Dear Watchers: an omniversal comic book podcast

Rob: Happy almost Halloween, and welcome to Dear Watchers, a comic book Omniverse podcast where we usually do a deep dive into the multiverse.
Guido: We usually travel through the stories and the worlds that inspire and make up alternate universes that we all love. And your watchers on this journey are.
Rob: Me Guido and me Rob, and an extra very special guest you will meet in a few moments. And if you're listening to us for the first time, welcome. We are here to be your guide through fictional realities, and we love talking to people who create those realities and sharing them with you all.
Guido: And it is Halloween season, so we do have a lot of great episodes, both from this year and from the last year and a half of our podcasting about horrific things, spooky things, villains and comics, sorcerers and witches and werewolves, and all sorts of stuff. So you can search our back catalog of episodes to find more Halloween.
Chris LaMartina: Listen.
Rob: The Mistress of the Dark herself. We did a whole deep dive into Alvara's history and comics. And, uh, I think one of our highlights of our year was that Elvira retweeted us.
Guido: Yes. And we spoke to her friend and official comic book writer David Avaloni. That was back in May. So, yeah, check out our pack catalog for other Halloween issues.
Chris LaMartina: Yes.
Rob: And Guido, what else is happening in our little corner of the multiverse?
Guido: Well, our most recent episode you can check out. It was our first visit to eternity for He Man and the Masters of the Universe. We did some background on Heman's history in comics and his battle with Superman as our alternate universe. For that feature episode, we also joined Instagram, which there's an explanation point at the end of my notes, but I'm not going to exclaim. But it's good you can follow us there. We'll keep sharing pictures. We were inspired because everything we shared from New York Comic Con on Twitter got lots of attention and we wanted to make sure we had more places where we could share pictures of the things we're doing and investigating and exploring. And last but not least from me, you can, uh, support the show on Coffee, go to Deerwatchers.com, and you can give any amount of money. But for as little as $3 a month, you can join one of our two, uh, patron tiers and get bonus content, including episodes of our spin off Omniversity. Um, right now we're doing a deep dive into Alan Moore's Promethea. Sign up@deerwatchers.com. Click join support. We use coffee, and we also have some good merch on there and other stuff. So we hope that people will choose to support us one time or monthly. It all helps us, uh, do the work that we're doing.
Rob: Perfectly timed in with this season. I'm working on a blog post right now about the multiverse of Michael Myers, kind of diving into the five different timelines of the Halloween series and I started writing it and then it was like, oh, this is so long. I think it's going to be like a part one and part two, like going in through the series and then specifically talking about the multiverses. So I hope that will be up on our coffee this week for the $3 patron. So check that out if you want to get more into the Spooky season. Feeling great.
Guido: And on this episode, yes, we are.
Rob: Joined by a very special guest who we are super excited, perfect for this Halloween season. And it's also our first guest who is entirely outside of the world of comics.
Guido: Although he did right, we did discover he wrote into comic mythology, so you.
Rob: Really can't escape comics. And that guest is writer, producer and director Chris LaMartina, the creator of the October favorite WNUF Halloween special and his new film out there, Halloween Mega Tape, aka WNUF Halloween Sequel. So I really loved, uh, getting a chance to talk to Chris. It was such a great conversation. Guitar, what was your biggest takeaway from this talk?
Guido: Oh, it was so fun. It really was. And it's such a unique movie that I think if you haven't seen the movie and you might be interested, I'd say go watch the first movie. The second one is harder to find right now it's brand new. You, uh, got an order copy?
Chris LaMartina: Yes.
Guido: But right now, go watch the first movie. Come back and listen to the interview. We do spoil the first movie. It is almost ten years old, but it's really fun. And part of what makes it fun is the part of the conversation that I loved so much, which was Chris talking about what it means to create an immersive experience mhm, and how to do that kind of storytelling with care and what it means to tell a story with care. Because that ties in so much to the world building that we always find ourselves talking to our guests about and that we always find ourselves exploring on our usual episodes. So it was really fun to hear his take on that since I think he's done something wildly original with it.
Rob: And making it an experience because sometimes we can get hung up and how much did this thing make or that thing make? And he's really committed to giving you an experience that you can only get from watching this movie.
Guido: Yeah, I think that was related to the takeaway you were going to highlight too.
Rob: For me, it was just the uh, biggest takeaway was just creating something because you wanted to exist in this world. And I think also in our social media world, we can get hung up on oh, how many likes or retweets did this get?
Chris LaMartina: Analytics. Exactly.
Rob: The analytics. Yeah, the box office. How many listens did this get? And if you want to put something out of the world because you are passionate about putting your vision out there. Put it out there and don't worry about how many likes it is. Of course, part of that is eventually, uh, we want an audience for it. And Chris talks about that as well. But a lot of it is we want it out there in the world. We want to create these experiences. I think that's why you and I are doing this podcast, is we want to share our thoughts. We want to share our passion out there, and obviously, we want people to listen to Ah. But, yeah, that's really kind of getting it out there in the world.
Guido: So that's enough of a preview of what's to come. If you need to pause, go watch the Wi UF Halloween special. Come back and listen to Chris La Martinez. Let's jump into our conversation. And please note that while usually we try to avoid cursing, not because neither of us cursed, we both curse quite a bit, but because we know some people listen to us in the car and with kids, this episode does not avoid cursing. So you have been warned.
Chris LaMartina: OOH.
Rob: The scariest thing of all expletives. And with that, dear Watchers, welcome to episode 68, and let's check out what's happening in the multiverse with today's conversation. So we are here and joined by our extra special guest member of the Council of Watchers, chris La Martina. Hi, Chris.
Chris LaMartina: Hey, guys. Thank you so much, Robin. I appreciate it. Thank, uh, you for being here.
Guido: We're excited.
Rob: We were just saying before we got started recording, that you're like Santa in Christmas time as a horror film director around Halloween, right?
Guido: Yes. We feel very long.
Chris LaMartina: Give us your time. Oh, no, absolutely. I'm happy to. I'm glad our schedules aligned, uh, the stars aligned. Everything is groovy.
Guido: Well, Rob is going to introduce our listeners to who you are.
Chris LaMartina: Yes.
Rob: Very excited. So right. Chris La Martina is a writer, producer, and director specializing in horror comedy and where those two genres meet. For 15 years, he's been making movies, starting with Dead Teenagers. There's also Presidents Day, which is Brew, the amazingly titled Call Girl of Cthulhu. The anthology horror film What Happens Next Will Scare You, which I own on VHS and just watched recently. And in 2013, the WNUF Halloween special, the 80s set Masterpiece Complete that's complete with mixes of basic cable and includes fake commercials with a whole haunted house horror thing, a slasher thing. It's got everything. And it really inspired our thinking about the horror movie Multiverse. But that's not all. Chris is also part of the surf punk band Beach Cryptid, and they've played a Cryptid festival, which is amazing, and created the horror comic, uh, Thrill Plots, which was a project that was five years in the making. And his latest film is Out There Halloween Mega Tape, which takes us back to the world of WNUF, this time in the 90s with more commercials and a whole new terrifying story and more peeks into the world that is so similar to ours that it got Guido and me thinking about world building in a whole new way. So we are thrilled to learn more from you, Chris.
