Ep. 30: Halloween Horror With Aaron Sauerland And Dustin Little

Alex and Lee welcome filmmakers , Aaron Sauerland and Dustin Little, to the show to discuss their upcoming short film “In Case Of Fear”. We also recap our favorite horror films of 2024 so far. 

If you would like to partner with Aaron and Dustin on “In Case Of Fear” which will have audio description, you can contribute to their campaign here:

http://www.seedandspark.com/fund/InCaseOfFear#story

Also, be sure to follow them on Instagram here:

In Case Of Fear: @InCaseOfFear 

Aaron Sauerland: @AaronSauerland 

Dustin Little: @IntBrainNight 

And be sure to follow us on Instagram and YouTube at @darkroomfilmcast and e-mail us to be in the running for the “Rosemary’s Baby” digital copy giveaway at darkroomfilmcast@gmail.com.

Transcript

Lee Pugsley
What's up, film fans, and welcome back to another episode of The Dark Room, where two blind cinephiles illuminate the sighted. I'm Lee Pugsley.

Alex Howard
I'm Alex Howard.

Lee Pugsley
And this is a podcast hosted by two legally blind guys, for film lovers of all abilities. And as we begin, Alex and I just want to wish you guys a very happy spooky season. And stay tuned at the end of this episode because we have something very cool. It is a giveaway, our first one on this podcast. So we are super stoked about that. And we are also super stoked to have some very special guests on our episode today. First, we have script supervisor, Aaron Sauerland, who you might remember from an episode quite a while ago where he was talking about his work on the movie Marcel The Shell With Shoes On. Aaron, welcome back to the podcast. Good to have you.

Aaron Sauerland
Hey, Lee. Hey, Alex. Thanks for having me. Appreciate It.

Lee Pugsley
And we also have Dustin Little, who is a screenwriter, here for the first time on The Dark Room. Dustin, welcome.

Dustin Little
Hey, guys. Happy to be here. Thank you.

Lee Pugsley
And you guys are here today because you guys are doing something really cool. You guys are currently doing a campaign for a film that you guys will be shooting in October. Is that right?

Aaron Sauerland
It'll be mid-November, actually.

Lee Pugsley
That is awesome. And I know as we are in spooky season, your film is in the horror genre. So it's a pleasure to have you guys on here. And we'd love to hear more about what this project is.

Dustin Little
Yeah. Thanks, guys. Definitely. This is an homage to two genres of cinema that Aaron and I really like. The first being the campy William Castle-esque creature features of the 1950s. And the second being '80s, I guess also campy, but in a different way, just zany, wild, colorful movies like Creepshow or Evil Dead 2.

Alex Howard
Re-Animator's in that realm, too, right?

Dustin Little
Yeah, definitely.

Alex Howard
What is the premise of your guys' film?

Aaron Sauerland
So our film follows this new resident at this mysterious lab. And when he gets inside, he starts getting the lay of the land, and he ends up snooping around, and he finds out about this creature that this doctor has been studying, and then chaos ensues. Hahahaha!

Dustin Little
We're basing our creature off of the Vincent Price movie, The Tingler, which is a creature that lives inside of you and feeds on your fear. If you scream, it'll sedate it, and you'll be safe, and it won't kill you. But if you can't scream or you don't scream, you're donezo. We're taking a creature like that, and doing it in, like we said, a Re-Animator or a Creepshow, zany horror fund vibe.

Alex Howard
That sounds awesome. You know me, Aaron. I'm a sucker for Re-Animator or Poor Things or any of those, like, Death Becomes Her, we watched together also.

Dustin Little
I love Death Becomes Her.

Alex Howard
That sounds great.

Lee Pugsley
You guys had mentioned before we started this episode that you guys are planning on doing practical effects. Now, is that for everything, or are you going to be mixing a little bit of CGI in with that as well?

Aaron Sauerland
Yeah, the idea is that our creature is going to be practical effects. Right now, we're in talks with Russell-FX, and they did the amazing effects that was on the Hellraiser remake, and they also did work on The Ritual. We're in talks with them right now to do practical effects for us for the monster once it escapes from inside of the cast. And then we will be using a little CG just for doing the effects for when the creature is underneath the skin, because in our version of it, the more afraid you are, the larger the creature grows beneath your skin, and it runs along your spine. And so to save us time on set and also budget-wise, while it's under the skin, it will be CG. And then as soon as it bursts free and it's loose in the lab, that'll all be a physical puppet.

Alex Howard
Yeah, that'd be really hard to do practical.

Dustin Little
But yeah, the more practical we can do, the better. I mean, if we raise what we want, there's something we can do called stretch goals, which is just a little bit extra. We can push ourselves to do even more practical effects. A good example of that is the creature is kind of centipede-ish or caterpillar-ish in a way, in that it has a lot of wiggling legs. We'd love to do that with the puppet, but it's a lot of moving parts, and more moving parts makes it more expensive. So the plan right now is to CGI the legs. But if we can do one of these stretch goals, then maybe we can throw some practical legs on there.

Alex Howard
Awesome. And you guys are putting audio description on your short, too, which is-- We don't really get to see that with older style movies like that.

Aaron Sauerland
I think being on the podcast with you guys and just being a listener and so on, it just opened my eyes to the reality that short films, specifically, don't often have audio description as an option. And I think that's crazy because it's just completely alienating audiences in the same way that it does in feature films. But there are a lot of great shorts out there, specifically horror shorts, that I think people would love to be able to experience. And so that's why I think we want to-- You know, we want to do that with our film as well to try and just open it up and allow everyone else to be a part of this insane, wacky experience that we're creating.

Alex Howard
No, that's awesome. I think as a blind horror fan, it's a little bit hard to be a hardcore horror fan because-- I mean, I had better eyesight before, so I was able to experience things like Halloween and some of the classics when I did have better eyesight. But now that my eyesight has gotten worse, I'm kind of limited to what has audio description, which is pretty much horror movies that came out post 2010, 2015, and then sprinkled in between some random Prime movies like Death Becomes Her, Paramount movies like Rosemary's Baby. But a lot of the ones that you mentioned, like the Blob and Re-Animator and Evil Dead 2, they don't have it at all.

