December 15, 2025 • 50 mins
This week, the boys are joined by the awesome multihyphenated Kier-La Janisse! We dive into her narrative film debut with this year's The Haunted Season, The Occupant of the Room, talking about the collaborative spirit of the film, the inspirations behind the series, and what the future hold for further installments. But of course, we first had to talk to her about one of our favorites, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror, as well as her books such as Cockfight: A Fable of Failure, Satanic Panic, The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies, producing with Severin, and more!
But before bringing her in, the boys review Five Nights at Freddy's 2, Wake Up Dead Man, Die My Love, Zootopia 2 (and its many horror references), and Correia talks about the 90's Showtime Movie series Rebel Highway! It's all new on EYE ON HORROR!
Movies mentioned in this episode:
https://letterboxd.com/correianbbq/list/eye-on-horror-podcast-sn-8-ep-16/
Follow us on the socials: @EyeOnHorror or check out https://linktr.ee/EyeOnHorror
Get more horror movie news at: https://ihorror.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
James Jay Edwards (00:25):
Welcome to eye on horror, the official
podcast of ihorror.com this isepisode 156 otherwise known as
season eight. Episode 16. I amyour host, James Jay Edwards,
and with me, as always, is yourother host, Jacob Davison, how
you doing?
Jacob Davidson (00:40):
Jacob, doing all right, just back on the West
Coast after my trip to NewEngland
James Jay Edwards (00:46):
and and now your mom's on the West Coast,
didn't she?
Yeah, going to be visiting outhere.
Yeah. Also with us, as always,is your other other host, Jon
Correia. How you doing?
Jonathan Correia (00:59):
Correia? Doing pretty good. We got a new cat,
Priscilla.
James Jay Edwards (01:06):
Priscilla Presley, something, Queen of the
Desert.
Jonathan Correia (01:09):
Okay, so her, so her name is Priscilla. Her
full government name, though, isPriscilla Presley Chambers Queen
of the Dessert. Queen of theDessert. Okay, she's a stonky.
She's stonking.
James Jay Edwards (01:21):
Loomis is full government. Name is Dr
Samuel William Loomis. He's adoctor.
Jonathan Correia (01:30):
Yeah, we were, we were mascot of the show. And
my old roommate, Black Phillip,passed in October. So, you know,
there's, there's been a bit of avoid, but it's, it's been cool
because she's, she was reallyskittish at first, though it's
been really fun seeing herpersonality come out in the last
week. And it turns out she's100% a goober. She's just, she's
(01:53):
just dumb, and has ADHD worsethan I so it's great. We get
along.
Jacob Davidson (01:58):
Sounds like a match made in heaven.
James Jay Edwards (02:01):
I tell you, Loomis is going to be really
upset to realize that he was notthe mascot of the show, because
for the past five years, hethought that he is no he is too.
You can have multiple mascots,okay? Because Greta wants to be
a mascot too.
Jonathan Correia (02:14):
All our pets are mascots.
James Jay Edwards (02:16):
What's been going on? The only new thing I
think that's come out recentlyis Five Nights at Freddy's 2,
have either you guys seen FiveNights at Freddy's 2?
Jacob Davidson (02:26):
I haven't seen the new one. I did see the
original though.
James Jay Edwards (02:28):
Yeah, the new one. I wasn't as big of a fan
that the first one. I actuallydid. I did like it was, it was
fun. The new one is basicallythe gist is they the location of
of Freddie fast bears that wasfrom the first one. Was not the
original location. It was afranchise. So the original
(02:50):
location is even more haunted,and all of, all of the, all of
the animatronics are controlledby a mysterious entity known as
the marionette. And that's whereit kind of like the marionette
is not it's not as much fun asjust having these crazy, you
(03:11):
know, having them be controlledby a master entity is just not
as much fun, I guess. But it iskind of cool because Matthew
Lillard is in it, kind of in,like flashback scenes, and Skeet
Ulrich is in it, and they don'tshare any, yeah, they don't
share any screen time becauseskeet Ulrich plays the parent of
(03:33):
one of these kids that wentmissing. But it is kind of fun
to see, like a little miniscream reunion, even though
they're never on screen the sametime. But, you know, it's a
pretty the it's a prettyseamless sequel. I mean, the
whole band is back together. Thethe writer is the guy who
(03:53):
created the video games. Thedirector is the same woman who
did the first one, and the cast,Josh Hudson and and I forget her
name, but the little girl andthe cop, they're McKenna Grace.
No McKenna Grace plays, sheplays, like the leader of like a
kind of, kind of a, like aYouTube channel, kind of a thing
(04:15):
that, like a specter detector,kind of a thing like urban
explorers, yeah, well, kind ofbut, but there, but it's sort of
like, what are they called inShelby Oaks,
Jacob Davidson (04:28):
yeah, I think the specter detectors, yeah,
James Jay Edwards (04:30):
something like that, yeah. What
paranormal?
Jacob Davidson (04:34):
What was it?
Paranormal
Jonathan Correia (04:37):
paranoids.
Paranormal paranoids, yes, yes.
I remember it being like areally cheesy early YouTube
name, like they really nailedthat name.
James Jay Edwards (04:45):
Yeah, McKenna Grace plays like the leader of
one of those, and they'reinvestigating one of the things.
So she has, it's a small butpivotal role in the movie. But
yeah, the No, the little girl'sname is Piper Rubio. Like, and
then Elizabeth Lael is the thewoman who plays the cop, and
they're all back from the firstone. So, I mean, it's pretty,
(05:08):
you know that the continuity isthere, but it's not as it's not
as much fun as the, you know.
And I mean, you, you've gotthese, they, I don't know, it
opens up the world a little bit,because the Five Nights at
Freddy, the animatronics go,like, tromping around the city,
and it's, you know, it's not asmuch fun. It does have a lot of
(05:29):
callbacks to the because it'sbasically an adaptation of the
second game, right? Gotcha. So,so there are callbacks to that,
like it like, at one point he'sdoing something on a computer,
and one of the amateurs comes inthe room, so he grabs, like a
mask and puts it in front of hisface. And, you know, because
that's one of the things you doin the video game to avoid
detection, is you wear masks.
(05:53):
And you can tell, the screeningI was at had a lot of
influencers, you know, fivenights at Freddy's, influencers
there, and you could tell, and Ididn't get them all, because
whenever something like thathappened, they would all cheer
and clap, and they were, there'sa lot of cheering and clapping
that I didn't quite know whatthey were cheering and clapping
for, like a character would showup or something, and I'd be
(06:13):
like, Okay, this was made forfans of the video game. This is
not, you know, this wasn't madefor me, because I didn't quite
get all the in jokes. So I thinkit's more if you're a fan of the
video game, you'll be into it.
Jonathan Correia (06:28):
It's like when Lindsey and I were watching the
Street Fighter trailer that justdropped for the new one, and at
the end of the trailer, theyshow someone punching a car and,
like, breaking and kicking. AndI lost it. Lindsay's like, why
are you flipping out over thatone shot? I'm like, because
that's the best part of StreetFighter. Of Street Fighter, and
they did it in the movie.
Jacob Davidson (06:47):
Yeah, and I will say what I saw the first five
nights at Freddy's movie, likethere was a bunch of younger
people there, and they were alltalking on their phones before
the movie, but when that moviestarted, they were locked in,
like they're dead quiet, likethey were focused on the screen.
So, like, this is for theirgeneration, yeah, yep.
James Jay Edwards (07:07):
And they, and, you know, they all showed
up in cosplay, you know, thisthing, you know? So it was, it
was, it's definitely made for aspecific audience. Other than
that, there's not, I've beenburied in a war trying to catch
up for awards voting. So, Imean, you know, I've been seeing
a bunch of stuff like, you know,Train Dreams and Jay Kelly and
(07:29):
Marty Supreme was last night'sviewing, none of which is even
remotely horror. Although Martysupreme does have one horrific
scene, it's, it's one of thesafties. And there is one
horrific scene where basically adude's arm gets broken in half,
and you're like, Jesus, yeah,you're like, okay, that came out
of nowhere. But yeah, not awhole lot has happened. What
(07:51):
about you guys?
Jacob Davidson (07:52):
Well, it's funny. I did see Jay Kelly back
on the east coast with my dad.
That was really good. But yeah,not horror, but yeah, not a lot
of other big horror releases,although, although kind of, I
guess, in that realm, sinceit's, you know, like a murder
mystery movie, I did see the newknives out movie, wake up dead
(08:13):
man back, back on the east coastof the Coolidge corner theater,
And I really dug it is veryinteresting, kind of framing the
death of the mystery around achurch, which in some ways kind
of gave me more giallo vibestoo. On top of that, since, you
know, like giallo was originallyrooted in Agatha Christie and
(08:35):
pulp murder mystery novels.
Yeah, plus, yeah, I can't getenough of Daniel Craig and his
amazing accent as Benoit Blanc.
James Jay Edwards (08:50):
Those knives out movies, they're all kind of
Agatha Christie ish, you know,Oh, yeah. Like, very much.
Jacob Davidson (08:57):
I mean this one, they really lean into it, to the
point where they discuss thebooks in the movie. And that is,
and that aside, this is, this iskind of funny, just I saw
Zootopia too, because I heard alot of good things about it, and
it has a surprising number ofhorror homages like, without
spoiling too much, there is anextended Shining parody where,
(09:24):
like, they're in a hedge mazewith the snow. And this is
interesting because the newscame out after they have a small
Silence of the Lambs parody atone point. And originally it was
going to be a few minutes long,and like with direct dialog from
sides of the Lambs, but they cutit down because they were afraid
(09:46):
that people wouldn't understandthe reference, which, honestly,
I think, is a hugedisappointment, because it would
have involved Jenny Slate'scharacter from the first film.
So we did not get Jenny Slatedoing a Hannibal Lector
impression. And, you know, justagain, missed opportunity.
Jonathan Correia (10:03):
I only saw the first Zootopia. I haven't seen
the second one, but I, I justmissed the days when Disney
would make like animal movies,and it wasn't Cop-a-ganda, you
know, like, remember Robin Hood,when, when we would use cool
foxes to, like, promote, like,fighting the system, not, you
know, being a part of it, yeah?
James Jay Edwards (10:22):
Zootopia two is Zootopia twos. It got
nominated in the San Diego FilmCritics Society for animated so
I do need to watch it. But youknow what else got nominated,
Predator Killer of Killers.
Yeah, thank God. I'm pretty surethat's where my vote is gonna
go, although also nominated KPop demon hunters. So I got, I
did watch that, and that, I tellyou, is just, that's just so
(10:45):
much fun.
Jonathan Correia (10:48):
I still haven't seen it, but I worked. I
worked a shift out of me, but weplayed the soundtrack, and it
was really funny to be like, atthe register, and all side of
being like, is this k pop? Idon't know. And then all sudden,
Golden started going, I'm like,Oh, I know that song, okay,
yeah, that's it.
James Jay Edwards (11:02):
It's funny because it's all k pop music.
But then when you put it withthe visuals of basically these
hunters fighting these demons,it's a lot of fun.
Jacob Davidson (11:14):
You know, there's a bit of a horror
element in there, because, youknow, they're fighting demons.
