Triggered by Terror: Why Some Horror Hurts (and Heals)

In this episode of Horror Heals, Corey and Kendall are joined by filmmaker Andrew Jara, who opens up about creating a horror film rooted in his own experience with anxiety, panic attacks, and the slow, quiet devastation of grief.

🎬 Andrew’s film The Empty Space isn’t your typical genre fare — it’s a deeply personal exploration of mental health, told through the lens of horror.

💭 Together, we dive into what anxiety really feels like, why horror is the perfect medium to express emotional chaos, and how the horror community can be one of the most supportive spaces for those struggling with invisible wounds.

Corey shares his own panic attack experiences, Kendall reflects on the surprising therapeutic value of scary films, and Andrew reveals how horror helps him say what he can’t in real life — and why sometimes the scariest part of a movie is the part that feels familiar.

In this episode:

• What a panic attack really feels like — and how it’s portrayed in horror
• The making of The Empty Space and why Andrew stopped waiting for permission to tell his story
• Representation in horror: the power of seeing your struggle on screen
• When horror triggers... and when it heals
• How genre films help us face emotions we don’t have words for

Follow Andrew Jara:

🎥 @andrewjara

📽️ The Empty Space

Let’s keep the conversation going:

📲 Follow us on Instagram: @horrorhealspodcast

💌 Subscribe & review wherever you get your screams — it really helps others find the show.

Thank you for listening to Horror Heals. 

Share the show with someone who loves horror and someone who needs a little healing.

If you want to support our guests, check the show notes for links to their work, conventions, and fundraising pages.

You can also listen to our sister podcast Family Twist, a show about DNA surprises, identity, and the families we find along the way.

Horror Heals is produced by How the Cow Ate the Cabbage LLC.

Is horror good for mental wellness? Of corpse it is.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:20

I want to welcome my good things of the horse podcast. So get ready for a hell of a good time with my new theme for Nintendo on the Horror Heels.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

Hey horror fam, welcome back to Horror Heels, where we dig into the shadows, not just for the scares, but for the soul. I'm Corey, and today we're talking about something that hits close to home. Anxiety and panic attacks. The real kind, the kind that don't just go away when the movie ends. Our guest this week is filmmaker Andrew Hada, whose film The Empty Space doesn't just flirt with fear, it dives into the disorienting, often invisible world of mental health struggles. And he does it through the lens of horror. If you've ever felt like your brain was playing a horror movie on you, this episode might feel familiar. It sure did for me. Andrew, welcome to the Horror Heals Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Hello, yeah. Thank you guys for having me.

SPEAKER_03 1:48

Absolutely. So, Andrew, you wrote and directed. I'm guessing this is one of your passion projects.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Yeah, so I made I wrote the empty space right there, and it did mark kind of a turning point in my filmmaking career. It was something where it was like I had funded two other films, the last ones in Borderland, and I realized, and it was always that thing where it's like they had some kind of of the heavier themes, but a lot of it was like me saying, like, oh well, once I kind of make it, then I'll add a little bit more. And with the empty space, I realized, well, if I'm funding these things and I'm the one making them, I should just kind of add whatever I want. I was looking at it a different way. Instead of, oh, well, this will show Hollywood that I can make a traditional film when I realize with the empty space, like, but like, you know, I want to be able to say something with my art. And so if I can do that even now, I don't have to listen to any like studio notes or any producers. It's just me. So might as well go all the way to as far as I can go with it. And so that's kind of that was my mentality going in when I wrote the script. Like with Borderland, I literally wrote that one in preparation for the empty space, but it was like, okay, I know I can use this house, I can use this location. How can I write a script around them with the empty space? It was more of okay, I want to tell this story, I'm just gonna write it, and then we'll kind of figure out the locations and how to get that kind of stuff. So it was very much, it's probably my most personal project, and I feel like it's the one that best establishes me as an artist that like this is what I want to be saying, you know.

