PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Well friends, it’s the summer so that means one thing – Fantasia! This year, the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal, Canada is celebrating its 29th edition and once again showcasing some truly talented genre filmmakers and providing eclectic and explosive viewing material for movie enthusiasts.
My next piece out of Fantasia this year is an interview with filmmaker Annapurna Sriram for her movie, Fucktoys, a sexploitation black comedy that had its Canadian premiere at the fest on July 22, 2025. This movie is a ton of fun!
A young woman seeks to break a curse by raising $1000 for psychics in a pre-millennium alternate universe. She navigates the seedy underbelly of Trashtown via scooter, encountering bizarre characters along the way.
To celebrate Fucktoys being at the fest, I chatted with Annapurna about how the film came about, leather daddy cops, mopeds, horror movies, and more!
PopHorror: I had a lot of fun with Fucktoys so I’m super excited to talk to you about it today.
Annapurna Sriram: I’m so glad!
PopHorror: What sparked the idea for Fucktoys and how did the project come about?
Annapurna Sriram: The movie was sparked out of a mix of general frustration with what I was seeing being made and what I was being offered as an actor and missing a sort of breed of fun, irreverent camp cult cinema. The actual thing that propelled it into existence was, I was really sick with this low-grade fever for like a month, and I talked with a psychic and basically, she was like, “You need to dump your boyfriend. It’s your boyfriend causing it and if you don’t dump him, you’re not going to have the career that you’re supposed to have and you’re just going to get more sick.” And so, then I just immediately dumped him. Then I felt really insane, and I was trying to get him back and he was like, “No, I think this is over,” and I was just so heartbroken. When you’re in the throes of heartbreak, it’s like what are you going to do but start writing? I was also kind of fascinated by myself and the absurdism of how I pride myself on being a very rational, non-religious person but then a psychic told me to do one thing and I just immediately did it and changed my whole life in seconds. What followed was me writing these scenes that were from my life, interactions I was really having. Scenes that were with other psychics I talked to that I felt were kind of funny and absurd. Then there was this other boy that I was had a crush on and he wanted to be an actor, and I was like, “Okay, I’ll write a part for you and we can fuck in the movie,” and he was the Danni character but that didn’t really work out between us. Then I was like, fuck, I don’t even want to cast this boy in this part anymore. I’d rather just work with a girl or a nonbinary person or a transmasc person who doesn’t get to play these parts. Like fuck cis boys. That is how the whole thing came together.
PopHorror: Wow!
Annapurna Sriram: A lot going on there!
PopHorror: You said that you were frustrated with what you were being offered as an actor, so did you write this with yourself in mind to star in it, basically like, “I’m not getting what I want so I’m going to write it myself and cast myself?”
Annapurna Sriram: Yes! I didn’t plan on directing the movie. I just saw it as I wanted to play a hot, sexy person. I think brown girls need to have icons that they can look at and that they can see, like they can be the desirable woman in a story or in a narrative. That kind of representation was really important to me, especially because at the time I would audition for like Master of None and they were basically like, “Oh, you’re too charming and Aziz, I’m sorry, has to reject you.” Or I would audition for The Big Sick and it’s like, “Oh, you’re like the weird Muslim girl that Kumail’s parents want him to marry but you have to be strange and he’s choosing this white girl.” I felt like so many narratives perpetuated this idea that your eccentric beauty is superior to women of color and I think that’s detrimental to all the people like me. So I just felt like we needed to have a movie where the main person – I’ll do it because I don’t care, I’m a slut – is liberated, where they’re sexy, where they never have to address their identity, where they never have to grapple with their parents or anything like that, and they just get to be iconic and sexy because I think young women need to see themselves reflected in a way so that they know that they’re beautiful and that they’re desirable and that they’re worthy. Otherwise, we’re just sending this message constantly that white is superior. That was one of my really big intentions. I also just felt like a lot of cult cinema, while I love cult cinema, is pretty white. When you look at indie darling actors, they’re all white celebrities, so I wanted there to be diversity across the board with the casting and with the representation so that there can be this cult movie that can exist for my people, essentially.
PopHorror: I love that! I love that you’re like, “Fuck it, I’m not getting what I want so I’m just going to go ahead and write this for myself.”