But it is just amazing how muchof a smash success it is, like,
I think I'd mentioned before,like, when I, when I was walking
around the neighborhood, downHall, we, like, there were
dozens of kids dressed up as KPop demon hunter characters. And
I'm glad I was able to actuallysee it in theaters, because,
(11:36):
yeah, I mean, I caught onNetflix, because, you know, Sony
sold the movie to Netflix, andthen it turned into this
gigantic hit, to the point wherethey have put in theaters a
couple times, and I think it'sgoing to be back in theaters
again at some point.
James Jay Edwards (11:49):
There's a sing along version on yes, that
Yeah.
Jacob Davidson (11:52):
So it's it's catching and for the theater
version, like I went there and abunch of people were singing
along with the movie. That's howmuch people are into this.
James Jay Edwards (12:02):
I hope that it was a sing along screening,
because that, yeah, annoying ifyou're not, if you're not
prepared for it. Another awardsthing that's kind of horror
adjacent is, have you guys heardof Die My Love, no, it's the new
Lynn Ramsey movie with JenniferLawrence and Robin Robert
Pattinson. It has a it has a lotof We Need to Talk About Kevin
(12:28):
vibes, except, instead of Kevinbeing the one that's crazy, it's
the Jennifer Lawrence character.
She's like, you know this, thishas been a year for postpartum,
you know, and, you know, Kidrelated trauma movies, because,
you know, there was, if I HadLegs, I's Kick You, which is
Rose Byrne is amazing in it. Andalso Hamnet with Jesse Buckley
(12:52):
is deals with a little bit ofthat too. But this one it, it's,
um, it's kind of a dark movie,and it's total Lynn Ramsey
style. It's real disjointed. Andyou're kind of wondering, okay,
wait, is this a flashback, or isthis happening? Now, you know
that kind of thing. Theperformances, Robert Pattinson
and Jennifer Lawrence are bothamazing, but it's basically
(13:14):
about this, this couple who hadthis kid, and the woman, which
is Jennifer Lawrence, she kindof, she kind of goes crazy. And
part of it is, part of it isgaslighting, where people are
convincing her she's crazy, butpart of it is she really is
crazy, and that's where the lineyou're kind of like, wait now,
(13:36):
is she legitimately, you know,does she legitimately need help,
or is someone doing this to her?
I don't know. It's, it's kind ofcrazy, but it's, it's a, it's a
dark movie. It's, it's a reallydark movie. It sounds dark, yep.
I mean, it's Lynn Ramsey. Imean, yeah, that's what she
(13:57):
does.
Jonathan Correia (13:58):
Well, have you guys ever heard of the series
Rebel Highway? No, yeah, Correiaback on his bullshit of obscure
90s anthologies. Oh boy. Rebelhighway was this anthology film
series on Showtime where theytook, I think it was, I want to
(14:19):
say it was corpsman drive ins,but it was these, like drive in
movies that they had all therights to, and they would remake
them with modern filmmakers ofthe 90s. And it was they're all
like greaser head car kidbopping ones. It's the only one
that's gotten an officialrelease. Is Robert Rodriguez's
(14:41):
Roadracers, which is probablyhands down the best made one.
That one has David Arquette,Selma Hayek, Jon Hawkes, William
Sadler, and it's, you know,typical greaser racer, you know.
And it's Robert Rodriguez goingnuts. And hes still in his like,
super gorilla filmmaking style,with like, but with like, a
(15:06):
premium cable episode budget.
But they're a lot of fun becausethey some of them are straight
up remakes of these movies, andsome of them are just in name
only. Ralph Bakshi did one aswell called Cool and the Crazy
talk about postpartum depressionthat one has Alicia Silverstone
stepping out on her husband,played by Jared Leto. They're
(15:28):
both like 19 year old couplethat, like settled hard, had a
kid, and then she steps out withthis, like, gang guy, gang
member, or real just bad guyplayed by Matthew Flint, but
also Jon Hawks is in it,Jennifer Blanc. Like, the casts
are really good and thedirectors, it's, it's cool
(15:52):
stuff. Like, that's RalphBakshi's only, like, fully live
action film. But, yeah, they'refun series. There's, there's
like, 10 movies within it, andyou can find it on like,
Internet Archive. Oh, yeah,let's plug it. Yeah, you can
find it on Internet Archivebecause it's not available
anywhere else. But rebelRoadracers did get a Blu ray and
(16:13):
DVD release at one point, andthat's the best one. But there's
titles like Girls in Prison,Shake, Rattle and Rock,
Dragstrip Girl, Motorcycle Gang,Runaway Daughters, you know,
Reform School Girls. So, like,they're all like, you know,
classy titles, but it'sdefinitely that 1950s 1960s teen
drive in films, but like, madein the 90s. So they're fun to
(16:37):
watch, especially Cool And TheCrazy. That one Alicia
Silverstone was just like, goingso over the top, and there's
some like, weird psychosexualstuff going on in there. And
Jared Leto is, it's like, oh,this is before he got creepy and
ruined franchises like Tron.
Think about dude. They're a lotof fun. I'm having a lot of fun
(16:58):
trying to hunt down all these,like, anthology series that were
like tales from the crypt, orsomething like that, that came
out in the 90s. I'm still tryingto find a watchful copy of the
Western one spin off from talesfrom the crypt, two, two fisted
Jacob Davidson (17:12):
two fisted tales.
Jonathan Correia (17:13):
Two fisted tales. Yeah, I'm trying to find
that pilot. I know it got putinto they it got split up and
turned into episodes of tales.
Jacob Davidson (17:20):
But, yeah, no, it's out there somewhere. I've
seen it with, like WilliamSadler being kind of the Crypt
Keeper guy,
Jonathan Correia (17:26):
yeah, yeah. I gotta, yeah, I gotta hunt that
one down.
James Jay Edwards (17:30):
Have you ever watched the hitchhiker from the
old HBO day? This was like, pretails from the crypt HBO, like,
maybe 81
Jonathan Correia (17:39):
you know, I've had a DVD collection of that for
the longest time, and it's in myneed to watch to possibly sell
pile right now.
James Jay Edwards (17:46):
So you should watch it. They're pretty good.
Yeah, no, no,
Jonathan Correia (17:50):
I have, I have so many blu rays. I have stacks
right next to me of just likestuff where it's like, you gotta
watch this to clear, eitherclear space or give it a
permanent space on the shelf.
Just gotta.
Jacob Davidson (18:01):
I feel that never enough room.
James Jay Edwards (18:05):
And now let's bring in our special guest for
this episode. And this is areally special guest. We have a
true multi hyphenate. We've gotfilm writer, producer, director,
founder of the MiskatonicInstitute, Kier-La Janisse, how
you doing?
Kier-La Janisse (18:22):
Hi,igood morning.
James Jay Edwards (18:23):
Good morning.
Thank you for joining us. Wealways like to kind of start
with at the beginning. How didyou get your start doing what
you do? And when did you knowthat you wanted to work in
horror like this?
Kier-La Janisse (18:38):
Well, I mean, I was a horror fan from being a
small child, the it was my firstyou know thing that my parents
or family members knew about mewas that I loved monsters and
ghosts and things like this, andso they would encourage it. We
would watch horror films athome, and my dad would buy me
any book he saw at a flea marketabout horror movies. So it was
really kind of ingrained in mefrom a young age, but I didn't
(19:01):
know that I would work in thefield, because I didn't know
because I didn't really want tomake movies. And so I didn't
know that there were all theseother potential jobs that you
could do if you work in horror,like these support jobs, that
you could be a journalist, oryou could be an archivist, or,
you know, any of these things.
And so I just went to school fornormal things like medieval
history also useless, but, youknow, but it was when I was in
(19:27):
university doing medievalhistory, I started like a little
fanzine, like a horror fanzineout of the video store where I
worked. And that was that fanscene was really what started me
programming movies, because Iwould review movies like
bootlegs and stuff that I hadbought from, like European trash
cinema or video vortex, or, youknow, revick, or any of these,
(19:50):
you know, organizations thatsold bootlegs video search of
Miami, and I would review themovies but they weren't
available in. Canada for peopleto rent. So people would read
the reviews and be like, well,this movie sounds really
interesting, but how can we seethe movie and in Canada, because
of the way that our ratingsystems work, you can't just
import any movie and put it onthe shelf of a video store.
(20:12):
Everything has to go throughgovernment channels. And so
there isn't a lot of independentfree movement of films the way
there is in the States. But onething you could do is you could
put on a film festival, and youcould get an exemption from film
readings at a film festival. Andso that was sort of how I
started. I started programmingthese weird, you know, Italian
(20:33):
horror films and stuff for afilm festival locally and and
this was like that. It wasbefore DVD existed. And people
like, I remember the first yearI played like, you know, Deep
Red Dario Argento like, I mean,it was all just kind of stuff
that now we consider GreatestHits, you know, it was like,
Lizard in a woman's skin byLucio Fulchi, Deep Red,
(20:53):
Possession by Andre jawski. Andpeople like, hated Possession
back then. People did not likethat movie the way that they do
now. But, yeah, people didn'teven know who Dario Argento was,
you know, like, I mean, it wasreally, it was really only the
people who collected that knew,you know, who a lot of these
filmmakers were. And so becauseof doing that festival and doing
(21:15):
the fanzine Tony Timpone atFangoria offered me my first
paid job doing anything forhorror, which was doing set
visits. I lived in Vancouver,and they were always shooting
different horror franchises andstuff out there. So he asked if
I would go out to visit somesets and do some coverage for
them. And that was really how mycareer started, because that was
(21:38):
the first thing that I got paidto do in horror, and so it just
kind of went from there.
Jonathan Correia (21:45):
That's awesome. I mean, I know Jacob
and I definitely have a lot ofyour books on our shelves, House
of Psychotic women, SatanicPanic. That was my first
introduction to your work. AndGod, I love that you keep
encouraging such people todiscover new films or that from
the past, or films that, likepeople don't talk a whole lot
about, like, you have an entirebook dedicated to cockfight,
(22:08):
which is incredible.
Kier-La Janisse (22:11):
Well, Cockfighter was, like the Yeah,
that was, I mean, the book iscalled Cockfight, yeah? But just
because I thought it, I mean, Ishould have given it a more
original title, but I justthought it would be funny to be
on a shelf with my name and itjust says Cockfight. But
anyways, that was, you know, anobsession with Monte Hellman's
movie Cockfighter, which seemsto many people very different
(22:34):
from a lot of the other thingsthat I've written about, like my
book, my only solo book beforethat, or the one right before
that was House of PsychoticWomen. And it seems a million
miles away from House ofPsychotic Women in terms of
content and taste and everythingyou know. But like any film fan,
you know, if you're you know,your interest and your curiosity
(22:57):
about films and your taste isnot always following a straight
line, you know? And, yeah, soCockfighter was one of those
things that to me, when I madethe book, I didn't expect it to
be as obscure as it was. Like Iactually thought everybody seen
Cockfighter. Turns out it's notthe case, and a lot of people
(23:18):
don't want to see cock fighters,as I found when I wanted to do
like, book launch events, youknow, it was like, hard to
convince people to play themovie. So, yeah,
Jacob Davidson (23:28):
a bit of a hard sell on cockfighting. Yeah.
Jonathan Correia (23:34):
Well, it's a fictional movie about it. It's
not like you're not promotingthis the the illegal sport at
all.