SPEAKER_03 3:21

Absolutely. Full disclosure, Kendall and I have not watched the movie yet. We found out early in our podcasting days that knowing too much going in didn't make for quite as good of an interview, and I've been a journalist forever, so it's nice to kind of be able to go in and get some surprises. And then also sometimes I do find movies about anxiety and depression triggering, and Kendall finds Hobe Invasion movies to be very triggering.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

So both I hit both of them, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:52

You got us, yeah. So it's like not that we won't, oh no, we totally will at me, but it's it won't be at night.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Yeah. Well, and honestly, that is one of the things that we were trying to go for with this film, is that I wanted it to feel like that was again one of my goals with the movie. And you know, you guys can tell me afterwards whether I achieved it or not. But I had seen a lot of movies that dealt with grief and depression, and they kind of like they gave you the broad strokes, you know, like the person's always sad. It's very clear that they look depressed and stuff. And when I was going through my own issues, that was kind of one of the things that hindered me because I was like, well, I don't look like they do in the movies, you know. Like I'm still I can still go to the movies, I'm going to the gym every day, you know, I'm happy sometimes. It wasn't until I realized, oh no, it is depression and anxiety that I had that I was like, okay, this isn't what I thought it was going to look like. And so that was one of the things that I wanted to bring to the empty space, was kind of giving a more realistic view. And that's honestly why it's a horror film. It was that thought of making it a genre or like a drama or whatever. But I wanted to kind of make the audience who maybe hasn't experienced an anxiety attack to kind of feel what it feels like. And at one of our premieres, we did have someone come up and say, like, oh, it did trigger them to kind of like they had to step out because it was like so intense that they kind of left. And I think again, like, you know, it feels bad that you kind of triggered someone's anxiety, but on the other hand, it's like that is what we're going for, you know. And I've even had certain people kind of come up to me and say, Oh, you know what? I that is exactly what I'm feeling. And I think another thing is that anxiety is so different. And in the film, so the general film is about Amy Andrews. She's had kind of this attack on her that left her boyfriend dead, and so she's trying to regain her life. She has depression, she has anxiety attacks, she's just kind of functioning to function, and she meets this support group. And one of the reasons I included the support group, because originally it was her work, like she gets a job and like she's talking to the coworkers. But as I was writing the script, I wanted to kind of represent that fact that there is no anxiety or depression that looks the same. It's very different depending on what your background is, how you're doing, what happened to cause it, and maybe nothing caused it. Sometimes people just have it, you know. And so I wanted to highlight that as well. So in the movie, she goes to a support group and they're all kind of, I wanted to give a bunch of different aspects to how this kind of these symptoms can look. And so it was that thing. And I think you know, that kind of helped me deal with my own issues or like kind of get a put a name on it almost of being like, oh yeah, I'm not like that person. I am like this person, you know, or like this is how I feel, but you don't necessarily have to feel that exact same way to have that, to say you have depression or anxiety, you know, or try to get mental health, you know, help, you know.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

Well, you know, and Corey Hunt, I don't want to say he overstated, he didn't. I do have anxiety about home invasions, but I because I not I wasn't home, but my family's home was burglarized when I was seven. It was not fun. But what I do find is that I need to watch more of those because it helps me get rid of some of that old baggage, you know. I did almost hyperventilate during oh, what's that one, Corey? The one with the oh gosh, the strangers? No, no, no. The she had a panic root panic room. Sorry. Jody Foster, yeah, yeah. We'll edit that differently. I won't sound like such an idiot, but well, it didn't come out yesterday. No, no, I know, but I remember like that was so just unnerving for me. But yeah, now when I go back and watch it, it's much more normalized for me. So it's super, it's super helpful. I appreciate what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Oh, well, thank you. Yeah, and I think that is, I mean, the funny thing is with it, you never really know what's gonna trigger you or not trigger you. And so sometimes you're watching like a comedy and you're like, oh, I didn't realize. Like for some reason when I was a kid, like Mars attacks was very scary to me. I just couldn't wrap my head around it, and it's like, you know, it's a PG 13 comedy, but like to me, it was the scariest thing I had seen at the time.