Chris LaMartina: Cheers. Happy to be here.
Guido: So with that, dear watchers, let's head through the Omniverse with Chris La Martinez.
Rob: So Chris, thank you so much for being here. And I wanted to start with how did you become a horror fan and a movie fan? Because I know for me, definitely growing up in the VHS, the video store generation, just like going to the store, looking at those boxes and such an impact on me that still resonates today. But for you, how did you become a horror and movie fan?
Chris LaMartina: I think, um, early, early memories are just like I'm the youngest of three kids, as my mom lovingly refers to me as the accident.
Guido: I haven't been to free and accident.
Chris LaMartina: Five years after my sister. So surprised. Uh, but not I would always be sort of um uh, uh, peeking over my older siblings shoulders, watching things I shouldn't have been watching. And I feel like there's a sort of illicit nature of horror movies, right? Like that's sort of like that forbidden vibe of them that's always been really attractive to me. And I think some of the earliest movies that I remember seeing, I remember seeing, um uh, a little, um I guess with a promo for it being playing on TV, night of the Demons that um, scared the hell out of me. Feeling that really scared me. And um trying uh, to think what other things that really were my introduction to the horror genre when you were growing up. Like stuff like Ghostbusters, like the animated series. I love stuff like that. I remember I used to like just so I could have control of the remote and therefore control the TV. As a kid, I'd wake up early and I'd wake up at 05:36 a.m. And I still wake up this early every day. And um, I just to watch TV and usually that early in the morning cinemax or something would be like playing with the tail end of a Hammer horror movie or something like that. And um, those types of films are really my introduction to just like the basic um, tropes and just like um, the general based on horror movies. And I mean, literally, that stuff really influenced made, um, me want to tell stories at a young age. Um um, I was partially raised by my very superstitious Italian godmother, um, Mary uh, Lou. We call her Lulu. She has all these stories that would dictate to her. Um, and she was on a typewriter, so that dates it pretty well. Um, so not even like a word process or anything. She's a typewriter. And I would just like dictate these stories of just literally just like goofy horror tropes. It was a dark and stormy night a, uh, hand came out of the grave. A wolfhound. Literally. They're just like a series of non sequiturs. And, uh, that's like some of my earliest memories are telling stories to my family.
Rob: That's like an oral tradition that feels like it's going back to, like, the old times, where you're gathering around the campfire, you're dictating the stories, and you're kind of all developing it together. That's so cool.
Chris LaMartina: It was really fun. And I love doing, like I love telling stories as a kid. I feel like when you're the youngest of the youngest, people are like especially with such a big age gap, I felt like I was sort of the entertainment, uh, early on, if that makes sense. I don't know if you got to get that too. But it's one of those things where and I'm watching it now because my sister has three kids and her youngest, um, she is totally the storyteller. She'll tell ghost stories, and it's like the best thing in the world to watch. Like, uh, well, now she's a little bit older, but when she was like three or four years old, she would tell ghost stories. And it was like, oh my God. I loved it.
Rob: Like, me too. It's like I told myself stories just to keep myself what are you going to say?
Guido: Did your horror fandom has it just persisted your whole life? I mean, right now you're in an lvirus or you're surrounded by Freddy Krueger and Dracula and everything. Has that just always been the case?
Chris LaMartina: I think the thing for me with horror is like, it's a massively, wide universe, right, and there's different variations of what you can do with horror. So there's horror comedies, there's, like, very serious comedies. There's subgenres even, of horror comedy. And there are so many different types of monsters. And I think a couple of things that kept me interested in horror, um, whereas maybe other genres may have fallen flat for me, was horror is always evolving and it's always different based on, um, different cultural pendulum swings, right? So the genre has gotten more or less violent based off that sort of pendulum swing vibe of, like, you know, in the face of the Vietnam War. What are we doing in horror films, right? Similar, like when the Iraq War hit, or even just like how you can talk about social issues and horror films. Subtextually, um, uh, oftentimes is like, that's really exciting to me, especially since I'm a very politically minded person. Um, and that was cool. And also another current to it. I grew up and I started playing in punk rock bands. And, uh, there was a certain sense of do it YourselfSelf values that a lot of low budget horror really added to the experience for me. And that's what probably kept my interest in the genre as well, because not that many movies have that sort of DIY value set to them as much as Mario does, um, really have so many low budget triumphs are really because they have this sort of in your face, fuck you attitude? Totally. And that's pretty cool. That's like, really all over the place to answer for your question. But yeah, I feel like horror evolved with me at just the right point in my life. Um, meaning I knew where to go. I knew what shattery corners to find the fix I was looking for.
Rob: And how did you then take that leap from fandom, um, into actually doing it yourself and becoming a filmmaker?
Chris LaMartina: Well, um, it's a long time coming. I mean, it's funny, you said 15 years and I was like, I think it might be longer than that. Um, because okay, so when I was a kid, I would write stories, like, all the fucking time. All the time. Um, and I would draw and write stories. And then I guess I was eleven years old, so I found the family camcorder. And like most kids with no friends, you make stop motion animation movies. Uh, because that's like, you can just do your action figures. Um, and I'm joking. I had like, one friend. No, but literally, I would start making these stop motion movies and then, um, I'd start making movies with my friends every day after school. We'd make little slasher films because slasher films are kind of the easier stuff to do. So he puts on a fucking Halloween mask and boom. And that was what I was watching. Like stuff like, um, the Halloween movies, or like, um, the Texas Chance on mascara stuff. Um, or even just really shitty, um, I don't want to say they're shitty now. Not to say some actual shitty ones, like the Major ass, um, or like, uh, cutting Class or things like that, that are really like derivatives that said, um, so over the course of time, one of the things that happened was it's almost like when somebody I'm going to keep coming back to punk rock. When somebody picks up a guitar and they go, oh, I'm not going to be fucking Jimmy Hendrix. But then they hear the Ramones and they're like, oh fuck, I just need to know power chords and I can write songs. So there was a moment for me when I was devouring Fangoria magazine, or like, um, and I sort of found there this whole section back there called Notes from the Underground. And it was all, um, conversations with like, lowbudget microbiome makers. I was just doing shot on video stuff. And um, I finally started seeing some of these shot on video movies because I buy from, um, EI Cinema was one of the catalog at the time. And I started seeing these shot on video movies that were for all types of purposes, like garbage compared to like, anything with a budget, right? But then I was like, there's something really sexy about this. I mean, attractive, I shouldn't say sexy, like it was erotic. I guess it wasn't erotic. Whatever. I were yeah. Um, but I was going to say those movies for me had this sort of moment where I was like, I could do something like this. And it was really cool. Like, I remember the early Jr. Book, Walter movies like Dead Next Door, Polymorph. There was something about it to me that as a twelve year old or 13 year old kid, I was like, I want to do this shit. And I kept making these little movies early on. And they got a little bit more ambitious each time. When I was 14, I made a movie called Americil, which is a 55 minutes flasher movie. Three VCR, edits and the whole thing. All the rest of the camera editing. Um, and what ended up happening was, um, I did that in high school. I played in punk rock bands. I didn't make as much stuff, but I refined