Annapurna Sriram: Yeah! I would audition for stuff, and I would always be these like virginal, almost sexless doctor, nurse, friend characters but then in real life, the number of white men who fetishized women who look like me. I go out with my girlfriends and I’m the one getting hit on. There’s a disconnect between reality and what is sexy in reality, and what we’re given in the media as what’s sexy.
PopHorror: As the director, was there anything that you were adamant about keeping in the film, no matter what?
Annapurna Sriram: I was really lucky that my lead producer, Tim [Petryni], was on board with every single thing in the script. He went to bat for me with every single thing that I wanted in the movie. All of the intimate scenes, I blocked for shooting to basically be implied offscreen sex scenes because I didn’t want any actor or anyone to be freaked out or uncomfortable on set, so I wanted there to basically be this plan of we’re not really going to see anything, it’s about their connection. We did have a budget issue. We were maybe going to have to cut the leather daddy cops and I remember my producer being like, “NO! We have to have the leather daddy cops! We’re going to spend the extra money and bring them back to set.” I was just very lucky that my producing team saw the vision. If anything, I would be the person at times to be like, “Well, I guess we could lose this,” or “I guess we don’t have the budget for that,” and then they would be the ones to come in and be like, “No, we have to have that. That’s important.” I was very lucky that I didn’t have to battle creatively with my producers and my investors but that there was this weird sort of belief in the choices that were being made.
PopHorror: The cops made me think, is this Cruising?
Annapurna Sriram: Yeah, exactly! That’s my little homage to Cruising! Can you imagine in this world like they’re just getting fisted in prison? There’s this one cop in Cruising who comes in with just like the jockstrap and cowboy hat and just hits him and he’s like, “Who the fuck are you?” Yeah, it’s a fisting party.
PopHorror: This film deals with a lot of taboo subjects. I hate the word taboo, but I couldn’t think of a better word to use.
Annapurna Sriram: Untraditional!
PopHorror: I was googling for a better word and was like, yeah, I’ll use it but just say how much I hate it. How did you convey your vision to your cast and crew?
Annapurna Sriram: I had very extensive decks that I built. My first deck that really convinced people to get on board was handmade and I basically shot all this photography, and I didn’t know how to use any sort of program so I scanned every slide of the desk on my scanner with all the photos and objects, and I would handwrite the copy. My very first pitch deck won a lot of people over I think because no one had ever seen anything like it. It just felt like you’re back in the 90s and you and your friends are making shit on a scanner at like Office Depot or something. You’re going to make like a flier for a show. Then I build really, really extensive decks for the world building of the movie that was pulled from reference films. It was very detailed. I had a very specific color palette that was inspired by the Rider-Waite Tarot cards. Every character is a tarot card. A lot of sets are different tarot cards. Her moped is The Chariot. I had all these very specific iconography and color, and I was always like, when in doubt, just pull from the card. What’s on the card? Just put that in the frame. I think that that plus the references and shooting on 16 and shooting with anamorphic lenses helped them understand that this is a timecapsule movie. Like this should be a movie that people watch and they’re like, “Wait, when was this made? Is this from the 70s? No, they have flip phones!” I want this to be a question of when and where did this come from? My cinematographer really got that. My production designer really got that so I think that drawing on nostalgia and then drawing on this kitsch grandma secondhand Goodwill in the South. Like you just walk into a Goodwill in the South and that’s the design of the movie.
PopHorror: I liked it when her moped was stolen and she’s on the phone like, “Yeah, my moped was stolen. My moped.” Like they didn’t know what a moped was. I was like, who uses the word moped? Are they even called mopeds anymore? Do they still make those?
Annapurna Sriram: She’s like crying and he’s like, “What are you saying?” She’s like, “My moped is stolen!” It’s like, what? Does he even know that’s how she gets around?
PopHorror: Are mopeds still a thing? I have not heard anyone say the word moped in a really long time. I have just one last question for you today. What’s your favorite scary movie?
Annapurna Sriram: Lair of the White Worm. I love Ken Russell. I love stockings. I love a leg in a stocking. So does he. I love when he ties them up. I’m kinky so I love everything kind of kinky like that.
Thank you so much Annapurna for taking the time to speak with us. Fucktoys is currently on the festival circuit.