SPEAKER_03 8:05

Yeah, yeah. No, I think you definitely hit upon it right there. I think it's really important to have representation out there because there are a lot of people who are struggling with even talking about it or admitting that they might have anxiety issues or depression, and really that's the reason why we started this podcast. I think people in the horror community, maybe there's a higher percentage of us that are dealing with anxiety and depression issues. And I think because we get together as a community, we're able to kind of help each other through that, you know, via the movies, via conversations, via meeting your creators, that sort of thing. So it's yeah, I think it's because I've definitely certainly you know befriended quite a few people who are dealing with that. And it's just like, you know, when they're at the horror convention, you'd never be able to tell that you were experiencing that. Yeah. But yeah, it looks and feels different for all of us. So I think it's important to have different types of representation out there of how people handle it, what triggers them, what brings on a panic attack, all of that stuff. Because like for me, I can't pinpoint any kind of traumatic event or anything. I just slowly started feeling like not like myself. And then it the frustrating thing, and I'm sure this happens for a lot of people, is that you can't turn it off and you can't really understand where it's coming from.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Right.

SPEAKER_03 9:19

And it's hard to even explain to somebody who's not experiencing it, like what it feels like. It's like, I can't just like, you know, well, I guess I can't take a happy pill because I've been taking happy pills for a while. But before that, you know, before talking to a physician and and getting on medication, it's like, what do you do? You know, like I could be at my favorite band's concert right now, and if I'm in the middle of a panic attack, it's that's not gonna make it go away.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Right. And I think it's that same thing where it's also hard for people who care about you to be able to relate to it. If I have a panic attack, how I look while I'm having a panic attack and how I look after a panic attack, it just looks like this to the outside person. But on the inside, it's like I'm freaking out, and it's hard to even explain when you've had a pretty bad episode or whatever, and then it's over to kind of be like, Oh yeah, now I just gotta go, you know, I gotta go back to work or I gotta go get lunch, like normal. It just kind of tapers off, and that's hard to explain because of how you do go back to normal. But it's like in your mind, it's like, well, yeah, I know that I like I never forget that I have anxiety, even if I'm not having an anxiety attack at that moment, it's always there. But that's hard to kind of convey, and it's hard for people to understand, especially like you know, when like I have an I won't have one for a couple of years, and then suddenly it'll get real bad. And it's hard to be like to me, I'm like, Oh yeah, welcome back, but like for other people, it's like, oh, I thought that was cured or whatever. And it's like, well, it it that's not really a word that you use with these kind of things, you know. I'm like, it's a lot less, but it's never really gone, at least for me, you know.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

Yeah, you've probably just found coping mechanisms, you know, that work, right?

SPEAKER_03 10:58

Yeah, yeah. And I really like that you did take the horror approach with this rather than just a drama about a support group and that sort of thing, because you know, horror's always been popular with the underground or whatever, but now that it's becoming more and more mainstream, I think more people are willing to check it out and and can probably relate to some, you know, like the experiences that people are having in your movie, maybe not being stalked by a mass killer or anything, but it's almost like the cherry on top for horror fans. And you also get the substance in there as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Yeah, yeah. And I think with horror, it's way easier for the audiences to kind of follow you down that road. With drama, it's easier for them to kind of like, oh, this is this person's story. But so much of horror is like you feel. I think that's also why we were talking a little bit more about the horror community. I think that's why so much of it feels like a community because you're in that theater and everyone's getting scared at the same time. If you're in a drama, you might not start relating to the character until a different point than everyone else. But in the horror, hopefully, if we've done our job right, you you get scared at the same time, or you or you kind of feel with those characters. And so it does feel like you're part of the experience. And I think that allows people to kind of let their guard down a little bit to get the scares up a little bit more, but also it helps to bring these themes. And I think that's why horror has always kind of been at the forefront of like this kind of like storytelling with that message or with that something to say, you know, it's so much easier to do it in horror because you know, you can do an allegory for anything, and you know, that Godzilla could be a metaphor for World War II devastation. And so you're able to do that without getting people to kind of feel like they're being lectured at, but also getting people to kind of the same people who are going to go see, you know, a documentary about World War II aftermath might not be the same people who are gonna go see Godzilla, but a lot more people are gonna go see Godzilla, and they're kind of getting a little bit of the same messaging through those two films. And so I think that that's to me, that's one of the best things about horror, and it's why I kind of started leaning more towards kind of telling exactly the stories I wanted to tell and not holding back as much, you know.