Dustin Little
Wow.

Alex Howard
So it's great to have things in this genre be described.

Aaron Sauerland
Yeah. Yeah. And we're excited to have you, Alex, be a part of it and help us basically ensure that what we create is effective and accurate to what we have on screen.

Alex Howard
Yeah, I know. That's exciting. And I know, Aaron, you and I have watched a bunch of not just horror movies, but movies with AD. I think you were there when I watched Rosemary's Baby for the first time with audio description. What did you think about as a sighted person?

Aaron Sauerland
It was amazing. I think we talked about it a little bit that night, but it's amazing to see how descriptive and accurate it can be while also not getting in the way of dialog or like, ruining any twists or reveals. It's like a delicate dance that AD writers do. And Rosemary, I thought was amazing. I think there was also stuff that the AD writer pointed out in the beginning that's just in the set design in the apartment, that it's like, if you don't know what it is, it's not a big deal. It's not going to affect you. Even as a sighted person, I mean, not knowing specifically what this letter is. But when the AD drops it and tells you, "Oh, it's a letter from the residents" or whatever, or the neighbors. Oh, it adds a whole new layer of understanding. I don't know, in a way, it's almost a better experience than watching it without the AD.

Lee Pugsley
I think that while audio description is is important for any TV show or film, it's even more essential for horror movies. I mean, first of all, a lot of times, horror movies are really dark. So people that are low vision, it's really hard to make out some of those little details. But also those little details like you were talking about, the set design or the objects in the room, all of those things oftentimes play a part in bringing the story around. And they play a significant role in the end product and really add to the environment and the ambiance of creating that tension and that intensity and that suspense.

Aaron Sauerland
Yeah, 100 % agree.

Dustin Little
Definitely. For horror, especially, it's such a visual genre.

Aaron Sauerland
Have you guys ever had an experience watching a film without AD where you had to tap out because it was just like impossible to get through?

Alex Howard
Well, I know with The Thing, John Carpenter's The Thing. I know it has audio description on Prime. I haven't been able to check it out with AD yet, but the few times I have watched it, I don't think I fully appreciated the everything about it. I know everyone loves that movie, and I can get hints as to why. You don't know who's the alien, all these other things. But I don't think I've gotten the full effect of the movie since I haven't watched it with AD. So it didn't necessarily tap out, but I was just like, I feel like I'm missing an element.

Aaron Sauerland
Yeah.

Alex Howard
Especially with the practical effects of that movie. Practical effects, I think when you have AD and practical effects, it goes a long way.

Dustin Little
Awesome.

Lee Pugsley
And to answer that question as well for myself, there have been a handful of movies, I can't think of them off the top of my head, but they have fallen in the horror genre. And because they were too dark and they were mostly silent with very little dialog to follow what was going on, I did tap out. I would try to follow the story for maybe the first half hour. And then I was just like, "I'm not getting anything out of this, so let me plan my week while I'm sitting here in the theater and be productive in some way."

Dustin Little
Yeah.

Aaron Sauerland
Man. And I hate to hear that. And I think that ties back into also, like, earlier what Alex said of older classics, like movies from the Silver Age of horror films. I know Alex brought up, before the call, we had talked about the Universal monster films. Those don't have AD. I think that that's an insane thing to say. I'm glad that classic movies like Rosemary's Baby now are having them, but it's pretty insane that the pillars and foundation of horror is not accessible to anyone that's visually impaired.

Alex Howard
I think that's why I get excited for remakes because I'm like, "Oh, I can finally watch this. I know it's not the original movie, but I can finally watch a version of this story." I think Leigh Whannell's Invisible Man on its own is a good movie, even if it wasn't called Invisible Man. But I've never been able to watch the original Invisible Man. But it's also ironic because if you think about it, as you get older, you lose sight, you lose hearing naturally. So a lot of legally blind people are older, and maybe they grew up with these movies that they can't watch anymore. And so not only are you alienating an audience that can experience it for the first time, but you're alienating an older audience that wants to re-experience it, and they can't.

Dustin Little
Yeah. Wow.

Aaron Sauerland
Yeah. I think you're hitting the nail on the head. That's so insane.

Alex Howard
Yeah. And so we wanted to go the best of horror so far in 2024. I think the first one I want to start off with is The Substance because this was... Okay, so I'm a big sucker for body horror. I didn't used to like it, which is weird. When I had better eyesight in college, I took a Film Violence class, and we watched some weird stuff in that class. I was like, :This is so strange." Then I remember sitting in The Substance, and I was like, "This seems like a movie he would show, and I love this right now." Basically, if you don't know, The Substance is about Demi Moore's character, she wants to look younger, so she takes this experimental drug. I wouldn't say it's scary, but it's grotesque, and the audio description does not hold back. I would not recommend this movie if you don't like gross imagery, but if you do, I very highly recommend it. It is so good.

Dustin Little
What flavor of gross are we talking about? Is it like blood and guts? It's weird. I can do blood and guts, but certain things like needles, it makes me cringe and I have to look away.

Alex Howard
I'm the same way. There's a good amount of needles, but I just looked away at those parts. But it's more like weird bodies splitting together or merging together. Just weird stuff that you don't see in regular life. And the description is so good. And I've never seen... Yes, we had Men. Yes, we had Infinity Pool. There was another one, Crimes of the Future.

Aaron Sauerland
Yeah, Cronenberg.

Alex Howard
Technically, those are body horror. Yeah. But this is more like Society or Slither or The Fly.

Dustin Little
Oh, gotcha.

Alex Howard
It's definitely harkening back to older extreme body horror, and it has AD, and it's awesome. I will leave this at... There's a line in the AD that without any context, it won't spoil anything. But the line says, "Where her ear should be." And I was like, "Oh, shoot." That was such a great description of what's going on. So you have--

Dustin Little
The implication there.

Alex Howard
Exactly.

Dustin Little
There's no ear.

Aaron Sauerland
That's amazing. You should get the AD writer for The Substance on because that's amazing.

Alex Howard
Yeah. So we had... Stoney was on our Oscars Roundtable, but there was another person who worked with him who has never been on the show. But yeah, that was one of my favorite AD tracks of the year for sure.