Kier-La Janisse (23:40):
So Well, I mean, I talk about the sport
quite a bit in the book, and themovie does have real cock
fighting in it. So, yeah,there's kind of no way around
that, you know, because it'slike chickens can't be trained
the same way that other animalscan't, you know. So it's like a
lot of the fights, you know,like they made fake. They made
(24:01):
fake like they're called gaffs,you know, which are like the
hooks that they fight with. Sothey made rubber ones for the
for the film, but they, but theyare actually charging at each
other. They are, you know, asfar as the birds are concerned,
they are actually fighting. Youknow, it's just that they can't
kill each other because they'vegot rubber gaffs on. But the but
(24:22):
the anger is still there, andthat's part of the reason why in
the UK, the film can't beplayed, because one of the sort
of federal rules, and this hasnothing to do with motion
picture ratings, it's just oneof the federal rules, is that
you cannot show a film where ananimal is goaded to fury. So you
cannot show you can't showsomeone angering an animal to
(24:43):
the point where they want tokill and so it's like a really
specific law that was madebecause of things like cock
fighting. You know, because cockfighting used to be a very
popular sport in the UK.
Jonathan Correia (24:56):
So, wow, too bad they didn't have Werner
Herzog on set to hypnotize them.
You know that famous clip of himhypnotizing chickens.
Jacob Davidson (25:07):
And off of that, I also want to say I'm a big fan
of your folk horror work,particularly the documentary
Woodlands Dark and DaysBewitched: History of Folk
Horror, and your involvement inthe folk horror box sets from
Severin. I was wondering if youcould talk a little bit about
that. Yeah.
Kier-La Janisse (25:25):
I mean, the the box sets kind of came the idea
for them came right as we weremaking the film, because my
boss, when I was showing himrough cuts of the film, he was
just sort of like, Oh, I haven'theard of these films. Are these
films available to be licensed,you know. So the idea was
already germinating, like in hishead as I was making the film,
(25:47):
and so he started licensing alot of films for the first box
set, like during that period,which is why the first box that
came out the same year as thefilm, and so, but the film
itself came about by accident,like when I was first, like many
of Severin films, there aren'tmany documentaries we make that
(26:07):
start off as featuredocumentaries. They usually
start off as extras that justget out of control. And so,
like, I'm making one now, thatis, that is actually I'm making
a documentary. Well, I'll getinto it later, I guess. But,
but, but most of them havestarted as extras. And in the
(26:27):
case of the Folk horror one, wewere going to be doing a release
of Blood on Satan's claw, and wewere going to be just basically
replicating the UK disc, likeporting over all the, you know,
they had just made a whole bunchof new extras for the UK disc,
and we were just going to do anAmerican version of that disc.
And I said, Oh, you're not goingto add anything. Like, you're
not even going to make one newextra. And David's like, Well,
(26:49):
we've already interviewedeverybody from the movie. And
there's, you know, like, whatelse can we do? I said, we could
just make something just aboutfolk horror in general. And
David was, like, folk horror,what's that? I said, Well, you
know, it's like this and thisand this. And then he was like,
great. He's like, go make it andand I was like, at that time, I
was just an editor at Severin.
So my job at Severin at thatpoint was literally just people
(27:11):
would give me assignments tothey to edit things, and I would
edit them and return them. I hadno creative say in what those
things were or anything. So thiswas a suggestion of his that
came totally out of the blue,where he was just like, Okay, go
make this extra yourself. Andluckily, I guess, you know, I
didn't have any experienceputting together a film shoot or
(27:32):
anything. But I did haveexperience, you know, like I
because I had done theMiskatonic Institute of Horror
Studies, I was always sort ofkeeping up on who was writing
books about what, and whosespecialty was what. And I was
like, Well, I probably am bestpositioned to know who the
people are, who are the expertsthat I would get to speak in a
documentary about folk horror,you know? So I sort of started
(27:54):
there and then relied on peoplethat Severin worked with
frequently in the UK to do theactual filming, because our, all
of our first interviews were inthe UK, because it was
originally just going to befocused on the UK folk horror
immediately surrounding Blood onSatan's Claws, like so all this,
like the kind of unholy trinityfilms and everything, just
(28:15):
immediately in that time period.
But then, of course, as soon asI started interviewing people, I
was just like, oh, this is sucha way better, bigger topic, you
know, because I was like, itinclude, you know, things like
Children of the Corn, you know,like all these American folk
horror films that would, youknow, could be considered folk
horror. And then when Iinterviewed people, there was
(28:35):
also a real divide when peoplewould give their definition of
what folk horror was. There wasa real divide between people
from England and America. Wouldusually define folk horror as
something where a stranger comesto a village and all the people
in the village are weird, andthey have some weird belief
systems, you know. And it's kindof like this normal, civilized
(28:58):
outsider who comes into thiscommunity of barbarians or
something, you know. But thenwhen you would interview people
from Asia or Europe or otherplaces like this, they would
always say the folk horror iswhere you have a village of
people who have this very strongbelief system where they're
fighting against the evil comingfrom outside their village.
(29:19):
Yeah, you know. So it was likethis alternate perspective on
what folk horror was. And in theEuropean and Asian stuff, there
seemed to be much more focus onfolkloric fairy tales, folkloric
creatures, you know, stuff likethis that you wouldn't see in
like British folk horror. Andafter my movie came out, I saw
(29:39):
online a lot of debate where alot of British people were like,
well, that other stuff isn'tactually, isn't real folk
horror. So there's like, a lotof territorialism about, like,
just even the definition, orwhat should be included, and
stuff. And so that was kind ofwhat I was trying to do with my
movies, just let people talkabout what it is to them,
because the. Of folk anythingfolk culture is that it often
(30:04):
traverses through communitiesand changes as as it intersects
with other communities andstuff. So the idea that people
did not agree on the definition,to me, was an important part of
the documentary, you know. Andso anyway, that was how it
started, was it was justsupposed to be an extra, and
then it just got bigger andbigger and bigger. And bigger
and bigger. And then eventually,David said, Well, just instead
(30:26):
of trying to cut it down, justkeep going, Yeah, you know, just
make it whatever you want. Andbecause we knew it was going to
eventually end up on Blu Ray,because that's severins primary
business, he didn't care howlong it was, you know, he was
just like, well, if it's long,people will just pause it and
then they'll watch the restlater, you know.
Jonathan Correia (30:44):
And then I can't imagine doing that,
though, because it is, it islong and it is over three hours,
but I mean, it flows reallysmoothly, and so it doesn't feel
like it, you know.
Kier-La Janisse (30:53):
Thank you, I mean. But it also has the
chapter headings, you know. Soit does have really good kind of
way stations, where you couldpause it and come back to it the
next day or something, if youwanted to. You know, yeah, but
yeah so. And then I lucked outduring lucked out during covid,
one of the few people who luckedout during covid, where the
(31:15):
festivals went online. And sobasically, because festivals
went online, they also didn'tcare how long the movies were,
you know, because normally whenyou're playing a festival, if
you have a three hour movie,they have to think of it, the
fact that you're taking up twoslots at the theater, you know,
that like, oh, we could beplaying another movie in this
time period. So if we take thismovie, we're losing another
(31:36):
movie. Whereas when it wasonline, that was not an issue.
You could play the movies couldbe as long as you want it. So I
feel like I actually got a lotof festival play for that movie,
because all the festivals wereonline that year,
Jacob Davidson (31:49):
and I actually saw that Chattanooga that year
myself.
Kier-La Janisse (31:53):
Okay, well, was it online that year, or did it
Jacob Davidson (31:56):
go online on Chattanooga Film Festival, 2021
Yeah, yeah.
Kier-La Janisse (32:01):
So that was really interesting, because I
feel like, because of thefestivals, it got a lot more
attention than it would haveotherwise, you know, like,
otherwise it just would havegone straight to blu ray. A lot
of people wouldn't have heardabout it unless they pay
attention to Severin stuff. Andso the fact that covid made
everything online meant that thefilm got a lot more attention
(32:21):
than it would have otherwise.
Absolutely now
James Jay Edwards (32:24):
we're here to talk about The Haunted Season,
but before we get that, you kindof touched on the Miskatonic
Institute of horror studies.
That fascinates me, because I Ireally wish that there was
something like that when I wasmy degrees are in film
production and also Americanmedia and popular culture. I
wish there was a horror studies.
(32:45):
How did that come about? TheMiskatonic Institute?
Kier-La Janisse (32:47):
Well, basically part of it is like, just like
you said, I always wished thatthere had been one and but it
also started by accident,because it was something where I
was doing a writers in residencein Winnipeg. And I was like,
part of the graders in residencewas you had to do some sort of
public facing event, you know,you had to do a reading, or you
had to do what, you know, somekind of activity. And the owner
(33:11):
of the bookstore where I wasdoing the residency said, like,
Oh, why don't you do somethingwith your horror thing, like
your horror interest, but do itfor teenagers, because spring
break is coming up and all theyounger everything is focused on
younger kids. There's a millionactivities of things for younger
kids to do, but there's kind ofnothing for those kids that are
kind of between 12 and 15 or 12and 16, you know? So I said, Oh,
(33:34):
okay, so I did this week longworkshop, and I'm really not
trained to teach workshops topeople. I'm, like, horrible at
it, but so I did this week longworkshop of, like, film critics,
horror film criticism for teens.
And I had to have some sort ofname, or some, I don't know,
some way to advertise it, and Ijust called it the Miskatonic
(33:54):
Institute of horror studies,like as a joke,
James Jay Edwards (34:00):
because what else are you going to call it,
right? But
Kier-La Janisse (34:02):
then, but then, I got asked, after that
workshop, I got a call fromsomebody looking for the
Miskatonic Institute of horrorstudies, because they wanted me
to come and do a class at theirorganization for their
teenagers. So I ended up doing asecond class with like, a bunch
of juvenile delinquents who werenot into, you know, they wanted
(34:26):
to watch the movies, but theydidn't want to do any reading or
learn anything, and but soAnyways, that was how it
started, was that people juststarted asking me to do these
classes. And so originally, itwas very focused on teenagers.
But then I moved to Montreal,and I just, and I had, I was
running a little micro cinemathere, and so I was like, Okay,
now that I have my own venue,I'm just going to have these
(34:47):
classes every week. So westarted having them on
Wednesdays. But we reallyweren't getting teenagers
because we just didn't have theoutreach, you know, to reach
teenagers, and we didn't knowenough. Parents of teenagers and
stuff. So we started to get alot of adults that were like,
Well, can I come to the classes?
And at first I was worried wherehe was like, Well, I don't know
if I'm I mean, any adult isgoing to know the same amount
(35:10):
about horror as me, so I don'tknow what they're going to learn
from me, but they were reallyinterested in coming. So we just
said, Okay, we'll open it up toadults. And then after a while,
I think after five classes orsomething like that, these,
these scholars and collegeinstructors, instructors that in
Montreal that were very intohorror, approached me about
(35:31):
collaborating with me to try tohelp me get more teachers and
stuff like that. And so theyended up becoming really
important to Miskatonic,Montreal, growing they ended up
branching off and starting theirown organization called
Monstrum. So they still have,like, a, I think, quarterly
academic journal called TheMonstrom Journal. And I don't
(35:53):
know if they're doing classesanymore, but they were for a
while, and I, in the meantime,moved again. I started the
London branch, and then Istarted one in New York and one
in LA and during covid, a lot ofthem, you know, didn't survive,
but London still goes strong.