SPEAKER_02 13:06

Well, you make a really good point because Corey and I like a lot of the same things in film, but sometimes we're watching a drama and I will empathize with a character that he thinks is annoying or vice versa. But when it comes to horror, it's like I feel like it's unified empathy. You think, holy shit, I can't believe that happened to that person. And you kind of can set aside character development at some level to say, okay, this was a really horrible situation for this person in general. So yeah, that works for me.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

I think unified empathy is like a great if it's not a term, it should be because it does.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

I think we just coined one.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

Well, I know I love the flicks that dig deeper into the characters and stuff. Like I don't mind sitting there for half an hour, 40 minutes or whatever, getting to know people before anything crazy happens, like a movie like Hereditary, although you do have a big shock scene pretty early in the movie. Right. But it's I still can see it's kind of a after that it's kind of a slow build, you know.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Right, right. It is funny because to me, a lot of the stuff at the beginning, you know, we really take our time before stuff starts going off the rails. But at the stuff like people have told me that that stuff scares them, and I'm like, oh, that's just kind of how it feels to like live go through my day-to-day sometimes. But we really wanted to kind of focus on the characters a little bit more, like especially Amy Andrews, who we really, you know, she's in Valerie Saunders, who plays the main character, she she's in every single scene, she's almost in every frame of the film. We really needed the audience to like her and to want to go on her journey. To do that, I knew that it would alienate a couple of the audiences who are like there for strictly the horror stuff, but I really wanted you to get the character before it started. From the beginning, things are falling apart, but once it really goes to dark places, I wanted you to understand where she's coming from so you could see where it's going and how far it's going down, you know. And even then, we try to do it with everything like her clothes starts off on one level and it ends up at different levels. And we really wanted to play with how the framing was, how the wardrobe was, just to kind of like every instance, like when she's at the very beginning, when she's kind of on her own, it's a lot of single shots, you know, it's it's just on her, just on the person she's talking to, and they're almost talking to the camera. Because again, that's what it feels like when you have anxiety, kind of feels like everything's happening to me, but it's not really happening with me. And so we we wanted to add that to the film and with her wardrobe, you know, it's it's we didn't try to go cliche, but it is that you wake up, you wear the same thing every day, or you wear like whatever is comfortable, just kind of around. And so we really wanted to play that and you see it kind of change as she changes. And so every every kind of part of this movie we really wanted to add and show, like, oh, this, like, help it tell the story. But this one, it was really sitting back and being like, Okay, let's make sure that everything kind of helps to tell that theme and that messaging, you know. What inspired the horror elements of the movie? I think it was just trying, like, really my one of my main goals was to get people to kind of feel what it feels like when I have an anxiety attack. And I think the best way to do it was that kind of horror element. And I think there's there's a theme in here where like her boyfriend is is murdered, and there's that theme of you know, when I think I had it from when I was a kid, but once I once it really got bad and I started admitting that I had it, there was always that, at least at the beginning, there was like, okay, well, if I do this, I'll get back to normal and I don't have to worry about this anymore. And the goals kept moving, you know, because it kept being something else. And I realized, like, oh, there is really no going back now. There's just accepting that I've had this, and I might have always had it, but now there's an acceptance of it so I can play with it. And so I wanted that to be a big theme of Amy trying to kind of, and that's why I gave her a specific point where she gets it, because I wanted her to keep trying to like reach back and try to get that life beforehand, and then like, you know, kind of having to come to terms with that, you know, the idea that you really can't go home again, you know, as as simple as that is. And so that kind of helped me to craft that it was going in that horror element, you know. And this one is it's just kind of like how how best to tell this story, you know.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