Dustin Little
Wow. Very cool.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, I'm really excited to see that film based on your review of it and just how good you said the AD track was. Always am down for a really good AD track. And it's been nice because they've been shifting more of being more descriptive about those grotesque images and things that before they were a little more timid on. So it's nice to see the progress that's being made in the AD world with description, too.

Alex Howard
Yeah, for sure. And I think we're in a great place now because, like I said, most movies now are getting I think The Bagman comes out this weekend. That doesn't have description. There's some here and there. But for the most part, we're pretty safe. But Lee, do you have a horror movie that you've enjoyed so far this year?

Lee Pugsley
There's been quite a few that I've enjoyed, and I haven't seen as many as you. But let's just, first of all, acknowledge what a great year for horror this has been. It seems like there's a new horror movie that's coming out every week or every other week, and the train just keeps going. And I think that's really awesome for horror fans.

Alex Howard
And most of them are original, with the exception of A Quiet Place Day 1. Most of them are original ideas.

Aaron Sauerland
It's almost like a horror renaissance that's been, I feel like we've been experiencing.

Dustin Little
Yeah. I feel like it even started last year. There were a lot of good horror movies last year, too.

Aaron Sauerland
Yeah. I would say, yeah, rolling into to this year, there's just been strong voices, which I think is exemplified in horror films.

Dustin Little
And a lot of voices that have been around in other capacities but are making their first foray into horror.

Alex Howard
Like Zoe Kravitz?

Dustin Little
Yeah, Zoe Kravitz is one. I was thinking, I can't remember the guy's name, but the Whitest Kids U'Know guy doing Barbarian.

Aaron Sauerland
Oh, yeah.

Dustin Little
He's crazy. Like a sketch comedy guy going to horror. Giovana Ribisi being a cinematographer on Strange Darling. Everybody's gone to horror.

Alex Howard
Was Oz Perkins? Did he do horror before?

Dustin Little
Yeah, I think he did, right?

Aaron Sauerland
I think he did. Yeah, I think he had a film before this that supposedly is very scary. I think The Blackcoat's Daughter or something like that, I think. That's what it's called. But yeah, completely. And new voices again with Late Night with the Devil, I think that director is fairly new.

Dustin Little
I think so.

Alex Howard
The two of them are new on the scene, which, yeah, Late Night with the Devil was one of my favorites of the year, too. I went to actually... The second time I saw it was a Q&A with the directors, and they were so nice, and they stuck around and everyone talked to them, wanted to talk to them. I told them for movies that are original to Shudder, I think we touched on this in our last horror episode from last year, but the only way you can watch them with AD is in theaters because they make the AD and then they don't put them on the streaming service with AD. So I had to watch that in theaters twice, and then I bought the physical media because it had it on there. But I won't subscribe to Shudder until they make it accessible.

Dustin Little
Wow. It seems like it should be just this very simple offering.

Alex Howard
Yeah, all the AMC Plus stuff doesn't have it. Sundance TV, all of that doesn't have it. Yeah.

Dustin Little
Huh.

Aaron Sauerland
Wow.

Lee Pugsley
I actually got a free Shudder trial for the seven-day free trials to watch Late Night with the Devil, and I was disappointed that it didn't have AD, so then I had to rent it on iTunes for $6.99. I mean, that was a great movie, and the movie itself is definitely a standout. And one of my favorites of the year for the horror genre, but it was still frustrating that I had to pay to rent it when it is somewhere free. They just didn't have a track that actually exists, too.

Dustin Little
Right.

Alex Howard
Aaron and Dustin, what are some of your favorites of the year so far? I know you mentioned Strange Darling and stuff like that.

Dustin Little
Strange Darling is definitely one of my faves from the year. It's one of those movies that's hard to talk about without giving too much away. But I just really think that the tension was perfectly played out. I really love the chapter markers, and I just always knew where I was and I could keep track, and it was succinct and tense. Yeah, I just really loved it.

Alex Howard
It was very like, Tarantino, but it was also something... The idea is something that you've never really seen before. It defied your expectations, which I really, really like that.

Aaron Sauerland
Yeah, that's what I was going to say is I think that the turning points in the movie are so strong. Every time that there's this big shift, it propels you into the next chapter, the next segment. I think that is integral to why that movie is so successful.

Alex Howard
Yeah. It's like Pulp Fiction. If Pulp Fiction were about a serial killer. You know, with the out-of-order.

Aaron Sauerland
Yeah, the nonlinear storytelling. Absolutely.

Alex Howard
Yeah.

Aaron Sauerland
I also really loved Longlegs, and I know that there's-- I feel like there's become a counter wave that has come out since the movie's had so much success. A lot of people pushing back on it, but I absolutely loved it. I think that it executes the tone that it's going for and the style, like perfectly. And yeah, I really enjoy that. Strong performances. Oh, my God. Nick Cage in it is crazy good.

Alex Howard
Yeah. Maika Monroe is always really good.

Aaron Sauerland
She's fantastic in it. She's awesome. Yeah. I hadn't seen her in anything since It Follows.

Dustin Little
Yeah, I haven't either, actually.

Aaron Sauerland
Yeah. So for me, it was great to see her do another horror movie and do something so drastically different than her character in It Follows.

Dustin Little
What are people pushing back about? It's just the, "Oh, it's pop-- People like it, so I want to be an individual and not like it?" Or is there saying something specific about what they didn't like?

Aaron Sauerland
A lot of people are just... They take the extremeness of it and they're like, "Oh, it's silly. It's laughable." It's one of those things where I think every horror movie is faced with this challenge, which is the audience either buys into it or they don't. If you buy into it, then the movie is effective and it's fun and it's scary. But if you just don't subscribe to it, then it's just a laughable, miserable experience.

Dustin Little
I mean, it's a Nicolas Cage movie. You should know going in that it's going to be a little batty, and you can't hold that against it. It's not going to try and pretend to be something that it's not.

Lee Pugsley
Exactly. I really enjoyed Longlegs as well. I'm definitely a fan of that movie for all the reasons that you mentioned there.