my craft. And then, um, when I was 18 or so, I still loved lobby of horror movies. And I still really wanted to kind of find a way to because America, I shopped around. But most of us who were like, this is a movie by 14 year olds. No one fucking wanted it, right? If you look at it now, you're like, okay, for 14 year olds, it's actually very entertaining. Um, and it did get rereleased a year or two ago by this label. Sov horror, which is pretty cool. Um, because now everything that's shot on video is like a big novelty. Um, but that being said, um, one of the things that was around 18, uh, I was like, I'd seen enough of these for low budget shot of the movies. Especially a lot of the, um, brain damaged films had a lot of films back then that were like, how the fuck did this get into a store? Like, they were so bad. And, um so what ended up happening was I was like, fuck it. I'm gonna take the time, figure out a way to make a feature and get it distributed essentially, right? Not just distributed myself, or not just play it for my friends. So I set out to make an Ethology movie extended. That'd be simple. And I made segments at each break, like winter, uh, break, spring break of my college experience in my first two years in film school. And that was dead teenagers. And when that got this is a long origin story, but I'll get some more interesting stuff. But, um, when we finished that movie and Brain Damage films actually ended up picking up putting it out, it was sort of this validation. Because I was like, oh, shit. A distributor actually thought my shot for $300 on consumer video camera gear, um, with literally me was the crew. One person with a fucking colored floodlight. And, um, like a little Sony handicam, no audio. It, uh, was just in camera audio. They thought it was worth putting out. And I remember selling we sold territory, uh, in Russia, which I got to see the scene where my godmother, Lulu, uh, gets attacked by a werewolf in Dublin. And Russian things like that were really cool. And that was this validation where I was like, holy shit, I made a movie. It got distributed. Now, what if I make a better movie? Or what if I make a good movie? And that was what sort of like, you know, obviously part of making art is like just making it because you want it to exist and you're excited. But also, like, without a little bit of validation occasionally, or people saying this is worth you pursuing further, it's harder to create. That's why I think so much of that stuff is like, you know, why you do need a little bit of like, um, there, uh, needs to be an audience reward of some sort for some people to keep going at times. And that's what that was like the early movies. Uh, people sort of said, hey, no, you're kind of good at this. And I said, okay, well, maybe I'll try harder. But also and then too, like, the first couple of months are essentially me figuring out, like, um, what could I even accomplish? And then later on, the movies are like, what do I want to say? Or what do I want to do? Um, that's just that I'm really more excited about now that I understand my craft a little bit better. Yeah.
Guido: So talking about that craft, and I have to say, I feel a little bit like I'm breaking some sort of sacred code by even talking about WNYF as a movie. It feels to me like I should as if I'm in 99 and the Blair Witch marketing is going to pretend it's real.
Chris LaMartina: Um, I feel like you want to pretend it's real. But part of why I want to.
Guido: Pretend it real, it's real is because it's crazy. I mean, it's perfection. Watching it this weekend, it felt like I was entering an art installation because it's a totally immersive experience of fragments. It actually had Rob. And I thinking a lot about the Mandela effect, like, where people have a false collective memory. And because everything you created could have existed, I guarantee you could show someone the work you've done and say, oh, remember this commercial? And people probably generally say yes, even though it's manufactured. So how do you approach building a world like that? I guess, first of all, why did you approach it like that?
Chris LaMartina: And how so? There's a couple of things there. So I will say one of the funniest experiences I had, I guess, about I'm pretty sure it was precovid. Yeah, it was precovid. I was like, tabling at some convention and somebody picked up a copy of the WF Holland special. And they were like, oh, yeah, I remember when this was on TV. And I was like, please tell me more. It was phenomenal. I really enjoyed that. But I was going to say, uh, the origin of the W. And I've talked about this a lot, so I don't regret the same story too much. Because I feel like if folks are listening to me talk about this story for the 20th time, they might be, like, different. I mean, we wanted to make a film footage movie. And I figured out a way to crack the code that would make a found footage movie exciting to me. But at the same time, it is the most complicated and sort of like a backwards way of making a found footage movie, um, from a standpoint of a business model, right? And luckily, I'm not a businessman. Um, or I guess, for better or for worse, I'm a businessman. But my cat's going insane right now. So if you hear that jingle jangling or that's my M baby Ghoul, madam.
Guido: There'S a parrot next to Rob that sometimes makes noise. I actually didn't know if it was.
Chris LaMartina: That I'm jingling my wedding ring, but I was going to say, um, most of the footage movies are supposed to be done really simply, really self contained. Like a couple of locations, a couple of actors. And this one I made really about world building. And all the movies I've made have really had that sort of layers in that world building. Um, because I enjoyed that stuff. And I think, um, I don't know, there was something about it that I'd also seen at the same time, too. A lot of folks were making these sort of, like and I don't think I like revolution. Like, there was a lot of 80s love and a lot of 80s satire spoofing at that time period, too. But a lot of people were sort of, like, laughing at the it just sort of felt like it sort of felt like not, um, from a place of love. And I was sort of like, I want to make this feel kitschy and weird and homegrown. But every time someone does a fucking local ad in a movie, they're like, hey, look how shitty this looks, right? I wanted to do it in earnest and be like, no, this could be fun. I was convinced it's not so much with the sequel, um, but also there's a certain sense of self awareness with the sequel. Um, with the original. It was like, I wanted to make something that like, even though it was not fucking there's plenty of funny moments, but there's certain ads in that show that are just they're just ads. There's no fucking joke in them. It literally is just like, okay, that's kind of like, you're just filling up time. And I was, um, for some of it, but it was because you need 20 some minutes of ads for that movie to function. Um, but it really was like, I want the aesthetic and just the look of the film to be so charming that you're not really concerned if it doesn't feel like, hey, we hit you with a joke every 10 seconds with a sequel. I think people, I realized, were into the stick more. And I was like, okay, I'm going to have more fun this time. I mean, the sequels, I think way funnier than the original.
Guido: Sillier in ways yeah.
Rob: And I didn't think the laughs would work well if every single commercial was funny. Like, you have to have some of those that are actually just we're going to talk about saving the environment. And there's really no joke in it. Because if every single one was more a little had a bit more of a wink in it, I don't think they would be as funny.
Chris LaMartina: I think you're true. I usually agree with that. I think the big thing with horror comedy especially, it's a pressure release, right? Like, everything can't be joke, a joke joke. Because you have joke and joke and joke. You had a fucking Naked Gun movie, right? And then but if you have Scare and Scare and Scare, it's sort of this weird thing where it's like, um, and some movies can function that way. I'm kind of weird with horror. I don't go to the movies, um, to really be like horror films rarely scare me. Occasionally I see one that's really scary, but I think about like, um, what did we watch last night? We watched, um, Dead Stream, which was a perfect example of really good scares and really good comedy. Like really pretty easily paced. I was really impressed with that movie. Uh, it is kind of similar. It's um, a live streamer in a haunted house. Uh, which is kind of like a WF type approach. Um, or Halloween part what is it? Part seven, if you will. Anyway, um, but that being said, I think, um, I always, uh, bring up.