So now that you've uh got a horror flick out there, is that kind of driving your next project? So are you wanting to stay in the genre?

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Yeah, I mean, it's that thing where I never pick what genre my scripts are gonna be, but they always seem to end up in horror, at least a little bit. Um I think about First Blood, the Stallone film, where that was the first time that PTSD was really entered into the public conversation with Rambo having PTSD, or like the way that Vietnam vets were treated after they came back. And so I think about how that really resonated. And now the PTSD thing, like that's almost synonymous with Vietnam vets because of how it was kind of taken out in pop culture. And I think being able to do that to me is the most important thing, especially with like how the country's going and how things are kind of moving. And so I really just want to be able to tell stories that really resonate and really tell something about the state of our culture, and so horror is honestly the best bet. Like the movie I'm doing now is is kind of similar in in it, it has a very blatant message, but it's still like it's probably my most fun movie because the empty space, it was it's not that fun. Like it's a lot of it's pretty dark. This one is still it's a lot more pop culture, like it pops off the screen, but it's still we want to tell a story about how it feels. Like this one, it's about a streamer who's been stalked, and so it's I wanted to kind of tell that story of how once you're on that other side of the screen, people stop looking at you as people, they start looking at you as commodities or as you know, like a character. It happens way more to women, but even me, like people when I post my short films online, people were like, This is like one of my for my first film, the last one, someone put a comment on the trailer on my YouTube page, and they're like, if I had if I was on a desert island and I had a choice to take one movie or no movies, I would take no movies. Okay. Oh my gosh. Wow. It's like, hey guys, I read these. And I think it's like, I don't think that guy even necessarily meant to be malicious. I think it's just you talk about bigger movies like that, and you don't think anyone's gonna pay attention, but the smaller the movie gets, like, the more eyes are on those things. And like as people like kind of become create careers out of being online and stuff, they just have to like put up with that. So I really wanted to kind of shine a light on how dehumanizing we can make people on streams. Again, like hands get stabbed and there's blood spraying everywhere, and it's a very kind of neon looking film, but it's still with that added benefit of you know, there's a message behind it and something I want people to come away being like, oh yeah, we do. Like maybe next time I'm online, I will make that joke, you know.

SPEAKER_03 20:21

Right, right, exactly. No, that's a great point. He brought up something a couple of minutes ago that I think is really important to address the current climate and what's happening not just in the country, but around the world right now, where every day we wake up and it's like stranger than fiction. I wonder what this generation of filmmakers is going to do with what's happening today. And I'm sure a lot of them are gonna fall into the horror genre, but it'd be really interesting to see the movies that are coming out in the next couple of years. Jordan Peel, you know, immediately comes to mind. You know, he's I mean, he was putting messaging in his movies from the get-go, and it's like, but they're so unique and creative, and you know, it's just like, ah, yeah, okay. You know, I like I I don't I don't mind a message in a movie as long as you're not, you know, beating me over the head with it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

Right, right, right. Yeah, and I think even like some of my favorite films have like kind of those messaging, and even like I think of again to go to a horror film, you know, Tales from the Hood, which is called Tales from the Hood, but every single story in that anthology is very thick with their like what they're trying to say. Like they cover police brutality, they cover a child being abused, you know, they cover race relations, and so it's it's such a funny idea of like, oh yeah, even this movie that has like an evil mortician introducing every story can get a message across if they really are aiming to do that. Right now, I don't know if we are losing this culture war, but we've definitely lost a podcasting one with Joe Rogan and kind of some of these guys being able to counter that at least in some way, I think is always gonna be good. I'm very excited to see that a lot of the young filmmakers do seem to be very conscious of social issues, but I do think that they're trying to get those out there. I think it can only be good.

