PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Spider One and Krsy Fox (read our interviews with them HERE and HERE) are back with another horror film and I have to say, I think this one is their best yet. Written and directed by Spider One (Little Bites; frontman of Powerman 5000) and starring Krsy (Little Bites) and Brandon Scott (read our interview with him HERE), Big Baby is a bloody and violent slasher that’s also witty and a little bit funny. Who knew that a killer in a giant onesie and baby mask could be so terrifying?
Successful horror screenwriter Adam struggles for inspiration until a terrifying nightmare about a masked killer sparks an idea for his new script. As he delves deeper into the story, the line between reality and fiction begins to blur.
To celebrate the release of the film, I chatted with Spider One and Krsy about transforming the original short into a feature-length film, online criticism, having Cher as a producer, and more!
PopHorror: I love Big Baby. Seriously, I think this one is your best one yet.
Spider One: Thank you!
Krsy Fox: Thank you!
PopHorror: I loved it so much so I’m super excited to talk to you guys about it today.
Spider One: I knew you were my favorite for a reason.
PopHorror: Big Baby started as a fake movie within a movie from your 2022 feature, Allegoria. At what exact moment did you both look at each other and say, “Wait, this joke idea is actually a great premise for a real feature film?”
Spider One: I don’t know if there was an exact moment but when we did Allegoria, we did the Big Baby segment and never really thought about it again. It was actually the audience that kept bringing it up, “That’s the best part of the movie!”, “You’ve got to make a Big Baby movie!”. At first, you’re just laughing it off like this is ridiculous. Like no way is that going to happen, and then you just have a moment where you’re like, well, maybe that isn’t so ridiculous. Maybe there’s a way to do it and like in the actual Big Baby movie where Kate says to Adam, “Hey, here’s your new idea!” and he’s like, “No, that’s ridiculous. A slasher movie? Never!”. That was my initial reaction and the more it sat with me, I was like, maybe there’s a really interesting way to approach this and find a way to incorporate all the fun stuff from slasher movies that I was always sort of envious of. I’ve never made one, create a character in a mask and all this kind of stuff but do it in a way that made sense for me and my sensibility as a writer and the way that I like to approach stories. One day, I think I just said hey, I’m going to see if I can figure this out and it happened.
PopHorror: I love slashers so I’m here for it.
Krsy Fox: Me too!
PopHorror: Krsy, you share a lot of charming, natural banter and dynamic tension with costar Brandon Scott. How did you build that core relationship to make the terrifying moments hit harder?
Krsy Fox: That’s a great question. We had this really rare thing happen with us where we had this immediate chemistry. I think we just really liked each other. He felt like a really safe person right away and really invested in the story and who these people were, so I feel like we fell into it right away. One of the first things we shot together was the opening scene, the scene where we’re eating dinner at the table and talking. It was the first day of working with him that I was like, oh wow, this is going to be really special. I kind of lost myself in the character and their conversation. My favorite thing to do is show up on set super prepared but let my scene partner surprise me and see where the journey can take us, and Brandon was such a great scene partner for that that it became just so easy and you just really like… By the time we got to the finale, which we shot later in the film, I was genuinely so heartbroken for what was happening to them that a lot of the response and emotionalness that came from us really was just because we were invested in their story and how everything was sort of crumbling. We do a lot of pre-pro, we talked a lot with Spider, we did some rehearsals together, but we didn’t get to spend a ton of time together other than just knowing that we really respected each other, really liked each other, and were excited to work together. I feel like it was just day one it was like woah, something magical is happening that often you have to work a lot harder for but there was something with our dynamic that just worked really well for this. He would surprise me all the time and I just had so much fun doing this movie.
PopHorror: The chemistry definitely shows through; that’s the first thing I noticed. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Adam encounters the podcasters in the coffee shop. I thought, there has to be a story here. Your movie turns a bad review into a literal death sentence. Was writing the script a form of catharsis or a giant middle finger to anyone who has misunderstood your work?
Spider One: Here’s the thing, I’m okay with people misunderstanding my work and I almost wear it as a badge of honor when people don’t like what I do. There’s something about growing up a punk rock kid and loving always subversive stuff. You don’t want to be loved by everybody. You want people to like what you do but there is something about liking the movies that you shouldn’t be watching or loving the bands that nobody knows about yet. It doesn’t really bother me one way or the other because there are people that love what you do, there are people that don’t, but one thing I did start to pay more attention to as I made movies was online criticism or that culture. The majority of people are very thoughtful and love movies and like to talk about movies, but there is a certain segment that I wanted to represent that were just there to be awful people. Our podcasters in the movie are not even as bad as some of the people I’ve stumbled across.