Rob: This.
Chris LaMartina: Years, um, ago. There's this sort of interesting, uh, um, where you try to take something from a very specific, um, it's almost like, um, learning calligraphy might help you with your um, cooking somehow, right? And one of the things, like I'm getting to a metaphor, but basically I'm thinking about like, years ago, I was reading I was a kid, I, uh, was reading a magazine for people that designed, um, haunts haunted houses. And there was this whole thing in there. And I don't know why I was fucking reading this. I didn't design haunted houses, but I liked it. And I was like, it's interesting. Like, there's a whole magazine for this. And one of the guys was describing how, um, he was like, in the middle of your haunt, people are going to have their eyes adjust to the darkness, right? So they're going to see better in the darkness because their eyes adjust, right? Because that's sort of like that's just their surroundings. So he said in the middle of your haunt, do a big bright room so their eyes have to readjust to the darkness again. And I think with the horror comedy, that's essentially what you're doing. You're making us readjust the darkness. And I think that's something that's cool about horror comedy. Something like WFU in the ending is really dark compared to a lot of the rest of the movie. But it's kind of like that's like the one to punch of it, right? Mhm.
Guido: It'S unexpected. Which exactly jarring in and of itself, which adds to the feeling a lot of us who like our like is that feeling of being sort of disconcerted.
Chris LaMartina: Totally. Totally. Yeah.
Rob: And I think uh, connected to very connected to your world building, which is so cool and so impressive. We were thinking also how watching your movies, how does like a found foot or an anthology movie kind of be some form of alternate universe storytelling, which is what we talk a lot about here on the podcast. So I'm thinking especially your works like WNUF movies. But also what happens next will scare you as well. You're creating this world. It's very similar to our own, but it's just slightly removed. And then I think you go even further with like you had the Frank Stewart, the main character in the first WNUF movie. He had audiobooks that were also that you put out. And now there was a special release, uh, booklet that was also included as part of your new movie as well. So it all feels like it's building this kind of alternate reality, this kind of multiverse that's just slightly different from our own.
Chris LaMartina: Well, I think the thing that's really interesting for me is I'm really big on mythology and uh, what I call storyscaping. Right. So I guess the universe is probably a good way to describe that for broader sense of folks. Um, and I'll talk about the booklet in a second, but for me it's really interesting. I think the best way to cue this up is like what makes this exciting for me still. M, I could go direct a little shoot it in nine days with four actors in a cabin and make a little harm movie. And that doesn't necessarily excite me as a storyteller. And for me, what excites me as a storyteller are m little like connecting threads and sort of building that landscape. And um, I like doing that because it just feels like more of just a space and atmosphere and how all these things sort of line up. Um, and the other thing there too is how are you experiencing this film. Because a lot of times what you're doing and one of the reasons why I haven't put the movie on, um, a streaming platform is because I love the fucking idea of somebody ordering it from us or getting a copy and seeing the DVD. Because when you get the DVD so the sequel is called the Out There Halloween Mega Tape. Um, and for the folks who don't know, WF Halloween Special, um, uh, that one. I mean, when I first released it, for the first three months, it was only available in VHS. Which is like, oh my fucking god. Some people wouldn't even buy it until it was on TV. Which is fine, obviously. That's like, yeah, no shit. Don't do that then, if you don't want to do that. But the whole point is there's a reason why you're only getting on VHS. Because it looks like you taped it off TV. And that's the experience. Um, very early on, we had let me not forget about out there, but let me jump back. Very early on, there was a review of the original WDF that said, um, I got this on videotape. They bought when it first came out, it was on VHS, only they bought this. They said I had to pull my VCR out of the closet, dust it off, and put the tape in to watch it. And it felt like this really, really weird ritual. And as they were watching it, they were like, it wasn't just like a movie, it was like an experience. And at that point in my storytelling, when somebody told us, it hit me so fucking hard. Because I was like, well yeah, fuck movies. I want to make experiences. And that's like something that was really interesting to me because, you know, what happens next will scare you. There's obviously a narrative. It always makes a narrative structures. But I do kind of just like the idea of just those found footage vignettes in what happens next as standalone things. I mean, if I could find a way to let somebody stumble across all these things, almost like an art installation, that would be great. Um, but you're not going to serve the volume of people with an art installation than I would with a movie or a recorded thing. But that all said so the original movie, you're watching a tape, and I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but I have theories on whose tape it is. Um, but it's a fucking fact. Yeah, you have the answer on a small G guy. But, um, for the sequel, I was like, okay, like in the 90s, when I was a kid, how was I getting some of these weirdo tapes? And the idea was when I was a child, I mean, I guess when I say a child, I was probably like eleven and twelve. And, um, my mom was really cool and would let me get, um, tape training catalogs that I ordered from back in Vancouver. And these catalogs were like, um, some of the stuff I'm like, my mom shouldn't let me look at. But, um, uh, you could get all these crazy, like, okay, from Japanese laser disc. You could get like, oh, you could get the copy of army of darkness with the alternate ending that didn't play theaters, all these things. And, um, like, a lot of, like a lot of, like, um, the Italian Cannibal movies that you could not find anywhere. Blockbuster did not have those fucking things. And mom and pop video stores were just appearing like crazy at that time. Um, but they were like and the guy who wrote the Blurbs was always saying, like, funny things about them. And I was like, this sounds insane. So when we released out their Halloween mega tape, the WF Halloween sequel, the whole goal was to sort of make it feel like that sort of secret society, right? Where you're like, I got this tape when people get the DVD in the mail from us, the PO Boxes Trainer Tony's Tape dungeon, like, literally, where you're buying the tape from. So it's a very weird, immersed experience. Um um, one of the things there that was really interesting was, um, because, uh, it was going to be so basically, the whole shtick with the movie is you're getting a copy of this movie that Trader Tony has stitched together. So a 30 Minutes Halloween episode from 1994 and a 60 Minutes, um, special, uh, presentation from Halloween 1996. So, um, they're stitched together, like, a lot of those mega tapes or compilation tapes were sold in those catalogues. Um, and when I bought those catalogs, I bought them from a print catalog, literally a mailloader movie catalog. And at a certain level of the backers or on our big cartel site, WF Big Cartel.com, uh, you could get the VHS, the DVD, but then also a fake movie catalog of 350 fake movies you could order from Trader Tony. And that was my COVID project. Like, Melissa, my wife and I, um, when we were locked down for that first month, we're like, fuck, we can't shoot much of the movie right now. Or really any of it. Um, so as we figured out how Cove would work and how you could potentially work around that, um, we would crack open a bottle of wine, we'd come up with fake movie titles. We would just riff for nights. And then every day, I would write about, like, ten to 20 blurbs of fake movies until we had 350 of them. And that's the thing, too. It's one of those things where, like, okay, if I was making this as someone who was, uh, a filmmaker, that I make movies to pay my mortgage, and I don't like, I work for a corporation, I like my job. Movies don't pay my bills. And, um, that being said, and they probably never will, and that's fine with me because that's what keeps it special. But, like, if I had been doing this movie for someone else or done this for a four hire gig, I wouldn't have fucking written that catalog. And you got to find those things. And why I'm so excited when I see these movies where a filmmaker puts such extra care into it because they're passionate, not because of a paycheck. I think that's so special. Now, granted, that has a shelf life to it, and that's something I talk about a lot, um, where it's like, you kind of got to figure out, like, um, you can only do it because you love it, um, at a certain level for so long. Meaning at a certain point, you're going to be like, oh, my God, if my movies don't make money, I can't keep doing this because it's not justified. But you find that sweet spot where you're like, okay, maybe I can make this type of movie and keep doing this. And, um, that's what I've been ultimately doing. WF. Part two took, like, four or five years to make. Uh, and that was a long time, but the same time, too, it was worth it. I can't do that. Um, I'm probably not going to go make a new one tomorrow, but my brain has been formulating. Like, what is the next thing? That's funny, man. There's no time. Gosh. One, um, of the cool one of.