Aaron Sauerland
I don't know how the AD track was, but cinematography as well in that is so specific. It's got such a grainy and physical feel to it. I think that that lends a hand to why that movie is so memorable and why it works so well.

Dustin Little
How do AD tracks handle things like jump scares? Because that's an audio cue, but you also have to know what's popping out at you. Does it, over the audio cue, tell you what you're seeing, or does it separate it out, like just before or just after?

Alex Howard
It usually depends if there's a scream with it. They'll do it just before or sometimes just after. It depends on where you have room to do it. But my favorite is when it's right on. I was watching Never Let Go yesterday, and there's this tense scene of, "Is he going to do it? Is he not going to do it?" They described right before, which I was like, "That's fine. That's where they had room." But yeah, I much prefer if you can get it as close to the actual thing as you can.

Dustin Little
Yeah, I think those are timed out specifically to the frame, like how long we want to dry out this tension before we get them. Before would spoil it for me.

Lee Pugsley
If I had to choose between before or after, I think generally I would take after the jump scare or after any really intense moment that the description will come after, because then at least I can still be in the same level of suspense as the sighted viewer. But it's also one of those things that I know it's not a perfect science, and it is such a tricky balance, because sometimes there just is no room right after because something will happen, and then they'll just go right into dialog, and there's really no room to insert anything until a minute later. As an AD writer, I think it's really interesting, or I think it would be really interesting and a bit challenging to know where exactly to describe something in those moments.

Dustin Little
I was going to say, you're almost taking part in the editing process in a way. You're adding a new audio track, and you're working with the room that you have.

Aaron Sauerland
The first time I ever watched an AD movie was with Alex, and we watched either the first Scream or it was one of the other ones.

Alex Howard
It was Scream 6, the requel.

Aaron Sauerland
It was the requel. That was something I noticed, was just like, especially in a Scream movie, where it's like, the killer is sloppy, he's being kicked or pushed around or whatever. I was shocked at how well they were able to insert in between a jump scare and an attack. They could get in a quick sentence of like, "Ghostface runs down the stairs" or whatever. They find great moments to sneak it in that keeps you on track with what's happening instead of playing a catch up after the fact. And I don't know how common that is, but at least in that experience, I was pretty blown away.

Alex Howard
I completely agree with all of that. And yeah, it really depends on how much room do you really have with the dialog. And like I mentioned, the screams going on. I think there's a horror movie coming out this coming weekend, which I've hardly seen any marketing for called Azrael. And I know that has no dialog.

Lee Pugsley
Oh, wow.

Alex Howard
And it has AD. I'm a little curious. We'll see. But I know I mentioned not many sequels, but my favorite sequel, I guess I can say of the year so far was Alien Romulus. That was a big horror sequel that came out. It was like the franchise's return to horror. So that was really refreshing to see. I don't think-- This was my first Alien movie with audio description because when the last one came out, I wasn't using it. And that's another one that I didn't really get to fully appreciate before this year. I just watched the first Alien with audio description. It got rereleased earlier in the year, and that was like a switch flip. Like, I could appreciate the first Alien, but that movie's so dark.

Dustin Little
Yeah.

Aaron Sauerland
Yes.

Alex Howard
Having the AD on that was so cool. And so they had the same, I think it was Deluxe did both the AD for the old one and then Alien Romulus also. And that script was also really cool with describing all of the... I mean, that one was a little bit body horror, too, honestly.

Aaron Sauerland
100 %.

Dustin Little
Absolutely. With the -- I, do you do spoilers on your podcast? I don't know.

Alex Howard
Well, Lee actually hasn't seen it yet, so I don't know if we should.

Dustin Little
Okay.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, I want to say.

Aaron Sauerland
We'll just say that, the third act. That movie rips, though. It's so good. And you mentioned practical effects earlier, and that's a prime example where they did so much stuff practical. The cast and Fede, the director, they've both done interviews where they talked about how much of a difference it made to have physical xenomorphs and creatures to interact with. I've seen the behind the scenes, and they have entire motorized seven-foot-tall puppets that they're using alongside people in makeup.

Dustin Little
Although in the scene with the facehuggers, when you first see them jumping out of the room with the water and they're leaping down the hall, those are all puppets, right? Or are some of those CGI? 

Aaron Sauerland
Yeah.

Dustin Little
Every single one?

Aaron Sauerland
I don't know about every single one, but I know that there's an interview with Fede where he was talking about how they had a bunch of prop hands on the side, just throwing them at them from different angles without telling them where it's going to be coming from. Then they had a whole bunch of facehuggers that were remote-controlled with little wheels under them, and they would drive them down the hallways. Those were all practical, like, coming after the cast.

Dustin Little
That is so fun.

Aaron Sauerland
It's so much fun.

Dustin Little
I can't wait to work with puppets.

Aaron Sauerland
Yes!

Dustin Little
A similar puppet on our film.

Aaron Sauerland
That's exactly why we want to do it with our film is because I think that the actors have a more genuine reaction to it.

Lee Pugsley
And I think with horror movies, having the practical effects for the creatures and not having them be CG, it just adds so much more to the style, to the camp, if that's what certain films are going for, just to the environment to have a practical creature on screen. You can see the difference in them. For those that do CG creatures, not to say they haven't been done well, but there's just something that's so much more satisfying to me about having practical effects for creatures.

Dustin Little
Absolutely.

Aaron Sauerland
(simulateously) Absolutely.

Dustin Little
When you guys were talking, when we were... You can tell we work together a lot, we often echo each other. When we were talking about Alien Romulus earlier and the creatures chasing them down the hallway, the facehuggers and people throwing them from all different unexpected directions. That brings to mind going through a haunted house. You're putting your actors through a haunted house, and having a practical puppet to scare your actors with or let them react off of is just is going to make all the difference.

Aaron Sauerland
Yeah. And I think that there's, going off what Lee was saying, I think there's a charm to when something is physically created. And I think it lends a hand to those types of movies. Like we've been saying, like Death Becomes Her, like Re-animator, like Evil Dead.

Alex Howard
The Thing.

