Brendan Jesus
BJ: When I was reached out to with the FrightFest 2021 lineup, Isolation immediately caught my eye because of the insane names you snagged for directors.
[At this point we traded our Larry Fessenden meet-cute stories for about five minutes.]
BJ: In my interview with Bobby Roe, he mentioned the no zombies stipulation, and he also said they could not mention COVID-19, is that correct?
Nathan Crooker: Yeah. It rides a fine line. Once we got out of FrightFest, the European press and some of the folks in the states really loved the movie. They got it. They understood what we were doing. A lot of people sighed and said, oh it’s another virus movie, a f*cking COVID-19 film. They watched and realized that it’s not that at all. Like yeah, it’s the setting for the film, but it’s really stories about these people. It’s not about COVID. I just thought in the future it wouldn’t bode well.
BJ: The other question I asked Bobby that I wanted to ask you—and again, this is not a ‘gotcha’ question—did you get pushback from friends or family members when you told them you were making this big movie during lockdown?
Nathan Crooker: No because I wanted to be respectful of the people who have passed away or gotten sick, as well as the people who could get sick, and the teams involved. I told them they had to follow extremely strict COVID regulations. I had a list of all of the rules that matched up with government guidelines and the film commission. There were a couple of things where I was like, no, please don’t do that. You want to be safe, but ultimately it can’t stop you from creating. No one at that time wanted to put themselves in jeopardy. That’s why I said if you are quarantining with these people you should be able to shoot with them.
BJ: Are you able to talk about the budgets you gave the films? You don’t have to divulge that information if you would prefer not to.
Nathan Crooker: I mean it was an indie horror movie. That’s all.
BJ: That’s a perfect answer! Obviously, from here on out, there is going to be an influx of pandemic/pandemic-related films coming out. For you, how does it feel to be at the forefront of these types of films? You have a few standout ones like Host and Alfonso Cortés-Cavanillas’ Ego. I mean, you’re all the godfathers of pandemic films. What’s that feel like?
Nathan Crooker: I don’t necessarily feel that way, but it’s cool to hear that! It was interesting. I jumped on it really quick, and I think that’s why we got a lot of press in Variety and stuff. We were somewhat spoken about in the same vein as Host since they are both horror. Host had, like, a budget. Shudder funded that. I’m not taking anything away from that—I thought it was awesome and scary! But at that point, the UK wasn’t initially locked down as much as we were, so Host was able to have more of a legit crew. Good for them! Homeboy got a great picture deal with Blumhouse! For us, it was a little scrappier. I honestly wasn’t thinking about that. When it came up, people were calling us quar-horror. I was like, okay, I guess so.
The main thing I wanted to do was get it all done and have a release like Host with everyone still in lockdown. All the festival stuff came later. The wrapper, the thing that links the stories together with the veins and the cities, took me a really long time to find someone who could do it the way I wanted it done. We went through different versions of what the wraparound would be. That took months! With that being said, we got into Screamfest and FrightFest. I never thought of it as that, I just thought of it as we were making a movie, and you never know how it’s going to be received. Of course, we’re going to love it; we put our heart and soul into it. I love every movie in it for different reasons. I wouldn’t change anything. Being on the cusp of everything feels good, but looking back on it, it’s like yeah, we did do something, and it’s nice to be known for that. Everyone involved should be proud. If people want to call us the godfathers of the quar-horror, then I’ll take it. That wasn’t our mindset going in, but I think we did such a great job and I’m really proud of everyone. And we did it in a time where not a lot of people were. I think a lot of people started making these pandemic films later—not when we did it or when Host was doing it.
BJ: So now you have #NOFILTER currently riding the festival circuit. And I assume there are more festivals for it in the immediate future?
Nathan Crooker: Yeah. It just looks insane right now because of how many horror film festivals happen in October. It looks like it’s blowing up, but it will probably slow down a little bit more now.
BJ: In some film groups on Facebook, I’ve been seeing a lot of positive talk about it! You know it’s interesting: I watched it the first time and took it at face value as a fun psychological body horror piece. But after a rewatch, I let it dig deeper into me. It really seems like a commentary on beauty standards and social media. Where did this idea come from?