(36:13):
And London was always the mostpopular one. There's so many
horror scholars in the UK. Like,there, it's like, you know, you
have this like bounty of ofteachers to pick from, and you
also have like, a ton of peoplethere who are into really
academic approaches to horrorand stuff, you know, so the
audiences have always beenreally full and enthusiastic and
(36:37):
stuff. And then, so I ran it for10 years, and I have, but I was
always very reliant on volunteerhelp, because oftentimes I did
not live in the cities wherethese schools were, and so it
was like 100% reliant on whoeverwas my local person on the
ground to actually run it. Butthen after a while, I realized
(36:59):
that the way that I wanted torun the school was different
from how most of the volunteerswanted to run it, you know, like
a lot of the volunteers, weremuch more interested in an event
structure where it's, like, oneclass, one night, you know, and
you go and and that's it.
Whereas I always had, I alwayswanted courses, you know, where
you have, like, a long coursewith many classes. But when you
(37:20):
do things that way, you havemuch smaller audiences. You
know, you have like, just likethat core group of people that
want to take a six week coursein something, whereas if you do
an event structure, you can sellout every time. So of course,
the people on the ground doingit wanted to sell out every
time. It was much more appealingto them, and also just more for
(37:41):
your morale, you know. It's justnicer having a full room of
people, you know. And so itended up just kind of going more
in that event structure. Andafter 10 years, I realized that
I couldn't do what I wanted withit, which was I wanted to it, to
eventually have real academicaccreditation and stuff like
that. And I was like, this isjust not going to happen without
(38:04):
a major patron or something forit, you know. So I basically
gave it over to the volunteers,you know. So Josh, Josh Saco,
who had been running the Londonbranch for a long time, he now
owns it. He runs it. It's hisbaby to do with whatever he
wants with. So I sort of retiredfrom it, but I'm still proud of
(38:24):
it, you know. So I still have itin my signature and everything
like that. But yeah, Josh Sacoruns it now, and he's, like, he
used to run a thing calledCigarette Burns in the UK, which
is, like, basically a 16 mil. Hewould do 16 millimeter repertory
screenings at various differentvenues around town. So he's very
experienced with not onlyhorror, but also like doing live
events and stuff,
James Jay Edwards (38:48):
all right, yeah, so let's move on to the
haunted season, because that'swhat we're here to talk about.
This is a series with Severinand shudder, and every year you
guys put out a new episode, andthis episode, this year's
episode you actually directed.
Is this your fiction directoraldebut?
Kier-La Janisse (39:09):
It is okay, yeah. So it was like Severin,
the series Haunted Season, isactually Severin. It's 100%
Severin. So it has a deal withShudder, where we premiere them
on Shudder, you know, so, so itobviously has this very strong
association with with shudder.
But it's a Severin production,like the series as a whole and
set, because I also work forSeverin a lot, that was the
(39:33):
context in which I pitched it.
So I pitched it to David Gregoryat Severin, and he was just
like, well, if you want to dothat, go ahead. But he's like,
I'm not. You have to manage ityourself, you know. So then I
pitched it to Sam at Shudder,and he and I had actually worked
together years ago Fangoria. Weworked together on the Fangoria
(39:55):
website. We were kind of the webteam back in like 2012 or 2013,
something like that. And we hadthis idea back then where we
were like, Wouldn't it be greatif we could do like, an annual
ghost story for Christmas andhave it from here on the
Fangoria website every year,like on Christmas Eve or
something. And the publisherdidn't want to go for it, but
(40:15):
that idea just stayed on theback burner. And then when I
pitched it to Sam, I was like,this is the idea, basically,
that we wanted to do all thoseyears ago, and we're both in
positions now where we couldpotentially do it, you know? So,
yeah, so we, we came up with aplan where we have a five year
agreement. So it's so we have,like, the first season is five
(40:36):
years. Every year, it's adifferent film. The films are
supposed to be anywhere from 25to 50 minutes. So it's a fairly
wide range in terms of, like,how long the films have to be.
But the idea is, it is they aresupposed to be in the vein of
the BBC ghost story forChristmas, you know. So they're
supposed to have some element oftradition to them, some you
(40:59):
know, they're supposed to beperiod, although, again, the
period can be anything from likethe Middle Ages up into the
1960s you and and they're andthey are supposed to preserve
kind of the downbeat tone of theBBC series, you know. So they're
not supposed to be like funny orgory or spectacle driven or
(41:20):
anything like that. They'resupposed to be kind of, yeah,
just, like, just less emphasison, on, like, the big spectacle,
you know, and trying, yeah,yeah, yeah, kind of bummers,
yeah. But so we started it withSean Hogan's To Fire You Come at
(41:43):
Last, which I love. I think Seanis a brilliant writer and and
then this year we were for theone this year there wasn't
originally supposed to be memaking one. It was supposed to
be somebody else. And then theyended up getting one of their
features projects, kind of greenlit to the next stage of
(42:03):
development, and they had toshift gears and focus on that.
So I'm hoping they'll still comeback, you know, to do their
episode, because they hadalready written the script and
everything. So it then was like,well, this series has no money,
no time, you know. Like, usuallyif you're trying to get somebody
to do something for a lowbudget, you have to at least
give them time to do it right.
And we didn't have either ofthose things. So, so I basically
(42:27):
put myself in as a filler. It'ssupposed to be like, Well, I
mean, I guess I'll just do onebecause, you know, I had this
favorite ghost story that Iwould read every Christmas. I
was like, Well, you know, Icould kind of picture how I
would do this, so maybe I shouldjust do it myself, and I just
made sure to surround myselfwith people who knew what they
(42:50):
were doing. You know, it's likeone of my oldest friends is
Kareem Hussein, who's the DOP onthe film, and I knew that if I
had him with me, I would beokay, you know, like that he he
pretty much acts as my buffer.
You know, he's very experiencedand very professional, and
people have a lot of respect forhim, so I knew that that would
(43:12):
rub off on me, if I was workingon a set with him, that
everything would be okay, thathe wouldn't let me fail
miserably. And so Kareem was abig part of the confidence that
I had, that I could even dothis, you know. And then, yeah,
so, but everything about it wasnew. It was the first time I,
you know, wrote a script in ascript writing program, and, you
(43:36):
know, like, worked with actors.
And just everything about it,you know, was new, and I had to,
you know, rely on friends whoare more experienced to, like,
help me navigate, you know,like, how do I do some of these
things? You know, my friendJason Lapeer, who is a
filmmaker, he's a director of,he makes all kinds of films.
Actually, he's made kids films,he's made lots of true crime
films and stuff like that. Buthe helped me a lot with, like,
(43:57):
how do I deal with actors? Howdo I talk to actors, you know,
how do I break down the scene sothat I can answer any question
they might have about it? So hewas hugely helpful with that.
But, yeah, I just feel and thenI also have elements of the film
where I actually got otherartists, you know, other
experimental filmmakers andanimators and all these things
(44:18):
to work with me on certainthings that I wanted to do. And
to me, it's like a lot of whatpeople like about the film is
their work, the animation, themusic, you know, the exterior
footage, you know, stuff likethis was all things where I got
other very experienced artiststo to basically make that stuff
for the movie so and
Jonathan Correia (44:42):
it comes together phenomenally. I mean,
the music, the window scene, theacting, just, it's, it's such a
beautiful and tight I'm a hugefan of the BBC ghost stories for
Christmas. And when this wasannounced, I was like, Yes,
finally we have new, new downersfor Christmas. I love it. Okay?
James Jay Edwards (45:00):
Well, we thanks for joining us this
morning. We are out of time. Iknow that we this is we could
talk to you for another threeepisodes. So anytime you want to
come back, please come back.
Yeah, this seemed like it was areally short one, but we are on
a crunch. But before we go,where can people are you on the
socials or anything? Where canpeople follow you to find out
what you've got coming up?
Kier-La Janisse (45:21):
Well, I have, so I have, I have socials,
Instagram, blue sky, which Ibelieve are just my name, you
know, Kier-La Janisse. I have aFacebook that only exists to
post things on spectacular. Ihave a, I have a publishing
company called SpectacularOptical. And so I have a blue
sky, also for that, and also forFacebook for that, but I barely
(45:45):
ever look at the Facebook, butInstagram, I'm fairly frequently
on and blue sky, it's just undermy name.
James Jay Edwards (45:53):
And what is coming? Is there anything you
could talk about that is comingup that we can push
Kier-La Janisse (45:57):
for you? Yeah, the only, I mean, I've mentioned
a bit earlier, the I'm workingon a documentary adaptation of
the book Killing for Culture.
And so that we licensed this islike a book that came out in the
early 90s. It was very importantto me and to a lot of other
horror fans that focuses on thehistory of sort of Mondo films,
snuff films, take trading deathfilms, faces of death type
(46:20):
things, you know, stuff likethis. So all very, very grim
subject matter, but it just sortof goes into this, the history
of people trading this type offootage. And so we optioned it
for a documentary. I wasoriginally, you know, like I was
saying some things, we start offas extras and become features. I
was making a documentary for theBlack Emmanuel box set about
(46:42):
snuff films to go with Emmanuelin America. And I got like, I
don't know very, just slightlyinto it, and then I pulled it I
realized, David, this is afeature this. Let's just go into
it from the beginning as thoughit's a feature, because that way
we can actually film everythingmore uniformly. Because a lot of
(47:02):
times when you start off as anextra, you're filming it with
the budget of an extra, whichmeans that, you know, the camera
people are all differentdepending on where the
interviewee is located, soeverything kind of looks
different. I was like, I thinkwe should make a feature out of
this. So let's just stop thisright now, and then we'll do the
interviews on in an actual setthat looks uniform, you know. So
(47:24):
killing for culture, I think,will probably be the first
documentary severins made, whereit's actually made for the
purpose of being a feature withthe budget in mind of a feature,
you know, and stuff like that.
So I'm going to be working onthat through the next
Jonathan Correia (47:42):
year, is, is bum fights going to be brought
up at all?
Kier-La Janisse (47:46):
They'll probably be brought up. But,
yeah,
Jonathan Correia (47:49):
because that feels like my generation's like
Faces of Death type video tapetrading thing. I mean,
Kier-La Janisse (47:55):
yeah, it got very I mean, it got so, that's
the thing. Like, as it went on,it just got so, just like
humanity has failed,
Jonathan Correia (48:04):
yes, looking back, I was like, a rough
subject. Looking back, I waslike, why did we find that at
all in today? But 14, you know?
Kier-La Janisse (48:13):
Yeah, the whole, basically, the whole
movie is dealing with that kindof material. And a lot of people
being interviewed will probablybe people who, you know, like
me, watched that kind of stuffas a teenager, and now that
we're old, we're kind of like,why did we watch that?
Jacob Davidson (48:31):
Thoughts?
Exactly? It'll be an interestingself reflection.
Kier-La Janisse (48:34):
Yeah, exactly.
James Jay Edwards (48:36):
Well, great.
So so we can keep an eye on yoursocials to find out the progress
of that project and and whenthat comes out, come on back.
Because, like I said, we could,we could make full episodes out
of out of interviews of you. Sowe'll come back anytime. And
this is, this has been great.