SPEAKER_03 22:03

I hope so. Yeah, I'm not sure what the climate is like in New Mexico right now, but just you know, I was just in the Midwest and we live here on the East Coast, and it's just like some of the stuff you see is disturbing. And I'm kind of curious, do you have like a filmmaking sort of community, like folks that you talk to and talk about current events and things like that to see like, you know, where is the temperature going and what might inspire this next script?

SPEAKER_01 22:26

Yeah, I think it's there's always like I always try to have kind of a filmmaking community around just so you can share things, you can see, especially when you're talking about something, even with this one, the one I'm working on now, or even with the empty space, you know. I originally I had one of the characters that goes to the support group that she goes to. She had been a victim of a different kind of assault that women go through. And I was auditioning one of the actors, and she said, Oh, well, how much is this character in it? And I was like, She's one of the main characters. And she's like, But do you address this? Because right now it's kind of just out there. And I realized, like, because she wasn't the main character, and the you we didn't have really the time to show them that grace, I decided to change it to something else, be not because I didn't think that you know, that's something to be talked about, but it's more like I didn't want to put that out there and then not kind of address it, just kind of like have it out there as window dressing, and like, but because of them, and again, you know, as a man, it's harder, you know, I didn't see it that way until she pointed it out. And I was like, Oh, yes, that's right. Like, so you do want that community to kind of bounce things off of. One of the stories I'm working on right now, it's about immigration. And so I showed it to, you know, someone who's Mexican like me, who can kind of relate to that and who got their nationalization not too long ago, even. And then I showed it to one of my friends who is white, just to see the different reactions, seeing if they're both getting the right message. Because I think a lot of times when you talk to people, you want to make sure, are they getting the right message? And if they're not, like, where did they get kind of turned around? Because again, once you're talking about political things, you don't want to beat them over the head, but you also don't want them to be like, oh, this is a completely different message than I thought, you know, and it's like, no, no, no, let's bring it back. You're rooting for the wrong person.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

I remember when we moved here to New England, we had lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for nine years, and we were so well, we loved it, but we were so used to being in a much much more multi-ethnic, you know, diverse community community. And we move out here, and I remember we landed to move here, and I was like, There are so many white people, like it was just bizarre, you know, and they some of them are nice white people, but I'm saying, you know, it was just weird for us. It was very yeah, like I don't know, I had this idea that oh, it's New England, it'll be, you know, but no, not so much.

SPEAKER_03 24:55

I mean, yeah, it was definitely that sixth sense moment of yeah, yeah, I see white people, yeah. It was very odd, and it's you know, and yeah, I think that we were definitely in a bubble in California. And you know, there are times when we definitely miss that bubble, you know, or or you mean times like every day most of the day. Yeah, but it would be interesting to see what the next voices come up with around something like that, because really you could almost kind of see living in California, especially like the Bay Area, is almost like a little bit cultish in how open and how accepting of everything everyone is. Yeah, and then you go on the flip side and you know what's happening in LA and stuff right now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

And it is like because I lived in I lived in Portland for a while, and I had that kind of same culture shock because I lived in LA and I lived in Austin for a bit. And you know, you go from these, well, and obviously in New Mexico, we have a lot of Mexicans, so it went from being either in somewhere where it was mostly people who look like me or somewhere super diverse, like LA or Austin, and then going to Portland where the majority is uh is white people, and so it was like, oh, this is a completely like everyone is in a different culture than Lee, you know, like I'm very singled out, and so it does like, and even not in a good or bad way, it's just so different in how things are going. I remember I went up to Seattle one weekend and I was like, oh, this is what I'm we're used to, like there's more there's more people that I recognize, you know, like the the food has spice again.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

No, it's completely true. I love Portland, don't get me wrong, but yeah, I completely hear yeah. It's funny because we'd always been kind of city people for all of our lives, and then we moved here, and I'm like, I mean, as I've gotten older, I don't mind being a little bit more rural, but it's rural up here. We're 80 miles north of Boston, you know what I mean? Like, oh yeah, that's far enough away from civilization that it's like woo!