Nathan Crooker: It always seems like the answer is I wrote this before, but I wrote a script called Selfie years ago in New York that I wanted to do, which was sort of similar to this. It was more of a ghost story where this woman only saw it behind her in a selfie and…blah blah blah. Then there were about a thousand films that came out and did that. What really triggered it was during the pandemic, you’re seeing your friends, men and women, a lot of them were using these filters on videos and pictures, not sure if it was because they were bored or were upset because we all gained a little weight. It seemed like it was happening a lot. Then it became normalized, and they’re still using tons of filters. And it’s like come on, that’s not you. Now you’re out to dinner with the family, and you have it on.
It wasn’t some fun little thing that was happening during COVID. I just don’t think it’s healthy. I know that a lot of people are doing it because it makes them feel good with the likes they get, and I worry about what is going to happen when things are posted without filters. That was the impetus for it. After doing some digging, I found out it’s called Snapchat Dysmorphia. Snapchat has pulled some filters for that exact reason. What I found to be even crazier was in Europe and the US, these plastic surgeons who used to do work to make people look like specific celebrities are now having patients come in where they are showing screenshots of their filtered self. The movie got into the Newport Beach Film Festival, which is not a horror festival. We were like, well, it’s a great prestigious festival, and that’s great. It was our horror movie in a block with a bunch of social media films. The crowd was honestly great. When I talked about it and mentioned all that, it really hit those people hard, maybe because it was the West Coast. Obviously, it’s a cautionary tale, for sure, but it stems from real issues that aren’t going anywhere.
BJ: You would say that it’s more of a commentary, somewhat, of anti-social media sentiment.
Nathan Crooker: Yeah, somewhat.
BJ: Now I’m viewing this line a little differently, when Beth (Kelly Lamor Wilson) looks into the camera and says, “Stop being so judgy.” You’re trying to give her perspective; initially, I thought it was you telling people not to be so judgy, but it’s the opposite standpoint. That makes the line a thousand times more real.
Nathan Crooker: Oh, yeah. And I think it’s, too, everyone knows what’s coming. With that name, you couldn’t ask for anything more specific. When Misha [Osherovich] shows the picture to Kelly, that’s something I had always had the idea to do…that you’re the screen. She’s just doing this to have fun with it, and that maybe it will make her feel better. We all feel better when we look better. She’s saying don’t judge me because I want to play with this. If you think about the film, what happens isn’t her fault. Well, it is, and it isn’t. I don’t know if I want to say too much more.
BJ: I get that…
Nathan Crooker: You saw it at Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, right?
BJ: Yeah, in the home invasion shorts. There were a few shorts in the home invasion block where I didn’t understand their placement. I think the way #NOFILTER makes itself a home invasion piece is really interesting. Was making it a home invasion piece purposeful?
Nathan Crooker: I thought about it, but I wouldn’t tote it as a home invasion movie. The minute it’s a home invasion film is when Misha texts Kelly the app. It invades her home. It’s like having a killer inside your house but in your phone.
BJ: I’m bummed there were some COVID issues with a cold going around my apartment the week of the screening, so I was stuck viewing these films remotely.
Nathan Crooker: I didn’t get to go because we were at Screamfest with Isolation and #NOFILTER. I was bummed, too, I couldn’t be there. I love the people at Brooklyn Horror Film Festival. They do such a good job. Everyone said all the films got a great response though. The funny thing about these festivals is you get into one, then another festival might not take you. Like, why won’t you take my short just because it got into Brooklyn Horror Film Festival? You email me that you’re not going to take it because it got into one festival. Festivals do that stuff all the time. Like, spoiler alert, they all do that. Look, I’m not a huge director, but I’m trying to get to a place where the more eyeballs on our work, as filmmakers, the better chance we have of achieving the goal we’re busting our ass for—AND spending our own money for! Then there are these people we give money to, upwards of 75 bucks to get into a festival, and then they have the audacity to say, oh, you played in New York already, then we’re not going to take your movie. I’m like, okay, then Venmo me back my money. You were going to take it…it’s a sad situation. I mean, come on, Kelly gets put through hell in this movie! She was exhausted by the end—rightfully so. [In] that movie, as well as Stuffer, the characters are physically thrown into the work. And she did such an amazing job. Now here you are not allowing other people to see it! You could have gone to see it at so and so festival that I won’t mention, but now you can’t go…anyways.
