don’t get to make that call. You don’t get to decide that, Mom.”
Pete Wright:
Because ultimately music is what liberates her — as an inciting incident, certainly. At the pool, when she goes back and there’s a drum set out on the pool deck — just like my outdoor woodland drum set. I just keep that by the pool.
Kynan Dias:
He likes bothering the birds.
Pete Wright:
Right. Overall, great pick. I really enjoyed this.
Tommy Metz III:
Thank you, Chelsea.
Chelsea Stardust:
I’m so glad I got to introduce three movies that I love, and that they were all first-time watches for people. That’s always a treat. Rarely do you get to have all three be first-time watches for the group.
But I really wanted to do this because filmmaking is difficult. Every movie is a miracle. So many movies have been made that haven’t gotten to come out — it’s always a marathon and never a sprint. And I think it’s so important to recognize these smaller-budget movies where people say, “No, I want to make a movie and I’m going to make it happen.” And to be able to do that, and make it good, and have it really resonate because you have a great script and great directors who can execute it and great actors — that is key to me. So I’m so glad we got to talk about these movies. Thank you so much.
Kynan Dias:
I also think you’ve identified something — there are a lot of people telling first-time filmmakers that the only chance they have to break out is if they’re doing a low-budget horror movie. Which might be true. But you see a whole generation and a half of filmmakers who don’t have their hearts in horror who are making these low-budget horror movies, and they go nowhere. And you’ve pointed out filmmakers who clearly love horror. It’s evident even on their low budget. So they’re smart about how they come across with it.
Pete Wright:
Great threads. And that actually allows us to transition to our coming attractions. Thomas, what are we going to do?
Tommy Metz III:
All of the subjects I’ve picked before — Skinnamarink included — I’ve felt very strongly and very confident about. I knew what I wanted to talk about. I had things. I brought slides.
And instead I wanted to talk about something I enjoy but don’t fully understand. Something where I don’t know exactly what the rules are, but I know there must be some, so I wanted to go on an exploration. Less “here I’m presenting a thesis” and more “let’s figure this out together.” Something we’ve brushed on but haven’t really tackled. It’s called: I Can’t Decide.
Pete Wright:
Okay. It turns out he really, really couldn’t decide at all. And even though while we were recording he came up with an idea and was very proud of it — even though he didn’t know what two of the three movies were going to be at the time — he changed his mind after we recorded. So I am here to tell you what Tom is actually going to be talking about. I’m very excited.
He is doing a subject he’s calling Tribalism and the Other. The idea is that horror has always had a talent for turning social fear into spectacle, and the three films Tom has picked are separated by decades and wildly different in texture, but all share a preoccupation with what happens when the boundary between us and them collapses. So here we go. The first: The Return of the Living Dead. The second: The Cell — that’s right, with Jenny from the block. And the third: Assassination Nation.
You can find the link to those on our Letterboxd profile — just look in our lists, you’ll find all the Sitting in the Dark lists there. And now back to the show.
This was outstanding. Thank you, Chelsea, once again. Great picks, and so delighted to have added these to my own film diary. Don’t forget to do all the things you do for podcasts — we’d love you to share the show with others. We appreciate you joining us this month.
You can head over to thenextreel.com — that’s where you can join the Next Reel family of film shows and become a supporting member. For just a few bucks a month, you’ll have access to the full show a week early. But not just Sitting in the Dark — you’ll also get Movies We Like, the Next Reel flagship show, and the Filmboard. You get your own personal member feed and ad-free early editions of every show we do as part of the Next Reel Family of Film Podcasts. It is greatly helpful for you to do that. If you like podcasts and if you’re listening to this one, we sure hope you’ll head over there and throw us a few bucks a month.
On behalf of Kynan and Tommy and Chelsea, I’m Pete Wright. We’ll see you next month, sitting in the dark.