PopHorror: I believe that!
Spider One: There’s an interesting idea that there are people that spend their time talking about movies that don’t seem to even like movies. It’s sort of like they’re there just to say everything’s terrible. It’s interesting how that scene plays depending on where we show the movie. Not giving anything away, in Big Baby there is a scene where Adam confronts the podcaster that had just tore apart his movie and it culminates with a certain thing happening, and when we showed the movie in LA, it was met with a round of applause. I was like, yes! Because I know the whole auditorium was filled with directors and writers and actors that were just like, “I wish I could do that!” I was obviously aware of that online vibe but I was shocked at some of the level of meanness that exists out there. You use it and put it in the movie.
PopHorror: I believe it. You not only make movies but being a musician, you get it from both ends.
Spider One: Yeah. That’s the thing. I’ve said it before. You can’t really take any criticism good or bad personally because none of it… It’s all the same. Someone could say, “You’re my favorite band ever. You make the best records; you’re better than the Beatles!” I’m not going to believe that. Someone could say, “You are in the worst band ever. It’s shit, it’s garbage, it should never exist,” and it’s like well, I have to take each criticism in the same way. I can’t really believe either one of them. If you believe the good stuff, you’ve got to believe the bad stuff. You just have to realize that art is a very subjective thing. Some people love abstract art and some people love paintings of landscapes, and you have to understand there’s something for everyone, I suppose.
PopHorror: So, it just blows my mind that iconic popstar and legend Cher is an executive producer again. I know she was also a producer on Little Bites. What kind of feedback or interaction did you guys get from her during production?
Krsy Fox: It’s interesting. After we did Little Bites, which she really loved and she was never a horror fan because she gets really scared. Obviously, she watched our movie and she really liked it so she actually started venturing out, and she watched Get Out, and she watched Split, and some other movies, and she really liked them! She was very excited. It was funny; the one note we got from her about Little Bites was, “I want more blood.” We were like, “Okay!” So, along comes Big Baby and she got more blood. It’s more in the earlier stages. Tell her the idea, tell her what we want to do. I think she just really liked the way that we would make films. It was so different from the way that she was used to making films and I think it was very intriguing to her. I remember she introduced Little Bites at our premiere at Beyond Fest, and we were sitting up in the projection room with her because you can’t just have Cher in the lobby. It’s very overwhelming. She was just like, “So, when’s the next one?” I think she just finds it fun and it’s a different outlet. Her boyfriend’s son, who’s a young boy, he’s like six years old and he loves scary stuff so I think that there’s that now in her house that she can’t get away from it. That’s really it. It’s sort of a surreal experience when you make a film and then you’re sitting in her house in her theater screening it with her sitting beside you, and you’re sort of dying inside like, oh my god, Cher’s watching something that we made! She’s watching me act; I think I’m going to throw up. But she just gets very excited and asks questions through the whole thing. Yeah, it’s sort of a surreal thing. Never thought in my lifetime that she would be a producer on something that we made. It’s very cool.
PopHorror: That is so cool! And she’s supporting Chaz [Bono] too because you guys work with Chaz so much. I love that. I think that’s so amazing.
Spider One: Yeah!
PopHorror: I don’t know if you guys can see but I have a VHS of Mermaids behind me and Big Baby is definitely nothing like what she does.
Krsy Fox: This is how sweet she is. My daughter really loves Cher. She’s six and we were looking for a movie and we saw Burlesque and she was like, “I want to watch it! I want to see Cher!” and then she started crying halfway through and she’s like, “I miss her,” so I texted her and said, “Elle says she missed you.” She called and said, “Hey, tomorrow night I want you to watch Mermaids, and after you watch it I want you to call me and tell me what you think.” She sort of had this relationship with my daughter and showing her her movies. My daughter has no idea how cool that is. She’s six, but one day her mind is going to be blown that that’s just been the norm for her.
Thank you so much to Spider One and Krsy for taking the time to chat with us. Big Baby is now on On Demand!