Thank you for joining us thismorning. Yeah, our theme song is
(48:59):
by restless spirits. So go checkthem out. And our artwork is by
Chris Fisher, so go check himout. You can check us out on all
the socials, under @eyeonhorror,or ihorror.com which is the
website we all call home. Andeverybody go and check out The
Haunted Season. The Occupant inthe Room is the is this year's
(49:21):
entry, and it's great. It'sterrific. So go check it out on
shudder, and we will see you ina couple of weeks. So for me,
James Jay Edwards,
Jacob Davidson (49:30):
I'm Jacob Davison,
Jonathan Correia (49:31):
I'm Jonathan Correia,
Kier-La Janisse (49:32):
I'm Kier-La Janisse.
James Jay Edwards (49:33):
Keep your eye on horror.
Welcome to eye on horror, the official
podcast of ihorror.com this isepisode 156 otherwise known as
season eight. Episode 16. I amyour host, James Jay Edwards,
and with me, as always, is yourother host, Jacob Davison, how
you doing?
Jacob Davidson (00:40):
Jacob, doing all right, just back on the West
Coast after my trip to NewEngland
James Jay Edwards (00:46):
and and now your mom's on the West Coast,
didn't she?
Yeah, going to be visiting outhere.
Yeah. Also with us, as always,is your other other host, Jon
Correia. How you doing?
Jonathan Correia (00:59):
Correia? Doing pretty good. We got a new cat,
Priscilla.
James Jay Edwards (01:06):
Priscilla Presley, something, Queen of the
Desert.
Jonathan Correia (01:09):
Okay, so her, so her name is Priscilla. Her
full government name, though, isPriscilla Presley Chambers Queen
of the Dessert. Queen of theDessert. Okay, she's a stonky.
She's stonking.
James Jay Edwards (01:21):
Loomis is full government. Name is Dr
Samuel William Loomis. He's adoctor.
Jonathan Correia (01:30):
Yeah, we were, we were mascot of the show. And
my old roommate, Black Phillip,passed in October. So, you know,
there's, there's been a bit of avoid, but it's, it's been cool
because she's, she was reallyskittish at first, though it's
been really fun seeing herpersonality come out in the last
week. And it turns out she's100% a goober. She's just, she's
(01:53):
just dumb, and has ADHD worsethan I so it's great. We get
along.
Jacob Davidson (01:58):
Sounds like a match made in heaven.
James Jay Edwards (02:01):
I tell you, Loomis is going to be really
upset to realize that he was notthe mascot of the show, because
for the past five years, hethought that he is no he is too.
You can have multiple mascots,okay? Because Greta wants to be
a mascot too.
Jonathan Correia (02:14):
All our pets are mascots.
James Jay Edwards (02:16):
What's been going on? The only new thing I
think that's come out recentlyis Five Nights at Freddy's 2,
have either you guys seen FiveNights at Freddy's 2?
Jacob Davidson (02:26):
I haven't seen the new one. I did see the
original though.
James Jay Edwards (02:28):
Yeah, the new one. I wasn't as big of a fan
that the first one. I actuallydid. I did like it was, it was
fun. The new one is basicallythe gist is they the location of
of Freddie fast bears that wasfrom the first one. Was not the
original location. It was afranchise. So the original
(02:50):
location is even more haunted,and all of, all of the, all of
the animatronics are controlledby a mysterious entity known as
the marionette. And that's whereit kind of like the marionette
is not it's not as much fun asjust having these crazy, you
(03:11):
know, having them be controlledby a master entity is just not
as much fun, I guess. But it iskind of cool because Matthew
Lillard is in it, kind of in,like flashback scenes, and Skeet
Ulrich is in it, and they don'tshare any, yeah, they don't
share any screen time becauseskeet Ulrich plays the parent of
(03:33):
one of these kids that wentmissing. But it is kind of fun
to see, like a little miniscream reunion, even though
they're never on screen the sametime. But, you know, it's a
pretty the it's a prettyseamless sequel. I mean, the
whole band is back together. Thethe writer is the guy who
(03:53):
created the video games. Thedirector is the same woman who
did the first one, and the cast,Josh Hudson and and I forget her
name, but the little girl andthe cop, they're McKenna Grace.
No McKenna Grace plays, sheplays, like the leader of like a
kind of, kind of a, like aYouTube channel, kind of a thing
(04:15):
that, like a specter detector,kind of a thing like urban
explorers, yeah, well, kind ofbut, but there, but it's sort of
like, what are they called inShelby Oaks,
Jacob Davidson (04:28):
yeah, I think the specter detectors, yeah,
James Jay Edwards (04:30):
something like that, yeah. What
paranormal?
Jacob Davidson (04:34):
What was it?
Paranormal
Jonathan Correia (04:37):
paranoids.
Paranormal paranoids, yes, yes.
I remember it being like areally cheesy early YouTube
name, like they really nailedthat name.
James Jay Edwards (04:45):
Yeah, McKenna Grace plays like the leader of
one of those, and they'reinvestigating one of the things.
So she has, it's a small butpivotal role in the movie. But
yeah, the No, the little girl'sname is Piper Rubio. Like, and
then Elizabeth Lael is the thewoman who plays the cop, and
they're all back from the firstone. So, I mean, it's pretty,
(05:08):
you know that the continuity isthere, but it's not as it's not
as much fun as the, you know.
And I mean, you, you've gotthese, they, I don't know, it
opens up the world a little bit,because the Five Nights at
Freddy, the animatronics go,like, tromping around the city,
and it's, you know, it's not asmuch fun. It does have a lot of
(05:29):
callbacks to the because it'sbasically an adaptation of the
second game, right? Gotcha. So,so there are callbacks to that,
like it like, at one point he'sdoing something on a computer,
and one of the amateurs comes inthe room, so he grabs, like a
mask and puts it in front of hisface. And, you know, because
that's one of the things you doin the video game to avoid
detection, is you wear masks.
(05:53):
And you can tell, the screeningI was at had a lot of
influencers, you know, fivenights at Freddy's, influencers
there, and you could tell, and Ididn't get them all, because
whenever something like thathappened, they would all cheer
and clap, and they were, there'sa lot of cheering and clapping
that I didn't quite know whatthey were cheering and clapping
for, like a character would showup or something, and I'd be
(06:13):
like, Okay, this was made forfans of the video game. This is
not, you know, this wasn't madefor me, because I didn't quite
get all the in jokes. So I thinkit's more if you're a fan of the
video game, you'll be into it.
Jonathan Correia (06:28):
It's like when Lindsey and I were watching the
Street Fighter trailer that justdropped for the new one, and at
the end of the trailer, theyshow someone punching a car and,
like, breaking and kicking. AndI lost it. Lindsay's like, why
are you flipping out over thatone shot? I'm like, because
that's the best part of StreetFighter. Of Street Fighter, and
they did it in the movie.
Jacob Davidson (06:47):
Yeah, and I will say what I saw the first five
nights at Freddy's movie, likethere was a bunch of younger
people there, and they were alltalking on their phones before
the movie, but when that moviestarted, they were locked in,
like they're dead quiet, likethey were focused on the screen.
So, like, this is for theirgeneration, yeah, yep.
James Jay Edwards (07:07):
And they, and, you know, they all showed
up in cosplay, you know, thisthing, you know? So it was, it
was, it's definitely made for aspecific audience. Other than
that, there's not, I've beenburied in a war trying to catch
up for awards voting. So, Imean, you know, I've been seeing
a bunch of stuff like, you know,Train Dreams and Jay Kelly and
(07:29):
Marty Supreme was last night'sviewing, none of which is even
remotely horror. Although Martysupreme does have one horrific
scene, it's, it's one of thesafties. And there is one
horrific scene where basically adude's arm gets broken in half,
and you're like, Jesus, yeah,you're like, okay, that came out
of nowhere. But yeah, not awhole lot has happened. What
(07:51):
about you guys?
Jacob Davidson (07:52):
Well, it's funny. I did see Jay Kelly back
on the east coast with my dad.
That was really good. But yeah,not horror, but yeah, not a lot
of other big horror releases,although, although kind of, I
guess, in that realm, sinceit's, you know, like a murder
mystery movie, I did see the newknives out movie, wake up dead
(08:13):
man back, back on the east coastof the Coolidge corner theater,
And I really dug it is veryinteresting, kind of framing the
death of the mystery around achurch, which in some ways kind
of gave me more giallo vibestoo. On top of that, since, you
know, like giallo was originallyrooted in Agatha Christie and
(08:35):
pulp murder mystery novels.
Yeah, plus, yeah, I can't getenough of Daniel Craig and his
amazing accent as Benoit Blanc.
James Jay Edwards (08:50):
Those knives out movies, they're all kind of
Agatha Christie ish, you know,Oh, yeah. Like, very much.
Jacob Davidson (08:57):
I mean this one, they really lean into it, to the
point where they discuss thebooks in the movie. And that is,
and that aside, this is, this iskind of funny, just I saw
Zootopia too, because I heard alot of good things about it, and
it has a surprising number ofhorror homages like, without
spoiling too much, there is anextended Shining parody where,
(09:24):
like, they're in a hedge mazewith the snow. And this is
interesting because the newscame out after they have a small
Silence of the Lambs parody atone point. And originally it was
going to be a few minutes long,and like with direct dialog from
sides of the Lambs, but they cutit down because they were afraid
(09:46):
that people wouldn't understandthe reference, which, honestly,
I think, is a hugedisappointment, because it would
have involved Jenny Slate'scharacter from the first film.
So we did not get Jenny Slatedoing a Hannibal Lector
impression. And, you know, justagain, missed opportunity.
Jonathan Correia (10:03):
I only saw the first Zootopia. I haven't seen
the second one, but I, I justmissed the days when Disney
would make like animal movies,and it wasn't Cop-a-ganda, you
know, like, remember Robin Hood,when, when we would use cool
foxes to, like, promote, like,fighting the system, not, you
know, being a part of it, yeah?
James Jay Edwards (10:22):
Zootopia two is Zootopia twos. It got
nominated in the San Diego FilmCritics Society for animated so
I do need to watch it. But youknow what else got nominated,
Predator Killer of Killers.
Yeah, thank God. I'm pretty surethat's where my vote is gonna
go, although also nominated KPop demon hunters. So I got, I
did watch that, and that, I tellyou, is just, that's just so
(10:45):
much fun.
Jonathan Correia (10:48):
I still haven't seen it, but I worked. I
worked a shift out of me, but weplayed the soundtrack, and it
was really funny to be like, atthe register, and all side of
being like, is this k pop? Idon't know. And then all sudden,
Golden started going, I'm like,Oh, I know that song, okay,
yeah, that's it.
James Jay Edwards (11:02):
It's funny because it's all k pop music.
But then when you put it withthe visuals of basically these
hunters fighting these demons,it's a lot of fun.
Jacob Davidson (11:14):
You know, there's a bit of a horror
element in there, because, youknow, they're fighting demons.
But it is just amazing how muchof a smash success it is, like,
I think I'd mentioned before,like, when I, when I was walking
around the neighborhood, downHall, we, like, there were
dozens of kids dressed up as KPop demon hunter characters. And
I'm glad I was able to actuallysee it in theaters, because,
(11:36):
yeah, I mean, I caught onNetflix, because, you know, Sony
sold the movie to Netflix, andthen it turned into this
gigantic hit, to the point wherethey have put in theaters a
couple times, and I think it'sgoing to be back in theaters
again at some point.
James Jay Edwards (11:49):
There's a sing along version on yes, that
Yeah.
Jacob Davidson (11:52):
So it's it's catching and for the theater
version, like I went there and abunch of people were singing
along with the movie. That's howmuch people are into this.