Guido: The amazing things about the experience of watching it, and I'm curious, rob was asking you about found footage in general. And so I'm sort of curious what your relationship to found footage is, I guess will end up being my question. But what I want to say before that is you created something that, to me, is really unique as someone who likes found footage. We just watched that sound footage documentary that was on Shutter earlier this year, and that does a great survey of the history of the medium. But in every example of found footage, you have to suspend disbelief because, uh, you have to do that in order to understand why you're watching it. Right? So, uh, even The Blair Witch Project, the fact that you're watching these people's unedited tapes, I have to suspend disbelief because there's no way I'm watching them. However, what you created, I don't have to suspend disbelief. I can actually be in the world where I have found this VHS tape and I'm watching it, and it never breaks to the point where you don't even have closing credits.
Chris LaMartina: That's really extraordinary. Yeah, I appreciate that. I mean, that's also the, uh, irony of why people get a lot of things wrong. People have like, oh, this is made. I mean, don't get me wrong. There were people that made guest commercials for the original. There was, like, four commercials were made by other people. But I read reviews. It was directed by a collective, and I'm like, oh, my fuck. I'll go down the list. I know my, um, buddy Andy Schwab made one of the Dangerous ads. Like, my buddy Matt mentor directed the Tampon ad, but I dpped and edited that. So there's, like, every part of the process that I touched. But it's, like, tricky for me because it makes me sad about the credits. That being said, not a big deal. But I think the whole point of not having credits is fucking bold, right? The whole thing about that was like, we actually got to be careful. I say this, an actor was very upset that, uh, there weren't credits. Um um, and I understood that at the same time, too. There's no fucking director credit. We're all on the same boat here. Um, it's funny even, um, the new one, I haven't had a chance to update all the IMDb stuff because I've been so busy and I need to get that moving. Um, but yeah, um, I think it was risky even making a movie that was 30 minutes of commercial. I mean, I remember telling one of my co producers on the film, um, uh, he was like, no one's going to like this movie, man, but we're going to make it anyway because I want to make this movie. M. I have this in my head. And at the very fucking least, and this is probably how I've approached most of the movies I made. It's like, this doesn't exist. I want it to exist. And don't get me wrong, you still have a level of expectation to like, make a movie the audience enjoys. Um, because I don't think people just should make movies or make art just because they like it. Right? I think there should be an audience component to that. Um, but I really thought no one was going to like it. And that's the fucking craziest thing to me. That like, you make something that's fueled by such pure passion that you have. I'm confident if you're passionate that hard about something, the audience that it's meant for will find it. Um, it might not be this fucking year, but I know they find movies being made today that 30 years from now will finally make their audience. And I think about that too, with stuff like this getting rereleased now. Like some labels, like Severn vinegar syndrome. They put us in these movies back in 1984. No one gave a shit about that. Now it's like selling out 5000 units. Now people are paying ours for a fucking slip cover.
Rob: Oh, yeah, okay.
Chris LaMartina: That's true.
Rob: There was a few years ago I had never seen Sledgehammer The. And then I bought it at some par convention. And, uh, you put it on and you're experiencing this is a movie from the. You're watching it, you're going like, does anyone else in the universe know that this movie exists? Like, suddenly you're in your own little galaxy of like, this movie is like, just for me. And it's like, oh, no, this movie has existed for 40 years. But suddenly you're discovering it. And all these other people are discovering it now because it's being rereleased.
Chris LaMartina: And all these things you think about Sledgehammer specifically. So my buddy Clint, um, who helped me shoot some of the stuff that's in WS Halloween special. Um, he subsequently lives in Florida now. But he was in Baltimore for a long time. And, um, he bought Sledgehammer from the director. He bought the rights for that film completely. Um, and he did it to Intervision. I think intervision.
Rob: Put that on intervision.
Chris LaMartina: But, uh, he bought it. And the guy was like, oh, I don't care. Whatever. I can't remember what they I'm not going to blab prices. But it was not a lot. And I remember being like, you sold the movie in perpetuity. The director didn't give a shit. And it was like he was like, oh, yeah, no one likes that piece of garbage because it had lost its luster. But Clint, I mean, that's the thing that's kind of funny. Like literally, that whole shot of video stuff being in vogue. I sincerely fucking loved them. And I still have a lot of these old tapes of things at my parents house. Um, and Clint loved them too. And that's what we connected over. Like these movies that no one else fucked. Like the Polonia brothers or like Todd cheap stuff no one seemed to give a shit about. Now it's sort of like it's this weird thing where, like, it's the deep cuts, right? Like people hardcore hard. I mean, you can only fucking talk about the Halloween movies for so fucking long. And you can only talk about stuff like, I don't know, even like Return of Living Dead gets cut old after a while, right? So there's certain things where it's like you look for the deeper and deeper cuts. And I think at a certain point, that takes you down the very, really weird, um, very interesting, um, road of cultural anthropology, um, especially. And with horror stuff. Oh my god. There's no shortage of deep cuts.
Rob: Yeah.
Chris LaMartina: You think you know.
Rob: Only now you think you know it all. Every time you look at something, you pick up a magazine, you go do an Internet deep dive. There's all this stuff, all this new stuff, especially from the 80s when there was such a boom coming out. And I think we're kind of seeing that similarly now with a lot of works like yourself and a lot of people, there's a great deluge of cool stuff that's kind of coming onto the market 100%.
Chris LaMartina: Yeah.
Guido: So what were your sources of inspiration for creating the experience you did with at least the WNYS?
Chris LaMartina: It's funny, right?
Guido: You recombic, like, um, what inspired your sense of world building? Like, why did you decide to do it?