Aaron Sauerland
The Thing, exactly. What we're going for with this is the type of movie that you're scared and you're tense, and then we release it with an over-the-top zaniness. And so the goal with the physical puppets is to have you also give a laugh and have fun with it. We want people to be standing there or sitting there watching the movie. And when you see the creature, you're like, "Oh, my God!" Which I caught myself doing a lot in Alien Romulus, just completely being overwhelmed in a fun way with what I was seeing on screen.

Dustin Little
That's the kind of horror I fell in love with at a young age. Yes, you're terrified and you want to cover your eyes, but at the same time, you're smiling and just having a great time.

Alex Howard
And that's exactly what The Substance is, too. I was sitting there laughing, and then I was like, "I know this is a serious movie, but what I'm seeing right now is ridiculous and it's great."

Dustin Little
Over the top.

Alex Howard
I also wanted to mention In a Violent Nature because actually, I never really got-- So, Friday the 13th is really the only series where I never understood it. It's the same movie over and over. I'm like, "What's the hype on this?" Like, I love Halloween. I love Nightmare on Elm Street. It's my favorite series. Halloween is my favorite horror movie, singular movie. But I never got the hype on Friday the 13th. Then I saw In A Violent Nature with audio description, and that has one of the most gnarly kills I've ever seen in a horror movie. It was like that moment. Where it's just so out there, you're laughing, and it's fun, and you're just like, "Oh, this is why people watch Friday 13th." It's not--

Dustin Little
It's the kill, man.

Alex Howard
Yeah, that's what it is.

Dustin Little
They have to outdo themselves every time, so they just get wilder and wilder.

Aaron Sauerland
And they're all practical.

Dustin Little
Yes.

Alex Howard
For our listeners who aren't super into horror, but maybe looking to dip their toe in, I think the movie I'd recommend from this year is A Quiet Place Day One. I think you could start with that movie, honestly, because I mean, it is the first day of the event. But have any of you guys seen that one?

Dustin Little
I haven't seen that. Would you need to-- I guess it's a prequel, so you don't necessarily have to see any of the other installments to know what's going on.

Alex Howard
I feel like you get what's going on pretty quick, but I do feel like the characters might gloss over because they're like, "You've seen the other movies. You know." So they kind of go into it. But I think you can get it. If you're trying to dip your toe into it and you're not sure if horror is for you, I think it's on Paramount Plus at this point. But yeah, pretty safe bet. It's probably real easy to find with AD for any of our blind viewers who are trying to get into horror.

Lee Pugsley
Yeah, I agree with you, Alex. I don't think you need to see the other two Quiet Place movies in order to understand what's going on in this one. And you're not going to feel lost. Obviously, if you have seen the other two movies, there's little Easter eggs and tie-ins that you're going to pick up on. But I wouldn't call it essential viewing to watch Quiet Place One and Two before a Quiet Place Day One.

Dustin Little
Okay. Good to know.

Aaron Sauerland
I think I'd also say going off of horror fans or people that are not horror fans regularly that want to dip their toes in now that it's the spooky season. We've talked about it already on here, but I do think Late Night with the Devil is a great intro horror because so much of the movie is vibes. It's just feels.

Alex Howard
Yeah, it's all atmosphere. Yeah.

Aaron Sauerland
Yes. And so I think when I think of that movie, I think of a perfect October movie. You throw it on, and it's not so horrific that it's trying to make you throw up or anything. It's just a good, succinct, vibey movie. And the scares really come in like punches in certain moments, and then act three, it pops off. But even when it's popping off, it's not going to be overwhelming to you. And that's not a dig at the movie. I think that that movie is very successful, but I just think it's a great intro movie.

Alex Howard
I would agree with that. And there's not many jump scares. And it's also the recording of a late night show from the '80s. So it's not super horrific imagery either. I mean, it's supposed to be grainy, cheesy-looking because it is an '80s time set.

Lee Pugsley
And the style of that movie is just so cool as well. It captured that vibe perfectly. And then another thing that you were commenting on, Aaron, and I know, Dustin, you actually used the word succinct earlier as well. What I really like about horror movies is most of the time, especially nowadays, they are succinct. It's like they don't need to be two and a half hours. They can be a tight 90 minutes to hour forty five. And you get in, you get out, you tell a story. It's a compelling or gripping narrative, but they know when to let it be and when to end it most of the time. I just appreciate the tight storytelling that horror movies usually bring to the table.

Dustin Little
Yeah, totally agreed. It's paramount. You don't want to watch a horror movie or any movie that's got a lot of fat in it. You don't want any time where you're sitting there just wondering what's next.

Aaron Sauerland
I think, yeah, in modern horror, they're very respectful of the audience's time, and they know that the longer you play in the sandbox, the more the audience is going to start questioning things and starting to not subscribe to the world or not.

Lee Pugsley
Exactly. Now, on the note, of movies that maybe play in the sandbox a little too long in the horror genre from this year. I'm curious to know for those of you that saw M. Night Shyamalan's Trap, what you thought of it. And I'll start out and say that I'm very much in the minority. And I had a really good time with that movie. By no means is it a perfect movie. So I'll lead off with that, and I'm curious to hear anyone else's thoughts on Trap.

Alex Howard
So I felt like it was two movies. The movie you see in the trailer, that was interesting. And then they switched the premise a little bit, and I feel like that's where it lost me. And yeah, it definitely felt long. Let's be honest, M. Night Shyamalan's daughter... She's not known for her acting. She's known because M. Night Shyamalan's daughter. Her singing isn't bad either, but come on. Her acting isn't great.

Dustin Little
I'm glad there's more to it than the trailer lets on. I'm disappointed to hear that it's not necessarily a cohesive transition into the film under the film.

Alex Howard
It's very strange because I watched Signs and Sixth Sense in the weeks after I saw Trap, and I was like, "What happened to his, like..." He was Oscar nominated for Sixth Sense. That is a great script. Same as Signs. It is a great script. And Trap just doesn't feel... It feels like the dialog even feels like a CBS show, not to a disparage CBS, but you know. Usually, movies have a higher brow dialog than your basic--

Dustin Little
I think the last Shyamalan movie I saw was Old, and I felt the exact same way as like, "What is this dialog?"

Alex Howard
Yeah.

Dustin Little
These characters don't feel real.