James Jay Edwards (12:02):
I hope that it was a sing along screening,
because that, yeah, annoying ifyou're not, if you're not
prepared for it. Another awardsthing that's kind of horror
adjacent is, have you guys heardof Die My Love, no, it's the new
Lynn Ramsey movie with JenniferLawrence and Robin Robert
Pattinson. It has a it has a lotof We Need to Talk About Kevin
(12:28):
vibes, except, instead of Kevinbeing the one that's crazy, it's
the Jennifer Lawrence character.
She's like, you know this, thishas been a year for postpartum,
you know, and, you know, Kidrelated trauma movies, because,
you know, there was, if I HadLegs, I's Kick You, which is
Rose Byrne is amazing in it. Andalso Hamnet with Jesse Buckley
(12:52):
is deals with a little bit ofthat too. But this one it, it's,
um, it's kind of a dark movie,and it's total Lynn Ramsey
style. It's real disjointed. Andyou're kind of wondering, okay,
wait, is this a flashback, or isthis happening? Now, you know
that kind of thing. Theperformances, Robert Pattinson
and Jennifer Lawrence are bothamazing, but it's basically
(13:14):
about this, this couple who hadthis kid, and the woman, which
is Jennifer Lawrence, she kindof, she kind of goes crazy. And
part of it is, part of it isgaslighting, where people are
convincing her she's crazy, butpart of it is she really is
crazy, and that's where the lineyou're kind of like, wait now,
(13:36):
is she legitimately, you know,does she legitimately need help,
or is someone doing this to her?
I don't know. It's, it's kind ofcrazy, but it's, it's a, it's a
dark movie. It's, it's a reallydark movie. It sounds dark, yep.
I mean, it's Lynn Ramsey. Imean, yeah, that's what she
(13:57):
does.
Jonathan Correia (13:58):
Well, have you guys ever heard of the series
Rebel Highway? No, yeah, Correiaback on his bullshit of obscure
90s anthologies. Oh boy. Rebelhighway was this anthology film
series on Showtime where theytook, I think it was, I want to
(14:19):
say it was corpsman drive ins,but it was these, like drive in
movies that they had all therights to, and they would remake
them with modern filmmakers ofthe 90s. And it was they're all
like greaser head car kidbopping ones. It's the only one
that's gotten an officialrelease. Is Robert Rodriguez's
(14:41):
Roadracers, which is probablyhands down the best made one.
That one has David Arquette,Selma Hayek, Jon Hawkes, William
Sadler, and it's, you know,typical greaser racer, you know.
And it's Robert Rodriguez goingnuts. And hes still in his like,
super gorilla filmmaking style,with like, but with like, a
(15:06):
premium cable episode budget.
But they're a lot of fun becausethey some of them are straight
up remakes of these movies, andsome of them are just in name
only. Ralph Bakshi did one aswell called Cool and the Crazy
talk about postpartum depressionthat one has Alicia Silverstone
stepping out on her husband,played by Jared Leto. They're
(15:28):
both like 19 year old couplethat, like settled hard, had a
kid, and then she steps out withthis, like, gang guy, gang
member, or real just bad guyplayed by Matthew Flint, but
also Jon Hawks is in it,Jennifer Blanc. Like, the casts
are really good and thedirectors, it's, it's cool
(15:52):
stuff. Like, that's RalphBakshi's only, like, fully live
action film. But, yeah, they'refun series. There's, there's
like, 10 movies within it, andyou can find it on like,
Internet Archive. Oh, yeah,let's plug it. Yeah, you can
find it on Internet Archivebecause it's not available
anywhere else. But rebelRoadracers did get a Blu ray and
(16:13):
DVD release at one point, andthat's the best one. But there's
titles like Girls in Prison,Shake, Rattle and Rock,
Dragstrip Girl, Motorcycle Gang,Runaway Daughters, you know,
Reform School Girls. So, like,they're all like, you know,
classy titles, but it'sdefinitely that 1950s 1960s teen
drive in films, but like, madein the 90s. So they're fun to
(16:37):
watch, especially Cool And TheCrazy. That one Alicia
Silverstone was just like, goingso over the top, and there's
some like, weird psychosexualstuff going on in there. And
Jared Leto is, it's like, oh,this is before he got creepy and
ruined franchises like Tron.
Think about dude. They're a lotof fun. I'm having a lot of fun
(16:58):
trying to hunt down all these,like, anthology series that were
like tales from the crypt, orsomething like that, that came
out in the 90s. I'm still tryingto find a watchful copy of the
Western one spin off from talesfrom the crypt, two, two fisted
Jacob Davidson (17:12):
two fisted tales.
Jonathan Correia (17:13):
Two fisted tales. Yeah, I'm trying to find
that pilot. I know it got putinto they it got split up and
turned into episodes of tales.
Jacob Davidson (17:20):
But, yeah, no, it's out there somewhere. I've
seen it with, like WilliamSadler being kind of the Crypt
Keeper guy,
Jonathan Correia (17:26):
yeah, yeah. I gotta, yeah, I gotta hunt that
one down.
James Jay Edwards (17:30):
Have you ever watched the hitchhiker from the
old HBO day? This was like, pretails from the crypt HBO, like,
maybe 81
Jonathan Correia (17:39):
you know, I've had a DVD collection of that for
the longest time, and it's in myneed to watch to possibly sell
pile right now.
James Jay Edwards (17:46):
So you should watch it. They're pretty good.
Yeah, no, no,
Jonathan Correia (17:50):
I have, I have so many blu rays. I have stacks
right next to me of just likestuff where it's like, you gotta
watch this to clear, eitherclear space or give it a
permanent space on the shelf.
Just gotta.
Jacob Davidson (18:01):
I feel that never enough room.
James Jay Edwards (18:05):
And now let's bring in our special guest for
this episode. And this is areally special guest. We have a
true multi hyphenate. We've gotfilm writer, producer, director,
founder of the MiskatonicInstitute, Kier-La Janisse, how
you doing?
Kier-La Janisse (18:22):
Hi,igood morning.
James Jay Edwards (18:23):
Good morning.
Thank you for joining us. Wealways like to kind of start
with at the beginning. How didyou get your start doing what
you do? And when did you knowthat you wanted to work in
horror like this?
Kier-La Janisse (18:38):
Well, I mean, I was a horror fan from being a
small child, the it was my firstyou know thing that my parents
or family members knew about mewas that I loved monsters and
ghosts and things like this, andso they would encourage it. We
would watch horror films athome, and my dad would buy me
any book he saw at a flea marketabout horror movies. So it was
really kind of ingrained in mefrom a young age, but I didn't
(19:01):
know that I would work in thefield, because I didn't know
because I didn't really want tomake movies. And so I didn't
know that there were all theseother potential jobs that you
could do if you work in horror,like these support jobs, that
you could be a journalist, oryou could be an archivist, or,
you know, any of these things.
And so I just went to school fornormal things like medieval
history also useless, but, youknow, but it was when I was in
(19:27):
university doing medievalhistory, I started like a little
fanzine, like a horror fanzineout of the video store where I
worked. And that was that fanscene was really what started me
programming movies, because Iwould review movies like
bootlegs and stuff that I hadbought from, like European trash
cinema or video vortex, or, youknow, revick, or any of these,
(19:50):
you know, organizations thatsold bootlegs video search of
Miami, and I would review themovies but they weren't
available in. Canada for peopleto rent. So people would read
the reviews and be like, well,this movie sounds really
interesting, but how can we seethe movie and in Canada, because
of the way that our ratingsystems work, you can't just
import any movie and put it onthe shelf of a video store.
(20:12):
Everything has to go throughgovernment channels. And so
there isn't a lot of independentfree movement of films the way
there is in the States. But onething you could do is you could
put on a film festival, and youcould get an exemption from film
readings at a film festival. Andso that was sort of how I
started. I started programmingthese weird, you know, Italian
(20:33):
horror films and stuff for afilm festival locally and and
this was like that. It wasbefore DVD existed. And people
like, I remember the first yearI played like, you know, Deep
Red Dario Argento like, I mean,it was all just kind of stuff
that now we consider GreatestHits, you know, it was like,
Lizard in a woman's skin byLucio Fulchi, Deep Red,
(20:53):
Possession by Andre jawski. Andpeople like, hated Possession
back then. People did not likethat movie the way that they do
now. But, yeah, people didn'teven know who Dario Argento was,
you know, like, I mean, it wasreally, it was really only the
people who collected that knew,you know, who a lot of these
filmmakers were. And so becauseof doing that festival and doing
(21:15):
the fanzine Tony Timpone atFangoria offered me my first
paid job doing anything forhorror, which was doing set
visits. I lived in Vancouver,and they were always shooting
different horror franchises andstuff out there. So he asked if
I would go out to visit somesets and do some coverage for
them. And that was really how mycareer started, because that was
(21:38):
the first thing that I got paidto do in horror, and so it just
kind of went from there.
Jonathan Correia (21:45):
That's awesome. I mean, I know Jacob
and I definitely have a lot ofyour books on our shelves, House
of Psychotic women, SatanicPanic. That was my first
introduction to your work. AndGod, I love that you keep
encouraging such people todiscover new films or that from
the past, or films that, likepeople don't talk a whole lot
about, like, you have an entirebook dedicated to cockfight,
(22:08):
which is incredible.
Kier-La Janisse (22:11):
Well, Cockfighter was, like the Yeah,
that was, I mean, the book iscalled Cockfight, yeah? But just
because I thought it, I mean, Ishould have given it a more
original title, but I justthought it would be funny to be
on a shelf with my name and itjust says Cockfight. But
anyways, that was, you know, anobsession with Monte Hellman's
movie Cockfighter, which seemsto many people very different
(22:34):
from a lot of the other thingsthat I've written about, like my
book, my only solo book beforethat, or the one right before
that was House of PsychoticWomen. And it seems a million
miles away from House ofPsychotic Women in terms of
content and taste and everythingyou know. But like any film fan,
you know, if you're you know,your interest and your curiosity
(22:57):
about films and your taste isnot always following a straight
line, you know? And, yeah, soCockfighter was one of those
things that to me, when I madethe book, I didn't expect it to
be as obscure as it was. Like Iactually thought everybody seen
Cockfighter. Turns out it's notthe case, and a lot of people
(23:18):
don't want to see cock fighters,as I found when I wanted to do
like, book launch events, youknow, it was like, hard to
convince people to play themovie. So, yeah,
Jacob Davidson (23:28):
a bit of a hard sell on cockfighting. Yeah.
Jonathan Correia (23:34):
Well, it's a fictional movie about it. It's
not like you're not promotingthis the the illegal sport at
all.
Kier-La Janisse (23:40):
So Well, I mean, I talk about the sport
quite a bit in the book, and themovie does have real cock
fighting in it. So, yeah,there's kind of no way around
that, you know, because it'slike chickens can't be trained
the same way that other animalscan't, you know. So it's like a
lot of the fights, you know,like they made fake. They made
(24:01):
fake like they're called gaffs,you know, which are like the
hooks that they fight with. Sothey made rubber ones for the
for the film, but they, but theyare actually charging at each
other. They are, you know, asfar as the birds are concerned,
they are actually fighting. Youknow, it's just that they can't
kill each other because they'vegot rubber gaffs on. But the but
(24:22):
the anger is still there, andthat's part of the reason why in
the UK, the film can't beplayed, because one of the sort
of federal rules, and this hasnothing to do with motion
picture ratings, it's just oneof the federal rules, is that
you cannot show a film where ananimal is goaded to fury. So you
cannot show you can't showsomeone angering an animal to
(24:43):
the point where they want tokill and so it's like a really
specific law that was madebecause of things like cock
fighting. You know, because cockfighting used to be a very
popular sport in the UK.