Chris LaMartina: So what I'll say is a couple of things there. So there's a handful of things that are the main inspiration there. So I read comics, but I'm not like, um I don't like long series. I like anthology style comics. My favorite comics growing up were horror comics. Um, obviously. Tell us the trip. Like the old DC comics, but like Witching hour. That's why we wrote burial plots, right? Because I was like, oh fuck. I love horror anthologies. Um, and honestly, if there was an easy way to market them, I would might just make horror short films. But it's not easy. It's not easy to get people excited for that stuff, right? But, um, that being said and, um, I guess you can do themed anthologies one after the other. But that's like, whatever. But, um, my inspiration for WF was for a story standpoint. I talk about that at nausea. I'm m not going to talk about that. But like, I mean, I can if you want me to. But from a standpoint of what made me want to make the movie with commercials and things like that, well, one, it makes sense for the story, right, to actually break up a TV broadcast. And I didn't think anyone was fucking dumb enough to do it. So I said I'm absolutely dumb. Um, um, uh, but the big thing there was I sincerely, sincerely love watching old video tapes. And I love Halloween specials. Uh, meaning like, I'm the type of guy that if I go to your yard sale and in the batch of just like copies of Back to the Future and Diehard, you had your home movies that said, halloween 1992, I will buy that tape. Um, even if it's fucking weird photos.
Rob: Of your we started to do yes.
Chris LaMartina: And part of that is, and I've been doing this for I was probably doing it for five years before I made WF. But I don't do it as much now. Although it's sort of turned into my actually that's not true. I still do it now. Um, but in a different avenue. So there's this bad movie night in Baltimore called Mondo Baltimore. And they would do, um, every first Thursday of the month, they show a bad horror movie or bad action movie or whatever. And every October they're like, oh, Chris is the horror guy. Like, he'll do a preshow clip show. So I started making every October for their Halloween show. Halloween clip shows of like old commercials. Old, um, uh, Little Eclipse from really, really shitty Halloween themed movies. Like, um, Bill Heinzman's, um, Flesh Eater. Um, I love that lantern and things like that. So I put the clips of them all together, but cut together. I'm not talking like a fucking mixtape. Like most scenes, I didn't show more than a minute at a time. Or I would cut them off with the weirdest random moments. Like as if, like a channel was changing. Um, and I did that for about five years. Then we made WF. And WF was really influenced aesthetically by the idea of like, I just love watching old tapes. And that gives me a really warm feeling. It feels familiar in a really sort of like uncanny valley type of way. Um, um, uh, I stopped doing it from Baltimore. I ended I still do it now, though. It's funny. Um, my, uh, wife is a horror house. We were talking about this earlier, um, before we started recording. My wife is Aurora Gore Alice, and, um, she has a show called Shock Till Hour. So every October now, when I used to do a montre, baltimore is, um god, you hear my accent there? Didn't baltimore. Baltimore, come on. Come on. Get that Baltimore out here. Come on. But anyway, uh, I would start doing hour long clip shows for her. And I've been doing these Halloween clip shows for fucking it's probably 13 or 14 years now. Um, and I have like hours and hours, these things where it's like I didn't even use the internet until like three or four years ago when I was like, I can't keep finding these shit. I was like, I have to cheat a little bit. Although I don't think it's cheating. It's more like it's in the internet. Everyone needs it now. But I was literally going on Ebay and Amazon and trying to find the weirdest special interest Halloween tapes to make those things. Um, but part of that is what really started inspiring WF. It's like, could a movie that's really just, I guess, for lack of a better term, window dressing, create an atmosphere around a very simple story? Because the story in WS, not that they go to a haunted house, OK? And then there's some layers to it, but really it is about the experience. Um, and I like the idea that even though it follows a three act structure, it's like you're not there for the three act structure. You're there for something that's way more just about feeling an atmosphere. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah.
Rob: And I'm curious too, what are you hoping that people get out of your work? Because as Guido was saying, too, like.
Chris LaMartina: For us, what we got out of.
Rob: It is I think it changes your brain chemistry a bit. Like we were watching after we watched we watched WNUF. And then a little while later, we watched, uh, um, your new movie out there, Halloween Mega Tape. And then we were watching this horror anthology TV show and literally, Guito turned to me and said, is this TV show real?
Chris LaMartina: Because it was a TV show.
Guido: Um, is it Severin who just really put it out You Awake, which was the Spanish horror anthology show. And it is so modern in its sensibility and its humor that I was like, I think Severin is punking us. I think this is not a real show. I think this is like what Martinez did. I think it's a fake show. It's not. It turns out it's a real sixties Spanish show. But it really did. I had this experience where I was like, I can't believe that this is from The Think.
Chris LaMartina: This is the one big show.
Rob: It wasn't even that late.
Chris LaMartina: Our brains were functioning. Yeah, my favorite thing is obviously the WF movies are um, uh, certain to be people. They'll get really stoned and watch them. And I love recently people who are watching both of them and then talking to me about them and literally intermixing the movies together. And I'm like, how stoned were you? Um, I haven't seen that title that you mentioned. But, um, one of the other influences that I do forget about that I don't mention very much. Um, but I think you guys could see. Have you ever seen, um, garth Moringy's Dark Place?
Rob: Um, no, I haven't seen that yet.
Chris LaMartina: No. Yeah, it's like some of the guys who are in it crowd and things like that. Ah. Um, I mean, it's great. It's like a fake TV show from the 80s, but it's almost like, um, a haunted hospital and it looks like it shot on 60 millimeter. Like some of those old TV shows back then would have been. But it's really great. And that was definitely like a tone influence, um, for parts of WF. Yeah.
Rob: So would you do you want to change people's brain chemistry?
Chris LaMartina: Uh, take over the world? Exactly.
Rob: Because I think also for, uh, a younger viewers too, I'm thinking like, I grew up in late 80s, early into the 90s, kid M, this was so much of my experience of watching things on WPIX in New York and stuff like that. But for younger audiences, this is not even experience that they have. So are you hoping that that audience is kind of even being enlightened into the way that these kind of movies or these kind of TV shows were experienced at some point?
Chris LaMartina: That's a really good question. Um, well, I'll start the first part. I don't know if I want to change anybody's brain chemistry. I feel like social media is already doing a terrible job already. But I will say that that's an interesting thing about these two movies that I think people of our generation find really comforting is, um, look, now everyone has a different media diet, right? I'm going to assume you guys are all left wing. I might be wrong, but, um, I was going to say if you took your phones and traded them with some crazy right ring Republican and you looked at their social media feeds, our feeds were totally different once they marketed to us. Age, race, gender, all that stuff is going to change what's being marketed to us. Um, which is fucking kind of terrifying in a certain degree. I mean, part of it's like, okay, cool, I talked about that movie and it comes up in my feet again today. Great. Um, that was my reminder to rent that. But, uh, also it's really fucking terrifying because the internet knows a lot of things to, um, make, uh, us really responsive, uh, capitalists. Um, but that all said, when you think about something like 80s television and 90s television, like based off how ad buys were, based off how schedules were like, all of us may have watched Unsolved Mysteries at 07:00 on a Sunday because that was what was the cool thing to watch on our 30 channels we had or our 80 channels we had. Um, now that's never going to exist again because everyone has a different media diet that's catered to exactly what they react to. That's really scary. Um, but I was going to say, um, even in your other movie, um.
Rob: What happens next will scare you where your framing device is. YouTube. YouTube is actually people forcing someone else to watch those videos, right?
