PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Passionate indie filmmaker, craft beer connoisseur, and home garden guru, D. Ryan Mowry has made it his goal to bring fans a movie teeming with nostalgic backwoods horror – There’s Something Inhuman in the Woods. After ditching his corporate ball and chain, Mowry has become laser-focused on fulfilling the creative aspirations he always held.
Sharing his story and goals, Ryan candidly speaks about trying to balance an all-consuming job, maintaining creative outlets, and of course his latest endeavor, There’s Something Inhuman in the Woods, which has about two weeks left on its Indiegogo run.
PopHorror: Ryan, you’re pretty well-versed in a variety of fields. You have extensive knowledge in craft beer brewing alongside cultivating your very own horror-themed hot sauces. You are a talented artist, often paying homage to our favorite genre. But you are also a passionate movie lover who has crossed that bridge into directing your own films. Do you remember when you told yourself you were going to try your hand at directing?
D. Ryan Mowry: First, thanks for having me and letting me blabber a bit about my stuff, I greatly appreciate it! And thanks for all the kind words!
Actually, yes, I remember exactly when I decided I wanted to make movies: it was after I watched Reservoir Dogs for the first time. And then Clerks and El Mariachi made me realize that people can afford to make their own movies, by themselves, outside the studios. Then I found Troma and saw that they had been successful making low budget movies forever. It was finding these all around the same time that helped to form the idea in my head that I could do that too. A lot of my early stuff was me and my writing partner, Elisa, and we just decided we were going to make our own short, knuckleheads, on the streets of Germany, guerrilla style. We shot outdoors in Kaiserslautern with no permits and no permission, just a couple of people, lights, a camera, and a boom mic in the middle of the sidewalk. We had the weirdest stuff happen, including a guy walking his two ferrets who literally just walked in the middle of a shot looking at the camera and asking in German, “So, what are you all doing?” It was ridiculous. I was hooked.
Knuckleheads never got finished because I moved from Germany to Albuquerque, and my writing partner followed soon after. There we made some cable access stuff and some other shorts together, and then I attempted to make a full-length zombie stoner comedy. We lost access to the equipment so that fell apart, but I was able to edit what we had into a short, which played at TromaDance and got the attention of another person who had written his own campy comedy. Steve (W. Eckles) approached me about directing the script he had written, and I was willing to as long as I could rewrite it as it had lots of stuff that was too big budget to attempt at this scale, so I gave Defective Man! my own spin, and we worked together to make it. DM! was my first feature, made over the course of five years and finally premiered back in 2010. We had a cast of 70 and then other crew and almost no one got paid because we made it for next to nothing. It was really hard to do as we weren’t paying anyone, and people regularly didn’t show up or quit. We went through two Defective Men, two Bill Gills, and our Horn Dog is the fourth person to play that part. He wasn’t even supposed to act, he was my AD. But we persevered and finished the movie, premiering it at Albuquerque’s Guild Cinema in May of 2010. The day after it played, I got in a U-Haul and moved my family to San Antonio, Texas, for my corporate job.
I was able to make one short during this next phase of my life, Cluster, but just never found the time to make more after that. I am extremely proud of Cluster though; it’s my “horror-art film,” a visual metaphor for my lifetime of dealing with debilitating headaches. Cluster screened at film festivals in California and Wisconsin, and “The Pain” was even nominated for best actor in a short, with zero lines! This one is available online if you want to see it, and it’s only eight minutes long. You can watch it HERE.
PopHorror: As I mentioned before, you have a lot of passion for different things in life. You also held a corporate gig while trying to pursue these passions. What was it like juggling all of this?
D. Ryan Mowry: Hard. I was actually at my corporate job for the last 13 years, and it’s been 13 years since I released a feature! Coincidence? I think not! But for me, there was always this drive, this need to do something creative. My day job was good, but it wasn’t enough to fulfill me creatively. At first, that started with me restarting Ryan’s Reviews – which actually started back on MySpace 84 years ago – my low and no-budget review site which I ran for a long time. This gave me a place to do some writing and get some of that itch out. Then I decided to work on opening a brewery, and my partner and I were working on a brewpub in the San Antonio area when life got in the way. Still having that need to create, I shifted to fermented hot sauce, and started painting as well, and this became Horrifying Hot Sauce. Now I have moved to Denver and am working on Horrifying Brewing Company/Horrifying Hot Sauce as a new business venture.
But I did all this because I had to – I have a need to create. It doesn’t matter so much if it’s movies or art or beer and hot sauce recipes. I just need to make things. And when I make things that I see other people enjoying, that makes me really happy. I wasn’t happy in a corporate job because I wasn’t able to fulfill that need, so I had to balance it as much as I could. With a list of different things I was trying to do, filmmaking fell off for a while. Well, life sometimes makes the big decisions for you and my position at that corporation was eliminated, meaning a bunch of us no longer had jobs. I was given 60 days paid to find a new job, then severance. So, I immediately started working on Horrifying Brewing Company/Hot Sauce business plans and making connections with brewers and others in the area to try to get my business started before my severance and savings run out! But I was also inspired, and in about two weeks I knocked out the first draft of There’s Something Inhuman in the Woods. Now, almost exactly 60 days later -that was last Friday – I have a script that I’m really proud of and a bunch of super talented people coming to Colorado to make it come to life.