BJ: Festival entry fees are not cheap! Even the early bird prices are pretty steep sometimes.
Nathan Crooker: There’s a world in which, as a filmmaker, it shouldn’t be about how much money [festivals] make off of us because without us you wouldn’t have sh*t.
BJ: You’re a powerhouse of a filmmaker. I know you don’t want to get cornered into a specific genre, but you are an insanely talented genre filmmaker, and I hope you’re aware of that. Is there anything you’re working on at this time?
Nathan Crooker: #NOFILTER is more of a proof of concept for a feature if anyone is reading this and wants to do that. I’ve written, like yourself, multiple feature-length scripts, and I’ve got two that I’m running parallel paths with. One’s a bit more expensive than the other. One is about a young trans girl [who] gets turned into the daughter she’s always wanted.
BJ: That sounds wild!
Nathan Crooker: Yeah, it was going to go before the pandemic. We had a great team of people like Zackary Drucker, who is a producer on Transparent; she just directed Lady and the Dale on HBO. Such a sweet, awesome human and a great artist. She came on board and made the script better and helped with the voice of the character. It’s all based, well not based, but somewhat about some things that happened to a friend of mine. I wrote that, and it’s like Misery meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There’s that world, which I’m going back to, but it’s a bit more expensive. Another movie I have called Play With Me is more like The Strangers meets Evil Dead but subverts all your expectations. It starts out as a home invasion film and then goes to a possession film. It’s really a story about family, love, and trust. I mean the strongest horror films are dramas drenched in blood.
BJ: I’m very much looking forward to what you have in the pipeline. Are those going to be West Coast or East Coast productions?
Nathan Crooker: That’s up in the air. But it’s also like, where’s a good tax incentive.
BJ: Canada.
Nathan Crooker: Yeah, Canada! We thought about doing Nothing Wrong With Us in Canada. I think it will have a lot to do with which producers we can bring on and how much money we can get.
BJ: My final question I have, the typical interview question, do you have any advice for anyone trying to break into becoming a filmmaker?
Nathan Crooker: I would say the advice I give myself every day and that’s don’t give up. Don’t stop. Work as hard as you can. Don’t worry about what everyone else thinks. With social media, it’s so easy to get buried with others’ successes. It’s all bullsh*t. Like I was saying before, yeah, we got into a sh*t ton of festivals because it’s October—don’t get me wrong, #NOFILTER will get into more festivals and do well because the talent on the screen is great—but it looks like it’s going crazy because of how many festivals happen in October. Now if I missed that, and you were to look at my Instagram November, December, January…I don’t know, maybe it wouldn’t depress you so much if you were a filmmaker. Also, I think it’s important to get your stuff out to other filmmakers and get their opinions. Misha really helped me with the dialogue for #NOFILTER a lot because I’m not twenty.
BJ: Honestly, a lot of times when there is dialogue for younger people, it can feel stilted if someone older writes it, whereas the dialogue in #NOFILTER feels natural. Even the comments and DMs Kelly gets when she posts her first photo, all of those comments read exactly like what I see online every day. It didn’t feel fake.
Nathan Crooker: One of the things I love about filmmaking is the collaborative effort behind it all. I get so jazzed when things come together and I can see other people excited. Or if someone has an idea and I take it, as a director, it’s my job to either say yes or no to a lot of stuff. You’re an idiot if you’re going to say no to a good idea because you didn’t think about it. Collaboratively, it can be anyone that has an idea, and if it will make the movie better, then let’s do it. There’s actually a crazy story from the set on #NOFILTER. We had an Alexa Mini, with super expensive lenses and everything. The fourth shot in, I was looking at Jason Banker, an incredible man. He directed/wrote/produced Toad Road and one called Felt, which crushed it at festivals; [he] was the DP [on #NOFILTER]. I was like, we have so many shots, we’re gonna die, this sensor sucks with the lights we have. He’s like, all right man, I’m gonna go to the car…I have three Sony a7S IIIs in the car and a gimble. So we took that Alexa, put it on the ground like a doorstop, and both of us were shooting on a7S IIIs for the rest of the movie.