Chris LaMartina: Exactly.
Rob: It's not a collective experience. We're all watching TV. It's people literally sitting around the table going, I'm going to put this laptop in front of you and you're going to watch this video because otherwise you wouldn't see it.
Chris LaMartina: Totally. Totally. I wish I could.
Guido: The second part of Rob's question was about, like, exposing people who are younger who don't even know about that.
Chris LaMartina: Thank you so much, dude. So, um I don't know. Most of the people that see this movie are because they've probably reacted to it, um, either through, like, finding a meal on social media or seeing a visual on Shutter or something like that. Um, I've had some folks that I can assume might be younger people. Like, there are certain people that this hits like, oh, fuck. This is what I grew up with. Perfect. Um, and I think that the sequel if you're into that, I think the sequel hits harder for a lot of people in the standpoint of commercials in the era, because the 90s was more of their time. It just feels like, oh, that's more of what I remember. I've also had people that comments like, the story is interesting, but the commercials ruined it. There's too many commercials. And I'm like, first of all, literally, that's how TV work, dude. But also, for me, it's like, I can only assume that someone that doesn't get, like, commercials were very prominent. And I also think the commercials are what makes this movie fun for me. I can't imagine I don't know. I guess I can imagine I can't imagine watching either movie and being like, I'm just here for the main story. It really is like having that sort of like I guess I always maybe this is a bad way to market my own movie. But I don't know, dude. It's like the kind of movie you put on and you eat a pizza and you talk over it with your friends. I kind of like movies like that. I think that's really special and fun. Um, but yeah, I don't know.
Guido: What's interesting is I actually think and this is mainly because I work with adolescents. I am not one. But when I think about the effects that our attention spans and us ah. As adults, but definitely adolescents have in our current media diet of oversaturation and YouTube and TikTok and the quickness. What's interesting is your movie actually matches that attention span, right? It matches that even though it's being made as a piece of nostalgia or artifacts, more accurately, of 40, 30 to 40 years ago, it's being made it changes fast. The tone switches quickly. There are short segments that you can talk over for a few minutes. Like, it matches with people's today relationship to media. In a lot of cases, I think.
Chris LaMartina: I think you hit the nail on the head, which is what I was trying to do. And I'm glad that resonated with you that way. Because it's like you have a movie, one from a preacher standpoint, it's compartmentalized because there's a lot of things we want to do and touch on. It's kind of like the perfect avenue to tell a lot of these cultural. Um. Vignettes. Um. To talk about. Like. Gun violence really quickly. Or talk about really quickly. But literally. But through this parallel time. To be like. Hey. How fucking funny is it that in a climate change ad. Uh. In 90. 94. We're saying. If we act right now. We can stop this. And now it's 2022. Nothing has fucking changed. It's the same thing, the same kind of joke I was making in, ah, the WF, um, original WF, where it's like you have a fucking airline ad for, um, uh, and it's, uh, a Twin Towers. It says, we're not going anywhere. We've been around here for 50 years. We're not going anywhere. To Jesus Christ in an airplane. Yeah, but there are certain things like that where what I like about the idea of if I were to make a movie, um, about media diet and shit like that, about 2022, I think it would just be and if I made it as biting as I wanted to, it would just make me just be sad and depressing. There's this sort of weird luxury. And there is some comically depressing stuff to all these movies, too, but like, um, the WF movies. But I have a luxury of reflection in 2022, making a movie about 1990 419 96, because we know now what happened. And in a lot of ways, it's interesting. I think it's weird to think that abortion rights were in a better place in 1994, 90, 96 than they are now. It's like that's fucking terrifying. Like, truly fucking terrifying. But the same time, too. I mean, the 90s were more, quote unquote progressive than the dark years of Reagan Bush. Um, but at the same time, too, it's kind of like a phony progressive. It's era Bill Clinton. And I think that's what's an interesting thing to talk about through the politics of the 90s. Right. It's like the whole thing with Ivy Sparks. So I haven't seen the movie. Ivy Sparks is like a Ricky Lake jerry Springer type culture. Host and her cat Sally. Jessie nice. Yeah, sally just exactly. But her catchphrase is be nice. And that's kind of the undercurrent of the movie. It's like, well, okay, what does it mean to be nice? That's a very shallow attitude. She's not being fucking kind. There's a big difference being being kind to being nice. Nice and surface level. And I feel like the 90s, if we're really going to talk about it from a media standpoint, is really surface level. So all fucking style. I mean, the style is the substance in a lot of 90s stuff. Uh.
Rob: In your catalog, there are some lost episodes of her show that are also and one of the things that made me laugh out loud was where she has some clan, um, members on. And she also tells them to be nice as well.
Chris LaMartina: Yeah, exactly. Oh my gosh. Yeah, man. And that's the whole thing. You talk about world building. I love to imagine like, I'm not going to make the fucking episode of The Ivy Sparks Show where she tells a Clam member to be nice, but it's a funny throwaway line. Or like, I'm never going to make the fucking episode of The Ivy Sparks Show with, uh, a conjoined twins paternity test. But that's a funny fucking throw in line.
Guido: Or the morbidly obese and you have an older partner.
Chris LaMartina: Well, some of those shows it's like, um, are you pregnant with the child of a relative? We want to host your baby shower. Jesus Christ. By the way, the guy who's the announcer. I don't, um, know if you guys watch Dragula, but, um, Mike Barratt, um.
Rob: Midnight, uh, um, podcasts with PG and E. They're awesome.
Chris LaMartina: I love Michael so much. It's, um, actually funny. We've been talking about writing something together. Hopefully it'll happen. Yeah. Uh, I love Death, but, uh, yeah, actually it's funny. His, um, uh, partner, Brandon, um, he does a podcast called it Listens from the Radio. And my wife and I actually just wrote an episode for that. So that'll be coming out a couple of months. Cool. Oh, wow. Yeah. Um I don't know. I just feel like that idea of I always think about the stamp of looking back in an era like that. I thought it was cool that George Armyro did like, night living dead in the 60s, daughter Dead in the they're very like contests of that era. But his very, very more metaphorical subtext about what zombies are for those eras and those fears we have, or those cultural milestones. But I feel like to really understand a decade, I think you need to have the gift of time passed, if that makes sense. Because we're just too close to it. We're too close to what's happening right now to really understand what's happening. I mean, I think right now it's fucking terrifying. I think, um, I don't know how society can't, um, get better. M. I don't know how society could get worse. But I'm like, oh no, it's probably going to get worse. Although it's ironic. I guess we are probably more we're not more progressive, though. That's the thing. I think more people who are progressive are like, um, I guess there's more progressive people, but there's like less like people are insane now. And I really do think it has a lot of there's this hyperpartisanship that I think, like, if I were to make a third WF movie and I've been talking about this, um, I'd really want to make it in 2004 era. And look at that sort of election between Bush and Kerry where it's like that's, um, the start of the Trump stuff that happened later, where it's like people the sides hate each other so much. There's this demonization of each other. And that's why the joking about it. Like, I'll just make the movie about an exorcism. So I was going to call it, um, celebrity Exorcism. And it's going to be like a fucking reality TV show. Exactly. And Ivy would be back, like her fall from grace. She's on some shitty reality TV show. But I don't know. I don't even exist political. Because even though I think ours is insanely political, a lot of people watch it to escape. And well, you gotta be careful.