Aaron Sauerland
I'm curious because Lee, you enjoyed it. And then Alex, it seems like you were more in the middle on it. But I'm curious if maybe any of that has to do with, at least for you, Alex, maybe one of the detractors is that you felt a little bait and switched with what the trailer was presenting versus what the movie ended up being. You were saying you felt like almost two separate movies. And so I almost wonder if maybe the enjoyment factor comes in where it's either in Lee's world where he was able to accept it and roll with it, whereas for you, you were like, "Oh, this is a different movie now." But I don't want to put any words in anyone's mouth, but I'm just curious if maybe that is an element to it.

Alex Howard
It might have been. I can't remember if I knew that was going to happen before or not.

Dustin Little
When you saw Barbarian, did you see Barbarian?

Alex Howard
Yes.

Dustin Little
When that shifted, did that bump for you or were you able to accept like, "Oh, okay, the movie's doing something different?"

Alex Howard
See, it's funny because Barbarian, I liked it, but I also thought this twist IS the movie. Once you know it, that's it. Like with Sixth Sense, you can go back.

Alex Howard
(overlapping) I'm really curious to watch that.

Alex Howard
Yeah, I've never watched Barbarian again. I'm curious, too. But with Sixth Sense, you can go back knowing the twist, and it's even more interesting now.

Dustin Little
Yeah.

Alex Howard
I don't know if that's the case with Barbarian. I haven't tried it. But with Strange Darling, I would say there's something in that, too. And at first, when I got out, I was like, "Is it the same thing? If I know..." And I was thinking about it, I was like, "I'm pretty sure if I go back and watch it again, it's still going to be a banger," like even knowing.

Dustin Little
Yeah.

Lee Pugsley
It's interesting, too, about the shift in Barbarian because the shift in Trap didn't bump up against me in a bad way. I was totally okay with it. And I will say that if you guys do check out Trap. You'll have the ability to do so in October when it drops on max. Second, you definitely have to suspend your disbelief. There are many things about that movie that are very unrealistic, and I acknowledge those things. They didn't bother me, and the shift didn't bother me from the first half to the second half. But Barbarian, for whatever reason, I found the shift a little more off-putting, and it didn't work for me quite as well in the same way. Even though I do like Barbarian, and I thought that was, as a whole, a good movie. But I found it a little jolting when it did shift.

Alex Howard
I think that was my problem, Lee, is that I couldn't suspend my disbelief. I think I was like... I can accept Aliens and all these crazy things, but that's already an established thing, like Quiet Place, aliens coming down. Okay. But I think if you're going to be out there, you got to establish it, I think. If that makes any sense.

Lee Pugsley
Totally fair.

Dustin Little
Or tease it in some way.

Alex Howard
Even Longlegs. I know people who... There's that out-there aspect and it didn't work for them. For me, it did work because it was rather subtle.

Aaron Sauerland
Yeah.

Alex Howard
But I know for some people, it took them out of it because it didn't fit the believability of the world.

Aaron Sauerland
To me, it's what I loved about it. I think that it's what separates it from just being a Silence of the Lambs.

Alex Howard
Or a Seven or something.

Aaron Sauerland
Or Seven, you know. It's the layer to the movie that is threaded throughout that I think makes it special.

Alex Howard
Yeah. But I definitely, I highly encourage our listeners. If you're blind and an AD user, go to the theater, see something in the spooky season... The atmosphere in the theater for horror movies, as I said before in this podcast, is so awesome. But yeah, either go check out something there, go watch something spooky at home. There's tons of stuff streaming now. I mean, tons of great horror from this year. Definitely highly recommend.

Aaron Sauerland
Another one I recommend that's recent that I think is perfect for October is Talk to Me.

Alex Howard
Oh, definitely.

Dustin Little
Yeah.

Lee Pugsley
Absolutely.

Aaron Sauerland
Right? I just feel like it has a campfire vibe to it. It's one of my favorite elements of that movie is that they don't explain anything about the hand. When the movie starts, it's just part of the tapestry of the world. It's just, there's a hand that exists. And when you take hold of it, you're going to connect with the dead. And it's just going on. And that's just it. And it feels so folklore, so urban legend. And I was instantly drawn to that. And I think that's a perfect October movie because what's a better thing to do in October than sit around and tell ghost stories?

Alex Howard
Yeah, it's almost like a ghost story in a party movie in a way. At least the first half. Yeah.

Aaron Sauerland
Yeah. I was going to say a great allegory for addiction is in there, overlaid with that party element.

Alex Howard
Yeah. And I think, I hope I'm not wrong, I'm pretty sure all the Child's Play movies are still streaming on Netflix with audio description. If you're curious about those, definitely check those out. I think some of them may have it elsewhere. Usually when movies go on Netflix, sometimes they have a higher chance of getting the AD because a lot of times, Netflix owns the AD track because they made it themselves. So when it goes off of Netflix, sometimes it won't have it. So yeah, definitely. I love Chucky. Check out the Chucky movies if you haven't seen them.

Lee Pugsley
Another good movie to check out, this is from this year as well that's on streaming now. I believe it's on Peacock, but it might have moved over to Prime Video is Abigail. I really, really enjoyed that movie. I thought it was a lot of fun and definitely had some fun horror vibes in it.

Aaron Sauerland
Yeah, I've heard nothing but good things about it. I heard it's a really fun ride from almost beginning to end.

Alex Howard
And it was a surprisingly good script. I think it's from Radio Silence who did the Scream remake. Ready or not, I was going in expecting a typical Blumhousey horror movie. It was much more dialogue-heavy than I thought it would be, which is pretty cool.

Lee Pugsley
It does a good job of creating suspense and curiosity from the beginning. Because you know something's going to happen, you know something's going on, but you don't know exactly what it is. And the way that it builds out the story and builds out the characters is just very effective. And I think it stands out among the other Blumhouse type movies.

Dustin Little
That's good to hear. I got to check that out.

Aaron Sauerland
Yeah, that's been on my list for a while. I've got an ever-growing... Right now, since it's the October season, my fiancé and I have a little cauldron in our living room, and we just been writing down horror movies that get recommended to us or ones that we've been wanting to watch. We've just ripped them off in little pieces of paper and stuck them in the cauldron. And so anytime we want to watch a movie, we I've just been drawing from that. And so we'll have to add Abigail into that cauldron. 

