PopHorror Let's Get Scared
We recently got the chance to chat with indie horror filmmaker and comedian Ricky Glore and picked his brain about his films, All Your Friends Are Dead, Caw, Racyst, Dead Woods, and his upcoming horror comedy, Open House. Check it out!
PopHorror: You’ve only been in the film industry for a few years now. How did you get into this field?
Ricky Glore: True, I did just release my first feature film, All Your Friends Are Dead, in 2022, but I have been making short films and comedy sketches going back as far as 1999. A good friend of mine who lived up a street, his dad was in production and had some old filming equipment, so in his basement and backyard, we would do these SNL, Python, Kids in the Hall-like comedy pieces, and then eventually evolved into doing more narratively structured “shorts,” most of which were horror inspired.
By the time I graduated high school in 2004, I met my current filming partner, Nick Hiance—he’s the co-founder of NKY Films and co-director/cinematographer of All Your Friends Are Dead—and with some of our other friends, we started putting together a half hour cable access sketch comedy show, which aired on Campbell County, Kentucky’s local cable access network. Around this same time, we shot our first horror movie, Dead Woods. The film ran around 15 minutes, but the DVD we made for it has over two hours of special features and two commentary tracks… good luck finding the DVD!
Flash forward to a week before the pandemic took over the world in March 2020. We wrapped filming on a proof of concept for what was going to be my first feature, which then turned into Caw [watch the film here], a horror short film for festivals. Once the world opened up a bit more at the beginning of 2021, I filmed my next horror short for festivals, Racyst [watch the film here].
After the success of Caw and Racyst on the festival circuits, Nick and I started developing what would become All Your Friends Are Dead. In between that and our next, current feature, Open House, we shot the proof of concept for Roadkill [watch the film here], a feature that at this time would end up costing us too much to make.
PopHorror: Most of your projects—so far, at least—have been horror related. What draws you to horror?
Ricky Glore: I grew up loving horror and being shown all kinds of horror—not actual, real life horror, just on film—at way too young of an age. One of my first memories of watching a movie is being three years old. It’s 1988, and I’m laying at the foot of my parents’ bed. They think I’m asleep, they and pop in a movie they just rented… A Nightmare On Elm Street. I was not asleep. And I NEVER slept again…
Besides watching horror movies, I was also shown a lot of older comedies like Martin and Lewis movies, Hope and Crosby road pictures, Marx Brothers, Three Stooges and Abbott and Costello. My dad used Abbot And Costello Meet Frankenstein as my introduction to horror. He didn’t know I had already seen Elm Street and had a coffee maker hidden under my bunk bed. After I seemed okay with that movie, he introduced me to all the Universal Monster movies, then Hammer Horror Films, and then straight into the deep end with films like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Phantasm. That puts me at about age 6.
PopHorror: Jeez, I guess you did start young. Do you have a favorite horror movie? What do you love about it?
Ricky Glore: I do have a strong love for the Phantasm series, but my #1 big foam finger goes to the OG, A Nightmare On Elm Street. Those gorgeous dark blue, nighttime dream shots—RIP cinematographer Jacques Haitkin—the iconography, the pace, the story… so good. Also, in my opinion, Elm Street and Freddy are the scariest, hands down. You can watch Friday the 13th or Halloween and be scared, but unless you run across Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees in real life, you’re good. Freddy… well, Freddy is different. You can watch an Elm Street movie and then that night, go through exactly what the kids went through in the movie by having a dream with him in it.
A bunch of horror movies, whether they include something supernatural or fantastical or not, have way too many buy ins. Elm Street sets its world up perfectly in the opening scene with Tina. We start off in a dream with a weird, creepy figure with a claw hand chasing her. He swipes at her, she screams, and wakes up to reveal that the claw-handed man actually did cut her nightgown. BOOM. Rules set. The buy in is, even though this world looks like real life and the world the viewer of the film is watching it in in this world… if this creepy, claw-handed man does something to you in your dream, it is going to affect you when you wake up. So good.
PopHorror: I’ve always thought that about the Elm Street movies. You can have the scariest nightmare about any horror movie, but nothing compares to a nightmare about Freddy, whose world is literally in dreams. He could actually be real! And you’re fighting him in your nightmare, so there’s no one around to help you…
In your film, All Of Your Friends Are Dead, you both direct and act. Was it hard pulling this off as a first time director/actor? Do you prefer being in front of or behind the camera?
Ricky Glore: Necessity is the mother of invention, and that is ever so true with a micro-budget film. So out of necessity, we developed a story that would have focus on a lead actor that we knew we could film whenever we needed to and depend on… me. Ultimately, it worked out well because that’s how we got to the story we ended up doing for All Your Friends Are Dead, but man, oh man… I do not want to wear that many hats again.
I like acting and enjoy being cast in other people’s projects, but when it comes to executing something I’ve written, am producing and directing? I’d rather my focus be behind the scenes.
PopHorror: We want to know more about your newest film, Open House. Can you tell us a bit about it?