BJ: That is fantastic, and it looks great! I’d like to try to bring this up without spoilers: the scene at the end after the phone falls to the ground and [redacted] is [redacted]. That absolutely blew me away. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that idea executed that way before.
Nathan Crooker: Yeah. I’m waiting for someone to rip it off and put it in a feature. The thing, it’s funny, you know, you do these short films, and I had written this one a lot longer. I had written in…well, the whole idea was that it doesn’t just affect her physically, it affects her emotionally. Like with Misha in the beginning, and they’re like, don’t f*cking talk to me like that. And Kelly is like, what the f*ck. If the phone doesn’t like what someone is saying about your appearance, she could be telling them to get the app off their phone, and it wouldn’t allow that to happen. It’s always trying to be the thing that is motivating you. In the feature-length, and what I had in the short, was she’s on the phone with her mom and gets really nasty with her, which is completely out of character. So, at the end, it sort of harkens back to this idea of where it might have come from or how it happened. It leaves it open to a lot of questions, but I have all the answers. It’s a fun ending in the short, but you can track back to one of those things where if you think about it, you can make sense of it in your own way.
BJ: I’m a huge fan of ambiguity; I don’t like when there is too much ambiguity without context clues. I feel like you give enough context clues so that you can put the pieces together if you want to, or if not, you can just let it end in your mind how it does.
Nathan Crooker: I love putting breadcrumbs through things. If you listen to the app when it takes her over, you hear this woman’s moan and a scream. That takes it back to where did this thing come from? It’s like whatever was trapped in this phone has been released. With that little bit of information, you can start to add a little bit more on how you see the ending. One of the hardest things to do, and one of the most fun, was creating that filter. That’s a real filter that Kelly has.
BJ: You had an app coded and everything?
Nathan Crooker: Yeah. We had a designer make it in the Snapchat UX. It took a long time, like we were still messing with it on the set. I had to call them up and refresh it and move her eyebrows. I mean, Kelly is gorgeous as it is, but when you start manipulating these filters, it’s so easy. One person thought it was a different girl. But yeah it was a filter we made. It’s so drastically different, even Kelly was like, wow this is dark.
BJ: I didn’t even realize that, I just assumed they were separate shots you took of her with makeup on.
Nathan Crooker: If you go back and screenshot her and her with the filter, you can see her forehead is a bit smaller, lips are bigger, eyes closer. Everything about her is different.
BJ: As a director who’s dealing with the idea of taking someone who is already naturally attractive and making them more attractive, was there any talk with her? Like, don’t be offended, we’re going to do things with this filter with the goal of making you objectively more attractive? Did you have a conversation like that?
Nathan Crooker: I had it in a bit of a different way. She knew what we were going to do, and as an actor, you’re playing a part. What I said was, are you going to be okay with this? I said, here’s the deal, are you cool with that? Then when we did it, I asked, how did it feel? It’s a weird thing, people don’t…I could tell she was sort of like, this is weird. I think the movie hit home a little more once we had that for everyone. People were like, this is f*cked up. I just wanted to make sure she felt comfortable and safe, and that it didn’t put her in a bad headspace—that is what we were trying to get away from!
BJ: Any chance you would ever release the Newu filter?
Nathan Crooker: We thought about it, and people were telling us to hold off—that’s your marketing ploy for the feature. The people who design those filters that go viral and everyone uses them, they’re geniuses because this is one is so specific to Kelly’s face that if any other woman was to put it on, it would probably make them look terrifying. With Misha’s, too, we made one for them. I had a couple of friends put it on, and it didn’t look good. If I was to do a feature, I mean we also had one filter that we were gonna do where, after you had it on for a few seconds, it would start to f*ck your face up and make it bleed. Maybe after this gets out there, somebody will come on and want to make the feature, then you and I can work on the filter together.
BJ: Hell yeah! Honestly, I really appreciate you taking the time to sit down and talk about your entire body of work. I’m not sure if that’s what you realized you were getting into. Any final thoughts?
Nathan Crooker: Isolation is out now on all the platforms. Rent it, buy it, leave us a great review if you like it. It was nice to talk with you and go back down memory lane. I haven’t thought about some of those films in a really long time, and thank you for taking the time to watch them all!