Dustin Little
That's smart. That takes a lot of the decision making out of it. I've looked at Aaron's to-watch list and I'm like, "What the hell is any of this stuff?"

Aaron Sauerland
If anyone wants I go on Letterboxd and follow me on Letterboxd, you can see my public to watch.

Dustin Little
Because he adds anything that anyone ever tells him to watch, and you're just never going to get through them.

Aaron Sauerland
The thing is, I'm on set all the time, and so I'm working with people that love film, and I'm working with people from a variety of age ranges. And so whenever we get to talking, it's always bound to happen. Someone brings up, "Oh, I was rewatching The Passion of Joan of Arc." Or "I was rewatching," like, what's another one on here? Sleepless. I'm like, "Oh, I don't know what that is."

Dustin Little
I at least know what Passion of Joan of Arc is, but there's a lot--

Aaron Sauerland
Yeah. It's just the fact that it's even worth mentioning to someone. I feel like, "Oh, well, to that person, it means something. It had an effect on them." And so I just write it down because I would love to also witness it and see, there's obviously merit to it. And I I'm always trying to grow my toolbox and my knowledge of movies and broaden my taste as much as possible. So eventually I'll get through all of these, but it's also perpetual.

Alex Howard
No, that's awesome. And then it's funny because I'll come over to your place and I'll be like, "I have Funny Games on my list. Let me know when you guys draw Funny Games because it doesn't have AD, and I'd love for you guys to describe it for me.

Aaron Sauerland
Yes. Yeah. Funny Games is on the list, man. Yeah. You'll have to definitely come I'm sorry to that.

Alex Howard
Two other quick ones that I wanted to mention that are small, but I think Rein, who we had on our last Halloween episode, actually wrote the description for them. Oddity and Cuckoo, both from this year, had AD, and they were pretty unique and pretty great horror movies as well.

Aaron Sauerland
Man, yeah, I was so upset. I missed Cuckoo in theaters. I wanted to see it so bad. And then every time I tried to go, the show times on these movies, man, they get more and more limited, I feel. Especially for these small releases.

Alex Howard
Yeah, and then they're only out for a week or two.

Aaron Sauerland
Yeah, and then it just kills the audience. More people would go see it, I promise. Just put it out longer.

Dustin Little
Yeah, just another week. Just give the word of mouth some time to work.

Aaron Sauerland
Exactly.

Lee Pugsley
Maybe when they have these really small movies, do more than one show time at 10 AM in the morning, and that could be helpful, too. Because I had the same issue as you, Aaron, that I wanted to see Cuckoo, and it was limited showings. I think it was only in theaters for, I don't know, two weeks or something, but there was one show time at the most inconvenient time for my schedule, and there was just no way to catch it. I know it's on PVOD right now. I'm waiting till it gets to a cheaper price point, but then I'll check it out.

Alex Howard
Do you remember, Lee? Did I remember that right? Did Rein write both of those?

Lee Pugsley
I know he wrote Oddity for sure, and I don't remember about Cuckoo, but I remember that Tristan, who was on a recent podcast episode, was the audio description narrator for it.

Alex Howard
That's right. Yeah. Okay.

Aaron Sauerland
So that's interesting because Oddity... It has an AD track, but it's on Shudder. And so that AD track is just not there on Shudder?

Alex Howard
Yeah, there's a compoundability thing. They don't have the capability on their streaming service to have AD right now.

Aaron Sauerland
Wow.

Dustin Little
Why is Shutter so...

Aaron Sauerland
I love it but...

Dustin Little
I don't want to say cheap because I don't want to be insulting, but it just feels...

Alex Howard
It's funny because--

Dustin Little
It's a bare-bone streaming platform, it feels like.

Alex Howard
I don't even want to say cheap because they're paying for the tracks, but it's just not-

Dustin Little
Yeah, but they can't utilize them.

Aaron Sauerland
Then they should just put up Oddity as another... There should be two titles. It should be Oddity, and then the other one should be Oddity, and then very big on the below, the title should say "audio described." And then that way, the only track-- Like that way, it's not an option of switching tracks, which is what I'm assuming is the issue for them, the compatibility issue. So they should just make it that it's its own movie selection, and that's the only track on that file is just the AD version.

Alex Howard
Yeah. A lot of times, what I like to, at least what I like to think in my head is that people don't know. So I don't know who at Shudder... Obviously, someone at IFC is aware of AD. I actually know the person over at IFC, or I used to, who is aware of AD, and they make it, and then they send it over to Shudder, and the people at Shudder don't know about it, maybe. And so I don't know. But yeah, that's the whole point of this podcast, is to raise awareness. So...

Dustin Little
Shudder, listen up, baby.

Alex Howard
...so that it does get as common as captions. Yeah, you're going to get another subscriber if you make it accessible because I haven't been subscribing because of that. Yeah.

Aaron Sauerland
Lee, I wanted to ask you, with your film, Audio Description, do you have AD on it?

Lee Pugsley
With my short film, Audio Description, the one that won the Disability Film Challenge, we have built-in AD, I guess, is the best way to put it. Where, like, in our film, the audio description narrator actually interacts with the character that I play.

Dustin Little
That's so fun.

Lee Pugsley
But he also describes what's happening in terms of the action of the movie as well. So we figured it would be a fun way to integrate audio description into our film while giving the sighted and the blind and low vision viewer the same experience. So it's not just one of them in a headphone listening to a track and the other sighted viewer, you know, not. But everyone is experiencing the same thing. And hopefully it's bringing awareness to the significance of audio description and why it should matter for, um, yeah, for blind and low vision viewers.

Aaron Sauerland
Wow. I absolutely love that. That's amazing.

Dustin Little
I love...

Aaron Sauerland
It's a great idea.

Dustin Little
...making the AD part of the narrative. It's so clever. 

Aaron Sauerland
Yeah, that's a genius idea.