Ricky Glore: The best surprise that came out of All Your Friends Are Dead was how much of a dark comedy it played out as in front of audiences. When dealing with depression and possible suicide, Nick [Hiance] and I wanted to make sure while we were developing and making the film, that none of the humor in it came from a place of mocking those things. We wanted whatever humor that was going to exist to come from earnest, relatable interactions, characters and situations. We didn’t realize fully how humorous a lot of those moments were until the first couple of public screenings. We noticed that consistently people were laughing in the same places throughout the film. This helped us decide that, for our next film, while still staying in the Land of Horror, we were going to embrace the horror dark comedy genre, but now also infuse it with one of my other favorite things to put in a entertainment milkshake… music.
I think if you can make something a little awkward and scary, and then a little awkward and funny, then you are giving the audience the best kind of roller coaster when it comes to watching a movie. Your scares might come off that much more scary, and your laughs might be that much more boisterous, because you are constantly off your guard.
PopHorror: Who inspired you the most to make Open House?
Ricky Glore: I met my wife while I lived in Chicago. During that time, I started writing storefront blackbox musicals, most of which were usually horror related. My wife became a bit of a muse for me, and I kept writing these projects, and then directing them with her in them. We had such a great time. When I started developing the idea for Open House, I decided to use that as an inspiration. What if this Realty husband and wife team were deranged lunatics who kidnapped and tortured people by making them watch an original musical in the basement of a home? Oh, and they also eat the people…
Tonally, the best way I can describe Open House is: Texas Chain Saw Massacre meets Rocky Horror Picture Show or Texas Chain Saw Massacre meets Waiting For Guffman.
PopHorror: How was filming Open House compared to All Your Friends Are Dead?
Ricky Glore: We are launching our Kickstarter for Open House on June 1, 2023, and then start filming at the end of July. We’ve done a table read and shot the teaser trailer that you can see on the Kickstarter, and so far that has all been a blast! The one thing I know I’m going to enjoy about Open House is being purely behind the scenes. Acting is a hat I am happy to take off and let other, more talented performers wear.
PopHorror: Why Kickstarter?
Ricky Glore: The budget we need to make Open House is $15,000… That’s nothing right? Wrong. It’s the most money anyone has ever asked anyone to make a movie! That’s not true, but when you’re asking people to help bring a horror dark comedy musical to life, it feels that way.
What I love about Kickstarter, especially in the horror community, is that horror film lovers get to basically act as producers and fund these awesome projects. Because of their contributions, the movie gets funded and can happen. Open House had a lot of moving parts: original music, talented creatives in front of and behind the camera, and copious amounts of gross gore from SPFX master Trevor Thompson.
With our Kickstarter, you just don’t make the movie happen, you can pre buy the movie with our limited special edition Blu-ray perk. You’re not just giving money, you’re buying the film via pre-order. If you’ve ever wanted to have your name on a movie poster or film as an associate producer or producer, we have that perk. Your name will be in the credits and on IMDb. If you ever wanted to get killed in a horror movie… we got that, too!
PopHorror: Trust me, I know all about asking people for money to make your movie… we need less than $4,000 and getting it is like asking for a kidney. Are you inspired by anyone in the business?
Ricky Glore: I have two older brothers, and my middle brother, Eric, graduated in 1999 and is five years older than me. So while my dad was showing me older, classic films growing up, my brother Eric was taking me to see a lot of the indie films of the ’90s, starting my love and appreciation for filmmakers like Kevin Smith, Robert Rodriguez, Richard Linklater, Spike Lee, Nicole Holofcener, Wes Anderson, and Quentin Tarantino.
I am still in awe of the Filmmaking Class of the ’90s—I honestly think we’re coming into another indie filmmaking boom now akin to the one in the ’90s—but a few of the newer creatives that I draw inspiration from are Ari Aster, the Duplass Brothers—Mark Duplass’ SXSW speech is a must for all indie creatives, in whatever field your in— Greta Gerwig, Brandon Cronenberg, and a fun R&B band called The Dip.
PopHorror: If you could work with any celebrity and/or crew member, alive or dead, who would they be and why?
Ricky Glore: Hmmm… when you say “dead or alive,” it almost makes me think that you have to pick someone dead. Why pick someone who’s alive if you’re given the chance to revive someone? The alive person will still be there to work with, so you should use this power of necromancing or whatever amulet or spell you have to bring this talent from the grave.
Unless the catch-22/monkey’s paw is that if you pick someone dead, it immediately kills the alive person that you would later want to work with…
I think I would like to work with Robert Rodriguez. He’s a man that wears a lot of hats and not that there aren’t other creatives, directors, or writers who have their hands in so many different aspects of production, but with him, like myself, he has a vision and an ear for what he wants to bring to life. I would really like to collaborate and pick his brain. I’d love a year of working alongside him at his Troublemaker Studios, on a film and developing the look, sound, music, all aspects of the project, like he does. I’m not saying that I want or like complete control over what I’m doing. I love collaboration with the minds who are much smarter than I am and knowledgeable in their fields of expertise, but I am very much drawn to the renaissance creator entertainer that Rodriguez is.
PopHorror: Wow, that was… complicated. And then you picked someone who’s alive anyway (laughs). One last question… What scares you?
Ricky Glore: Not creating.
Thanks so much for chatting with us, Ricky!
To learn more about the writer/director visit www.RickyGlore.com. And keep your eyes peeled for more info about Open House!