Jonathan Correia (24:56):
So, wow, too bad they didn't have Werner
Herzog on set to hypnotize them.
You know that famous clip of himhypnotizing chickens.
Jacob Davidson (25:07):
And off of that, I also want to say I'm a big fan
of your folk horror work,particularly the documentary
Woodlands Dark and DaysBewitched: History of Folk
Horror, and your involvement inthe folk horror box sets from
Severin. I was wondering if youcould talk a little bit about
that. Yeah.
Kier-La Janisse (25:25):
I mean, the the box sets kind of came the idea
for them came right as we weremaking the film, because my
boss, when I was showing himrough cuts of the film, he was
just sort of like, Oh, I haven'theard of these films. Are these
films available to be licensed,you know. So the idea was
already germinating, like in hishead as I was making the film,
(25:47):
and so he started licensing alot of films for the first box
set, like during that period,which is why the first box that
came out the same year as thefilm, and so, but the film
itself came about by accident,like when I was first, like many
of Severin films, there aren'tmany documentaries we make that
(26:07):
start off as featuredocumentaries. They usually
start off as extras that justget out of control. And so,
like, I'm making one now, thatis, that is actually I'm making
a documentary. Well, I'll getinto it later, I guess. But,
but, but most of them havestarted as extras. And in the
(26:27):
case of the Folk horror one, wewere going to be doing a release
of Blood on Satan's claw, and wewere going to be just basically
replicating the UK disc, likeporting over all the, you know,
they had just made a whole bunchof new extras for the UK disc,
and we were just going to do anAmerican version of that disc.
And I said, Oh, you're not goingto add anything. Like, you're
not even going to make one newextra. And David's like, Well,
(26:49):
we've already interviewedeverybody from the movie. And
there's, you know, like, whatelse can we do? I said, we could
just make something just aboutfolk horror in general. And
David was, like, folk horror,what's that? I said, Well, you
know, it's like this and thisand this. And then he was like,
great. He's like, go make it andand I was like, at that time, I
was just an editor at Severin.
So my job at Severin at thatpoint was literally just people
(27:11):
would give me assignments tothey to edit things, and I would
edit them and return them. I hadno creative say in what those
things were or anything. So thiswas a suggestion of his that
came totally out of the blue,where he was just like, Okay, go
make this extra yourself. Andluckily, I guess, you know, I
didn't have any experienceputting together a film shoot or
(27:32):
anything. But I did haveexperience, you know, like I
because I had done theMiskatonic Institute of Horror
Studies, I was always sort ofkeeping up on who was writing
books about what, and whosespecialty was what. And I was
like, Well, I probably am bestpositioned to know who the
people are, who are the expertsthat I would get to speak in a
documentary about folk horror,you know? So I sort of started
(27:54):
there and then relied on peoplethat Severin worked with
frequently in the UK to do theactual filming, because our, all
of our first interviews were inthe UK, because it was
originally just going to befocused on the UK folk horror
immediately surrounding Blood onSatan's Claws, like so all this,
like the kind of unholy trinityfilms and everything, just
(28:15):
immediately in that time period.
But then, of course, as soon asI started interviewing people, I
was just like, oh, this is sucha way better, bigger topic, you
know, because I was like, itinclude, you know, things like
Children of the Corn, you know,like all these American folk
horror films that would, youknow, could be considered folk
horror. And then when Iinterviewed people, there was
(28:35):
also a real divide when peoplewould give their definition of
what folk horror was. There wasa real divide between people
from England and America. Wouldusually define folk horror as
something where a stranger comesto a village and all the people
in the village are weird, andthey have some weird belief
systems, you know. And it's kindof like this normal, civilized
(28:58):
outsider who comes into thiscommunity of barbarians or
something, you know. But thenwhen you would interview people
from Asia or Europe or otherplaces like this, they would
always say the folk horror iswhere you have a village of
people who have this very strongbelief system where they're
fighting against the evil comingfrom outside their village.
(29:19):
Yeah, you know. So it was likethis alternate perspective on
what folk horror was. And in theEuropean and Asian stuff, there
seemed to be much more focus onfolkloric fairy tales, folkloric
creatures, you know, stuff likethis that you wouldn't see in
like British folk horror. Andafter my movie came out, I saw
(29:39):
online a lot of debate where alot of British people were like,
well, that other stuff isn'tactually, isn't real folk
horror. So there's like, a lotof territorialism about, like,
just even the definition, orwhat should be included, and
stuff. And so that was kind ofwhat I was trying to do with my
movies, just let people talkabout what it is to them,
because the. Of folk anythingfolk culture is that it often
(30:04):
traverses through communitiesand changes as as it intersects
with other communities andstuff. So the idea that people
did not agree on the definition,to me, was an important part of
the documentary, you know. Andso anyway, that was how it
started, was it was justsupposed to be an extra, and
then it just got bigger andbigger and bigger. And bigger
and bigger. And then eventually,David said, Well, just instead
(30:26):
of trying to cut it down, justkeep going, Yeah, you know, just
make it whatever you want. Andbecause we knew it was going to
eventually end up on Blu Ray,because that's severins primary
business, he didn't care howlong it was, you know, he was
just like, well, if it's long,people will just pause it and
then they'll watch the restlater, you know.
Jonathan Correia (30:44):
And then I can't imagine doing that,
though, because it is, it islong and it is over three hours,
but I mean, it flows reallysmoothly, and so it doesn't feel
like it, you know.
Kier-La Janisse (30:53):
Thank you, I mean. But it also has the
chapter headings, you know. Soit does have really good kind of
way stations, where you couldpause it and come back to it the
next day or something, if youwanted to. You know, yeah, but
yeah so. And then I lucked outduring lucked out during covid,
one of the few people who luckedout during covid, where the
(31:15):
festivals went online. And sobasically, because festivals
went online, they also didn'tcare how long the movies were,
you know, because normally whenyou're playing a festival, if
you have a three hour movie,they have to think of it, the
fact that you're taking up twoslots at the theater, you know,
that like, oh, we could beplaying another movie in this
time period. So if we take thismovie, we're losing another
(31:36):
movie. Whereas when it wasonline, that was not an issue.
You could play the movies couldbe as long as you want it. So I
feel like I actually got a lotof festival play for that movie,
because all the festivals wereonline that year,
Jacob Davidson (31:49):
and I actually saw that Chattanooga that year
myself.
Kier-La Janisse (31:53):
Okay, well, was it online that year, or did it
Jacob Davidson (31:56):
go online on Chattanooga Film Festival, 2021
Yeah, yeah.
Kier-La Janisse (32:01):
So that was really interesting, because I
feel like, because of thefestivals, it got a lot more
attention than it would haveotherwise, you know, like,
otherwise it just would havegone straight to blu ray. A lot
of people wouldn't have heardabout it unless they pay
attention to Severin stuff. Andso the fact that covid made
everything online meant that thefilm got a lot more attention
(32:21):
than it would have otherwise.
Absolutely now
James Jay Edwards (32:24):
we're here to talk about The Haunted Season,
but before we get that, you kindof touched on the Miskatonic
Institute of horror studies.
That fascinates me, because I Ireally wish that there was
something like that when I wasmy degrees are in film
production and also Americanmedia and popular culture. I
wish there was a horror studies.
(32:45):
How did that come about? TheMiskatonic Institute?
Kier-La Janisse (32:47):
Well, basically part of it is like, just like
you said, I always wished thatthere had been one and but it
also started by accident,because it was something where I
was doing a writers in residencein Winnipeg. And I was like,
part of the graders in residencewas you had to do some sort of
public facing event, you know,you had to do a reading, or you
had to do what, you know, somekind of activity. And the owner
(33:11):
of the bookstore where I wasdoing the residency said, like,
Oh, why don't you do somethingwith your horror thing, like
your horror interest, but do itfor teenagers, because spring
break is coming up and all theyounger everything is focused on
younger kids. There's a millionactivities of things for younger
kids to do, but there's kind ofnothing for those kids that are
kind of between 12 and 15 or 12and 16, you know? So I said, Oh,
(33:34):
okay, so I did this week longworkshop, and I'm really not
trained to teach workshops topeople. I'm, like, horrible at
it, but so I did this week longworkshop of, like, film critics,
horror film criticism for teens.
And I had to have some sort ofname, or some, I don't know,
some way to advertise it, and Ijust called it the Miskatonic
(33:54):
Institute of horror studies,like as a joke,
James Jay Edwards (34:00):
because what else are you going to call it,
right? But
Kier-La Janisse (34:02):
then, but then, I got asked, after that
workshop, I got a call fromsomebody looking for the
Miskatonic Institute of horrorstudies, because they wanted me
to come and do a class at theirorganization for their
teenagers. So I ended up doing asecond class with like, a bunch
of juvenile delinquents who werenot into, you know, they wanted
(34:26):
to watch the movies, but theydidn't want to do any reading or
learn anything, and but soAnyways, that was how it
started, was that people juststarted asking me to do these
classes. And so originally, itwas very focused on teenagers.
But then I moved to Montreal,and I just, and I had, I was
running a little micro cinemathere, and so I was like, Okay,
now that I have my own venue,I'm just going to have these
(34:47):
classes every week. So westarted having them on
Wednesdays. But we reallyweren't getting teenagers
because we just didn't have theoutreach, you know, to reach
teenagers, and we didn't knowenough. Parents of teenagers and
stuff. So we started to get alot of adults that were like,
Well, can I come to the classes?
And at first I was worried wherehe was like, Well, I don't know
if I'm I mean, any adult isgoing to know the same amount
(35:10):
about horror as me, so I don'tknow what they're going to learn
from me, but they were reallyinterested in coming. So we just
said, Okay, we'll open it up toadults. And then after a while,
I think after five classes orsomething like that, these,
these scholars and collegeinstructors, instructors that in
Montreal that were very intohorror, approached me about
(35:31):
collaborating with me to try tohelp me get more teachers and
stuff like that. And so theyended up becoming really
important to Miskatonic,Montreal, growing they ended up
branching off and starting theirown organization called
Monstrum. So they still have,like, a, I think, quarterly
academic journal called TheMonstrom Journal. And I don't
(35:53):
know if they're doing classesanymore, but they were for a
while, and I, in the meantime,moved again. I started the
London branch, and then Istarted one in New York and one
in LA and during covid, a lot ofthem, you know, didn't survive,
but London still goes strong.
(36:13):
And London was always the mostpopular one. There's so many
horror scholars in the UK. Like,there, it's like, you know, you
have this like bounty of ofteachers to pick from, and you
also have like, a ton of peoplethere who are into really
academic approaches to horrorand stuff, you know, so the
audiences have always beenreally full and enthusiastic and
(36:37):
stuff. And then, so I ran it for10 years, and I have, but I was
always very reliant on volunteerhelp, because oftentimes I did
not live in the cities wherethese schools were, and so it
was like 100% reliant on whoeverwas my local person on the
ground to actually run it. Butthen after a while, I realized
(36:59):
that the way that I wanted torun the school was different
from how most of the volunteerswanted to run it, you know, like
a lot of the volunteers, weremuch more interested in an event
structure where it's, like, oneclass, one night, you know, and
you go and and that's it.