Lee Pugsley
So speaking of genius ideas. Let's go back to the film that both Aaron, you and Dustin are making. And once again, I know that we mentioned at the beginning of this episode that there's a campaign going on to raise funds for this. So why don't you tell us a little bit more about that? And first of all, what are the roles that you guys have in this process? Where's pre-production at? And what are you hoping to raise with this campaign? And how can we come alongside you?

Dustin Little
Yeah, cool. The campaign is through Seed & Spark, and the URL is SeedAndSpark.com/fund/InCaseOfFear. We're running the campaign for about three more weeks. Where are we at, Aaron? What percentage have we raised so far? 18 or 20, I think?

Aaron Sauerland
Yeah. So the campaign ends October 19th. And we have right at this moment, at that recording, we are at 18% of our goal. We're trying to raise the $31,000. And in our process right now, we're basically locking in cast. We've location scouted a couple of places and found two very cool places to use as our strange and obscure lab. And then we've been locking in crew as well. We've got a great first AD that we're working with. And we also just met with a cinematographer that was recommended to us, and they're amazing. And you can follow along with all of our updates on our Seed and Spark page, as well as on our Instagram. And it's really easy to find our Instagram. It's just InCaseOfFear.

Dustin Little
Or InCaseOffEar if you read it right.

Aaron Sauerland
That's true. Ha! Yeah. If you go on and if you contribute to our campaign, we've got a bunch of fun little rewards for you guys that range from... We do like a phobia photo. If you donate, we take a photo of you and we Photoshop it and edit it up to make you confront whatever your greatest fear is. We've been posting that on our Instagram a lot. A lot of people have been doing that. And we also have things like exclusive behind the scenes video diaries, so you guys can see a little bit more of what goes into making a movie, because a lot of people don't really understand the insane cogs in the machine and how many there are. And it goes all the way up to naming a character in the movie after you or an EP credit as well. So you can check all that stuff out on our Seed and Spark page or follow our journey on Instagram as well.

Dustin Little
And if you're unable to contribute financially, there's other ways you can help, too. Even just a simple follow or share of our Instagram goes a long way to get more and more eyes on it. Or even on Seed & Spark itself, if you go and you follow our project, Seed & Spark offers incentives for when we get 250 followers or 500 followers and stuff like that. I think it's, what is it, Erin? Discounts on camera gear and stuff like that?

Aaron Sauerland
Yeah, correct. It'll be whatever Seed & Spark's current sponsors are, and they'll give us discounts on lens rental, camera rental. It also enables us to give back to the donors and anyone who donated. We can then give them access to other films that have been funded through Seed and Spark. So it's like a win-win for everybody. So, yeah, I'd definitely check out and click on the follow button as well on our Seed and Spark.

Lee Pugsley
And you guys both wrote the script, correct? Is one of you a director or are you guys co-directors?

Dustin Little
Aaron is the director. We wrote it together. We've been writing together for, what 10 years? Is it 10 years yet, Aaron?

Aaron Sauerland
Yeah, it's probably-

Dustin Little
2015? Well, nine, I think.

Aaron Sauerland
Almost 10 years. Yeah.

Dustin Little
So we do mostly features, and we've done well in the screenwriting competitions. We've been top 15% of the Nicholls. We've been on The Red List twice. And yeah, we're finally just taking the plunge into finally producing our own film.

Lee Pugsley
That's awesome. And we are really excited for what you guys are doing. And we definitely want to be able to support you in whatever way we can. And it's really cool that you guys are planning to do audio descriptions for this short film, because as you mentioned at the beginning of this episode, Aaron, a lot of short films, or most short films, don't have audio descriptions. So we appreciate the fact that you guys care about that and about making it accessible to all viewers. And we'll be sure to link all of the information to your Instagram and to the campaign Seed & Spark page as well, so that listeners can go ahead and follow you guys and spread the word and hopefully contribute too.

Dustin Little
Thank you so much, guys. That means the world.

Aaron Sauerland
Yeah, really, it does. It takes an army to make a movie, and it's doubly true when you're trying to crowdfund it and get everyone on your page. So we definitely appreciate it.

Alex Howard
Yeah, no, that's great. We will definitely follow you on our Instagram as well. And also for our listeners, talking about giving back, we have a little giveaway for you guys in honor of Spooky Season. I want to praise Paramount for audio describing so much of their back catalog. I ordered their Paramount Scares box set, and it has Rosemary's Baby in it, which is how Aaron and I watch Rosemary's Baby. But I already owned it on 4K, so I'm giving away the digital code for Rosemary's Baby, and it has audio description. You can renew it on... I think it has audio description on Apple and on Amazon. So if you're interested in getting the Rosemary's Baby digital copy, email the Dark Room with a topic with some message for us, something you want us to talk about, your favorite horror movie. If you love the movie, if you haven't seen the movie, let us know. Just send us an email, and on October 25th, a week before Halloween, we will draw and email the winner.

Dustin Little
Oh, that's awesome. Great film.

Alex Howard
Yeah, it is an iconic film, and for good reason. It definitely... I mean, it was so hyped up for me for so many years, and I just watched it for the first time this year. So it is definitely worth the hype, and especially now that it's accessible, too.

Lee Pugsley
And the email address that you can reach us at is DarkRoomFilmCast@gmail.com. Once again, that's DarkRoomFilmCast@gmail.com. And you have until October 25th to be eligible for this digital code giveaway.

Aaron Sauerland
Man, that's awesome. I would not sleep on that. You should definitely take advantage of that because like you guys said, Rosemary's Baby is a classic. And if you haven't seen it, this is your chance. This is it.

Alex Howard
And we'd also I have to thank Matt Lauterbach for making the transcriptions of this episode possible, and his company, All Senses Go.

Lee Pugsley
We also want to thank you, Aaron, and you, Dustin, for being on this episode. This was a great discussion on horror films from this year, and we're excited for what the future holds for you guys.

Dustin Little
Absolutely. Love talking horror anytime. Love to come back.

Aaron Sauerland
Thank you, guys. We really appreciate it.

Lee Pugsley
And to all the listeners out there, thank you guys so much for listening. We will see you next time here on The Dark Room.

Alex Howard
Take care, guys. Happy Halloween.

Dustin Little
Thanks a bunch. Happy Halloween.

Aaron Sauerland
Happy Halloween.