SPEAKER_03 26:44

Yeah, sometimes putting on traffic, I sometimes feel like I can drive to New York City faster than I come to Boston. And New York City is a nice escape if you want to get into you know, we're not that bad.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

That's back to basics in New York City.

SPEAKER_03 26:55

Yeah. Well, Andrew, I think it it's great that you are uh injecting your films with important messaging, and you know, even a slasher movie, so really looking forward to it. We love a good slasher, so we're definitely looking forward to your next one. The final question that we always ask our guests on horror heels is Andrew, who is your favorite final person in a horror movie, the survivor?

SPEAKER_01 27:21

Oh, a final person. I know that's a tough one. It's very tough. I have to go with the first one, which would be Alan Ripley from the Alien franchise. I remember we were too young to see Alien and Aliens, but Alien 3, like we were just that, like we were maybe a little still too young. I think we're like in the end of elementary school, but we saw the preview. I remember that was the first one where Sigorny Weaver like shaved her head, and so we shaved her head because we were like, Hell yeah, Ripley's she's shaving her head. So we're gonna be like her. It was always this thing where to us the alien franchise was always Ellen Ripley, and I think the way that they wrote her, you know, as you grow older and you kind of grow up with that character, you see like that she's smart, she's capable, she's like the only one who ever is making the actual right decision, and so it really made you connect to her. To me, it's always way scarier when the character's smart and they're not making dumb moves because then it's like, oh, they're outsmarting you, they're figuring you out. And Ellen Ripley's like the perfect example of she's capable, she's smart, but that alien is just always a little bit ahead of her. And so I think like she's gotta be my go-to as much as I like, you know, like Lori Schrode and like Lori Sterling. I love Ellen Ripley.

SPEAKER_03 28:33

That's a great answer. Yeah, yeah. You're definitely not the first to choose Ellen. In fact, I'm thinking one of our other guests who her cat is named Ripley. What if her kid means you know? So I mean, that tells you all you need to know.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

Yeah, you can't get more extreme than that.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

The cat is as badass as Ellen. As a real one.

SPEAKER_03 28:51

I mean, I I imagine probably is.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

That sounds so awesome.

SPEAKER_03 28:56

Well, Andrew, thank you so much for taking some time today to talk about your filmmaking.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Yes, thank you guys for having me. I'm very excited, especially because of what the topic of your podcast is and what the empty space is about it. So thank you guys.

SPEAKER_03 29:07

And if you uh within your filmmaking community, if you think of anybody who you think would make a good guest, please reach out.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 29:14

And we will want to reconnect too when your newer film comes out too, and you know, get to talk about that.

SPEAKER_03 29:21

Exactly. Yeah, definitely keep us in the loop. Thank you, guys. Big thanks to Andrew Hadaf. Big thanks to Andrew Hada for getting so real with us today. The empty space isn't just a film, it's a reflection of what it feels like to carry anxiety, grief, and fear while still trying to function in a world that often can't see the cracks. And if you're listening and thinking, wow, that sounds like me, you are not alone. One of the reasons we created horror fields is because we know how much this genre helps us feel seen, whether through catharsis, creativity, or community. We'll be back next time with more voices from the haunted edges of healing. Until then. Be kind to your mind, and remember, is horror good for mental wellness? Of course it is. The Horror Heals Podcast is produced and presented by How the Cow Ate the Cabbage LLC.