Whereas I always had, I alwayswanted courses, you know, where
you have, like, a long coursewith many classes. But when you
(37:20):
do things that way, you havemuch smaller audiences. You
know, you have like, just likethat core group of people that
want to take a six week coursein something, whereas if you do
an event structure, you can sellout every time. So of course,
the people on the ground doingit wanted to sell out every
time. It was much more appealingto them, and also just more for
(37:41):
your morale, you know. It's justnicer having a full room of
people, you know. And so itended up just kind of going more
in that event structure. Andafter 10 years, I realized that
I couldn't do what I wanted withit, which was I wanted to it, to
eventually have real academicaccreditation and stuff like
that. And I was like, this isjust not going to happen without
(38:04):
a major patron or something forit, you know. So I basically
gave it over to the volunteers,you know. So Josh, Josh Saco,
who had been running the Londonbranch for a long time, he now
owns it. He runs it. It's hisbaby to do with whatever he
wants with. So I sort of retiredfrom it, but I'm still proud of
(38:24):
it, you know. So I still have itin my signature and everything
like that. But yeah, Josh Sacoruns it now, and he's, like, he
used to run a thing calledCigarette Burns in the UK, which
is, like, basically a 16 mil. Hewould do 16 millimeter repertory
screenings at various differentvenues around town. So he's very
experienced with not onlyhorror, but also like doing live
events and stuff,
James Jay Edwards (38:48):
all right, yeah, so let's move on to the
haunted season, because that'swhat we're here to talk about.
This is a series with Severinand shudder, and every year you
guys put out a new episode, andthis episode, this year's
episode you actually directed.
Is this your fiction directoraldebut?
Kier-La Janisse (39:09):
It is okay, yeah. So it was like Severin,
the series Haunted Season, isactually Severin. It's 100%
Severin. So it has a deal withShudder, where we premiere them
on Shudder, you know, so, so itobviously has this very strong
association with with shudder.
But it's a Severin production,like the series as a whole and
set, because I also work forSeverin a lot, that was the
(39:33):
context in which I pitched it.
So I pitched it to David Gregoryat Severin, and he was just
like, well, if you want to dothat, go ahead. But he's like,
I'm not. You have to manage ityourself, you know. So then I
pitched it to Sam at Shudder,and he and I had actually worked
together years ago Fangoria. Weworked together on the Fangoria
(39:55):
website. We were kind of the webteam back in like 2012 or 2013,
something like that. And we hadthis idea back then where we
were like, Wouldn't it be greatif we could do like, an annual
ghost story for Christmas andhave it from here on the
Fangoria website every year,like on Christmas Eve or
something. And the publisherdidn't want to go for it, but
(40:15):
that idea just stayed on theback burner. And then when I
pitched it to Sam, I was like,this is the idea, basically,
that we wanted to do all thoseyears ago, and we're both in
positions now where we couldpotentially do it, you know? So,
yeah, so we, we came up with aplan where we have a five year
agreement. So it's so we have,like, the first season is five
(40:36):
years. Every year, it's adifferent film. The films are
supposed to be anywhere from 25to 50 minutes. So it's a fairly
wide range in terms of, like,how long the films have to be.
But the idea is, it is they aresupposed to be in the vein of
the BBC ghost story forChristmas, you know. So they're
supposed to have some element oftradition to them, some you
(40:59):
know, they're supposed to beperiod, although, again, the
period can be anything from likethe Middle Ages up into the
1960s you and and they're andthey are supposed to preserve
kind of the downbeat tone of theBBC series, you know. So they're
not supposed to be like funny orgory or spectacle driven or
(41:20):
anything like that. They'resupposed to be kind of, yeah,
just, like, just less emphasison, on, like, the big spectacle,
you know, and trying, yeah,yeah, yeah, kind of bummers,
yeah. But so we started it withSean Hogan's To Fire You Come at
(41:43):
Last, which I love. I think Seanis a brilliant writer and and
then this year we were for theone this year there wasn't
originally supposed to be memaking one. It was supposed to
be somebody else. And then theyended up getting one of their
features projects, kind of greenlit to the next stage of
(42:03):
development, and they had toshift gears and focus on that.
So I'm hoping they'll still comeback, you know, to do their
episode, because they hadalready written the script and
everything. So it then was like,well, this series has no money,
no time, you know. Like, usuallyif you're trying to get somebody
to do something for a lowbudget, you have to at least
give them time to do it right.
And we didn't have either ofthose things. So, so I basically
(42:27):
put myself in as a filler. It'ssupposed to be like, Well, I
mean, I guess I'll just do onebecause, you know, I had this
favorite ghost story that Iwould read every Christmas. I
was like, Well, you know, Icould kind of picture how I
would do this, so maybe I shouldjust do it myself, and I just
made sure to surround myselfwith people who knew what they
(42:50):
were doing. You know, it's likeone of my oldest friends is
Kareem Hussein, who's the DOP onthe film, and I knew that if I
had him with me, I would beokay, you know, like that he he
pretty much acts as my buffer.
You know, he's very experiencedand very professional, and
people have a lot of respect forhim, so I knew that that would
(43:12):
rub off on me, if I was workingon a set with him, that
everything would be okay, thathe wouldn't let me fail
miserably. And so Kareem was abig part of the confidence that
I had, that I could even dothis, you know. And then, yeah,
so, but everything about it wasnew. It was the first time I,
you know, wrote a script in ascript writing program, and, you
(43:36):
know, like, worked with actors.
And just everything about it,you know, was new, and I had to,
you know, rely on friends whoare more experienced to, like,
help me navigate, you know,like, how do I do some of these
things? You know, my friendJason Lapeer, who is a
filmmaker, he's a director of,he makes all kinds of films.
Actually, he's made kids films,he's made lots of true crime
films and stuff like that. Buthe helped me a lot with, like,
(43:57):
how do I deal with actors? Howdo I talk to actors, you know,
how do I break down the scene sothat I can answer any question
they might have about it? So hewas hugely helpful with that.
But, yeah, I just feel and thenI also have elements of the film
where I actually got otherartists, you know, other
experimental filmmakers andanimators and all these things
(44:18):
to work with me on certainthings that I wanted to do. And
to me, it's like a lot of whatpeople like about the film is
their work, the animation, themusic, you know, the exterior
footage, you know, stuff likethis was all things where I got
other very experienced artiststo to basically make that stuff
for the movie so and
Jonathan Correia (44:42):
it comes together phenomenally. I mean,
the music, the window scene, theacting, just, it's, it's such a
beautiful and tight I'm a hugefan of the BBC ghost stories for
Christmas. And when this wasannounced, I was like, Yes,
finally we have new, new downersfor Christmas. I love it. Okay?
James Jay Edwards (45:00):
Well, we thanks for joining us this
morning. We are out of time. Iknow that we this is we could
talk to you for another threeepisodes. So anytime you want to
come back, please come back.
Yeah, this seemed like it was areally short one, but we are on
a crunch. But before we go,where can people are you on the
socials or anything? Where canpeople follow you to find out
what you've got coming up?
Kier-La Janisse (45:21):
Well, I have, so I have, I have socials,
Instagram, blue sky, which Ibelieve are just my name, you
know, Kier-La Janisse. I have aFacebook that only exists to
post things on spectacular. Ihave a, I have a publishing
company called SpectacularOptical. And so I have a blue
sky, also for that, and also forFacebook for that, but I barely
(45:45):
ever look at the Facebook, butInstagram, I'm fairly frequently
on and blue sky, it's just undermy name.
James Jay Edwards (45:53):
And what is coming? Is there anything you
could talk about that is comingup that we can push
Kier-La Janisse (45:57):
for you? Yeah, the only, I mean, I've mentioned
a bit earlier, the I'm workingon a documentary adaptation of
the book Killing for Culture.
And so that we licensed this islike a book that came out in the
early 90s. It was very importantto me and to a lot of other
horror fans that focuses on thehistory of sort of Mondo films,
snuff films, take trading deathfilms, faces of death type
(46:20):
things, you know, stuff likethis. So all very, very grim
subject matter, but it just sortof goes into this, the history
of people trading this type offootage. And so we optioned it
for a documentary. I wasoriginally, you know, like I was
saying some things, we start offas extras and become features. I
was making a documentary for theBlack Emmanuel box set about
(46:42):
snuff films to go with Emmanuelin America. And I got like, I
don't know very, just slightlyinto it, and then I pulled it I
realized, David, this is afeature this. Let's just go into
it from the beginning as thoughit's a feature, because that way
we can actually film everythingmore uniformly. Because a lot of
(47:02):
times when you start off as anextra, you're filming it with
the budget of an extra, whichmeans that, you know, the camera
people are all differentdepending on where the
interviewee is located, soeverything kind of looks
different. I was like, I thinkwe should make a feature out of
this. So let's just stop thisright now, and then we'll do the
interviews on in an actual setthat looks uniform, you know. So
(47:24):
killing for culture, I think,will probably be the first
documentary severins made, whereit's actually made for the
purpose of being a feature withthe budget in mind of a feature,
you know, and stuff like that.
So I'm going to be working onthat through the next
Jonathan Correia (47:42):
year, is, is bum fights going to be brought
up at all?
Kier-La Janisse (47:46):
They'll probably be brought up. But,
yeah,
Jonathan Correia (47:49):
because that feels like my generation's like
Faces of Death type video tapetrading thing. I mean,
Kier-La Janisse (47:55):
yeah, it got very I mean, it got so, that's
the thing. Like, as it went on,it just got so, just like
humanity has failed,
Jonathan Correia (48:04):
yes, looking back, I was like, a rough
subject. Looking back, I waslike, why did we find that at
all in today? But 14, you know?
Kier-La Janisse (48:13):
Yeah, the whole, basically, the whole
movie is dealing with that kindof material. And a lot of people
being interviewed will probablybe people who, you know, like
me, watched that kind of stuffas a teenager, and now that
we're old, we're kind of like,why did we watch that?
Jacob Davidson (48:31):
Thoughts?
Exactly? It'll be an interestingself reflection.
Kier-La Janisse (48:34):
Yeah, exactly.
James Jay Edwards (48:36):
Well, great.
So so we can keep an eye on yoursocials to find out the progress
of that project and and whenthat comes out, come on back.
Because, like I said, we could,we could make full episodes out
of out of interviews of you. Sowe'll come back anytime. And
this is, this has been great.
Thank you for joining us thismorning. Yeah, our theme song is
(48:59):
by restless spirits. So go checkthem out. And our artwork is by
Chris Fisher, so go check himout. You can check us out on all
the socials, under @eyeonhorror,or ihorror.com which is the
website we all call home. Andeverybody go and check out The
Haunted Season. The Occupant inthe Room is the is this year's
(49:21):
entry, and it's great. It'sterrific. So go check it out on
shudder, and we will see you ina couple of weeks. So for me,
James Jay Edwards,
Jacob Davidson (49:30):
I'm Jacob Davison,
Jonathan Correia (49:31):
I'm Jonathan Correia,
Kier-La Janisse (49:32):
I'm Kier-La Janisse.
James Jay Edwards (49:33):
Keep your eye on horror.
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