Guido: Well, I can't wait for that eventual installment.
Chris LaMartina: Eventually, eight years from now.
Guido: Well, as we wrap up, we always ask, uh, our guests to ponder the possibilities with us. And there's two sort of tropes in comics. One is a what if in which you can just pose any question that you would want to see played out in a story. Or there's the Amalgam universe where you just take two things and smash them together to see what that universe would create. So I want to ask you to do that.
Chris LaMartina: All right, well, I have a question for both of those. And I know this is my homework that you sent me. And I totally fucking study for it.
Guido: Um, okay.
Chris LaMartina: Do they need to be comic characters?
Guido: No. This can be hard. I want to imagine any world that whatever, uh, question you have, or some amalgamation, some mashup you'd want to see play out.
Chris LaMartina: All right. Well, I do love the idea of Amalgam because I remember you both are comic folks, right? Yes. Okay. One of my favorite things that, uh, they ever did was the Amalgam comics.
Guido: Back in, uh, often are featuring on our shelf those issues.
Chris LaMartina: My favorite one was it Lobo the Duck, where they mashed up Lobo and how the Duck. I was like, this is fucking brilliant. All right, let me think about that. Okay. All right. I should have fucking come up with something because now I'm going to come up with something really stupid. I usually go for, um, an irony of something. But I was going to say, um, oh, man. Um, I'm like looking around my room. I was like something with mummies. I have a whole shrine of mummy toys that I'm looking at right now. Um, I was going to say, um, uh oh, man. Hold on. Okay, I need somebody to give me like one character. And I'll build from that because I'm like or I'm thinking at the same time, give me like a horror character you want me to run with. And, um, uh, uh, I'll do the what if you give me a character? Or I'll do an amalgam if you give me the character.
Guido: Is that Eraser head over there?
Chris LaMartina: Uh, it is. I was going to say, you know what? Okay. What if a razor head was a family movie? Like, what if you changed that whole story? So it was like something whimsical, like shitty Bang Bang or something. I was going to go for like something like, um, uh, oh man, I should have fucking studied for this. I don't know. I honestly like the idea of, um, uh, almost like an amalgam of like, what if the mummy was bitten by a werewolf or something?
Rob: I don't think I've ever had a mummy werewolf in all movies.
Guido: Yeah, I think that's a great one.
Chris LaMartina: Yeah, I'm like now I'm like literally 20 minutes later, I'm going to message you on Twitter and be like, I know what it was. Well, exactly.
Guido: When this episode is releasing, you can share publicly your new joy.
Chris LaMartina: Yeah, but it's like so funny because I'm literally okay. I'm looking at all my toys, like Puppet Master, can I do something? Freddy Kruger. There's so many Freddy Krugers that's like my mind immediately goes to that. Um, well, it is horror as a genre.
Guido: I think almost does this a lot. Like, we just watched a movie last night for a podcast we're going to be guests on. And the movie was Death Ranch, where it was the Ku Klux Klan. But they were cannibals.
Chris LaMartina: Um, you know, that my buddy Jed Sheppard. Um, he wrote ah and produced host. Um, he pitched me a movie called Kluclugs Cannibals. That's what I said.
Guido: I was like, it should have been Cannibals.
Chris LaMartina: Yeah. And like he was telling, um, me, uh, and, um, our friend Blair. And we were like, you're a British guy. First of all, I don't think anybody should make that movie. I mean, I guess they're the villains. So it's whatever, um.
Rob: Made by a British person, perhaps.
Chris LaMartina: Interestingly. It might have been it was Jet under a pseudonym.
Guido: It feels like hard because then there's the Nazi werewolf movies. So it feels like mashups in horror.
Chris LaMartina: Yeah.
Guido: Actually are pretty commonplace.
Chris LaMartina: Totally.
Rob: I know you've been kind of doing a grand tour of, um, out there, halloween Mega Tape. So where can people find you if they want to watch your new movie or any of your other works? Where should they go?
Chris LaMartina: Okay. So you can buy, uh, the sequel, um, and a bunch of the other titles at WF BigCartel.com. And then I'll run the real quick list of cities. So, um, this comes out Monday. You said. So I might not mention this weekend. Okay, so this weekend we're going in Pittsburgh, uh, on Thursday. And then, um, at Nightmare Film Festival, we're actually screening an alternate cut of the movie. Actually, it's the world premiere alternate cut with five minutes of different commercials that aren't even on the DVD. Um, but that being said, you all missed that. Sorry. I was going to say, um, uh, the next thing we're doing is we'll be down in Savannah, Georgia, at the Television Fright Fest on, um, the following weekend. Um, so was that October 27, 28th, or maybe 29th? Um, so Aurora Gorillas, uh, my wife is hosting that. So we're screening the other Hollywood Mega tape alongside, um, shopping mall and Waxwork in May. So, um, really fun. Like Hollywood festival. Harmony. Ah, festival. And then the following weekend after that, I think November, uh, fifth will be in Chicago, Illinois, to screen the out there Hollywood Mega tape. So those are the rest of our screens. We also have a screening in oh, no, that'll be passed. Never mind. I was going to say we're playing San Francisco Thursday night, but that'll already.
Guido: Well, now I smell a limited rerelease down the road. There's this alternate cut.
Chris LaMartina: It's like what I've been debating about. It's five minutes of different commercials and it structures the movie slightly different. None of the stories different. But, um, as per usual, I always make more commercials than I have space for. And then I was kind of debating if I was as extra features. I was like, I kind of like the idea of seeing something in a theater that can only be seen in theaters for a while. It's, um, fun. There's some commercials that are actually some of my favorite commercials or not. Some of my favorite ones I really love a lot, um, uh, that are in this alternate cut. Like a really great ice cream jingle ad that's not in the other one.
Rob: But when you do the kickstarter for part three, that's where people you gotta.
Chris LaMartina: Give money to do the first. I tell you what, I feel like I've exhausted the goodwill of you doing other crowdsource campaigns. I'll just do it for peanuts. I'll make another one for well, we.
Guido: Will include links to, uh, where you can purchase the movie that you mentioned in the show notes. And you can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at dear watchers.
Rob: Yes. And, uh, you can find us. And Chris, what are your Instagram or Twitter handles?
Chris LaMartina: Yeah, um, I think oh my god, I'm so bad at this. I think Twitter is, uh, it's Chris Lampartinez. So Twitter.com crystalmartina. I think instagram is Chris La Martine. I mean, honestly, if you just search my name, you'll find it. L-A-N-R-T-I-N-A.
Rob: Awesome. Thank you so much.
Guido: Thank you so much for being with us.
Chris LaMartina: Oh, um, my god. So good talking to you guys. Awesome.
Rob: Thank you. And yeah. Thank you, everyone, for listening. And please leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll be back soon with another trip through the multiverse.
Chris LaMartina: You.