PopHorror: You took a little hiatus from making movies, but now you’re back and determined to create There’s Something Inhuman in the Woods. Can you tell us a bit about the project and what you hope to deliver?
D. Ryan Mowry: I was helping Drew Roberts on his short, Hermit, just before I actually got furloughed. In between other stuff, I was wandering around the woods near where Hermit was filming, playing with a “VHS Recorder” app on my phone when I got inspired. Just messing around, I realized I could make a quick feature and make it an homage to those “Shot On Video” (SOV) movies of the 80s and 90s.
When I say SOV, I want to clarify, I don’t mean “found footage.” This is no Blair Witch. What I mean is those days early on in the video store era when an aspiring filmmaker could make something with his VHS Camcorder and two VCRs to edit on, and actually have a chance of seeing it on the shelf because the need for content was so high back then. There are filmmakers who have made entire careers with SOV, and it’s a genre I’ve always enjoyed. I have a huge soft spot for “So Bad It’s Good” cinema, and the best of SOV is usually there.
At the same time, I happened to watch Zach Olivares’ documentary about Chris Seaver, Zero Budget Heroes. I’ve been a fan of Chris’ films and moviemaking aesthetic for decades now, and we’ve known each other (at least virtually) for a long time. Watching how he can knock out a full movie in a weekend was just inspiring. I can’t even pretend like I can do that, because I’m not Chris (with his 60+ movies worth of experience) and don’t have the cast of regulars he does who know his beats and his wants. But I thought I could make an homage to the SOV days with a limited cast and locations, and probably knock it out in five. So I started writing.
I wanted the classic 80s horror movie feel, so I actually began by coming up with a list of titles and throwing it out there to my Facebook friends to see what they liked the best. They suggested – and I agreed – that There’s Something Inhuman in the Woods was the winner. With that title in mind, I came up with the basic plot of four childhood buddies going camping in the vast woods of Colorado with three of their significant others. I wanted to try to stick with a lot of the tropes and classic plot beats and characters of slasher films, so I built my movie around that – The Nerd, The Stoner, The Jock, The Bad Girl, The Final Girl, etc. Once that was in place, I outlined the plot, and started writing, and this movie just fell out of me.
I am extremely happy with the script, and I think people are going to get a kick out of it. It has its fair share of humor and wackiness, but by the end, it gets really dark and scary; I’ve had multiple people tell me that they actually gasped at the script when they were reading it! That feels pretty damned good, I gotta tell you. It’s gone through a few revisions, and I think the version we have now is probably 95% of the way there. It may need a few tweaks after our first table read.
Being as I made movies, and then also reviewed movies and music for literally decades now, when I decided to make this one, I started calling my friends I have made along the way. I have met a ton of super-talented people that I know through the years from the film and music worlds, and on top of the people I know, I also started reaching out and asking people if they’d want to be involved. I’m super excited to say we’ve got a host of talented people, from Drew as my producer and AD, to Jakob Bilinski from Cinephreak Pictures coming to shoot it, to emcee All Flows Reach Out (A-F-R-O) coming in to play one of our leads and write an original track for the movie, as well as quite a few actors I have worked with before or wanted to work with, like Andrew Baltes, Emily Durchholz, Bradd “Chastity Belt-Off” Howard, Josh McFadden, Mikey Manschot, Matt Naslanic, with more to be announced as the roles are filled.
We are also going to have a pretty kick-ass soundtrack. Being as the movie is set in 1993, the soundtrack is mostly punk-pop, ska-punk, a little grunge, and golden era boom-bap style hip-hop. We’ve got bands from all over – Tennessee punk rockers Casual Sects, and Big, If True rocking out, Austin’s Hans Gruber and the Die Hards and Omaha’s Plastic Presidents providing some ska, and Wisconsin’s Mark Adams, Son of Bill with a very Dinosaur Jr. influenced track. Then on the hip-hop side, we’ve got A-F-R-O from L.A. writing an original Inhuman track, as well as Brooklyn’s 2 Skinnee J’s providing us a period-accurate track from the 90s! As time goes on, we’ll have more music to announce as well, but in the meantime, you should check out all these band’s Bandcamp pages. And remember, the first Friday in August they get all the profits from anything you buy. Just sayin’… If you like their music, that’s a great way to support them!
As I mentioned, Jake from Cinephreak is going to come out and shoot this movie, and I am so excited for that. I have known Jake for years, having first reviewed one of his movies in at least 2008, maybe 2007? We kept in touch and now we hang out online once a week with a group of friends doing nerdy stuff. He is an amazing human, but also an amazing artist, and I can’t wait to see my ideas and imagination filtered through his incredible eye and onto a screen. To throw back to the SOV years, I originally planned to shoot this movie on the aforementioned phone app until Jake told me I was stupid. And he was right. He’s going to come out here and shoot this on his great quality equipment, and I decided that we are literally going to make two different versions of this movie. One will be shot with great lighting and Jake’s touch, and it’s going to be HD and 16:9 and beautiful; the second will be shot with alternate lighting and more improvised takes, this one will be 1.33:1 and dirtied up to look like it’s on VHS. When you get the Blu-ray, you can watch both (slightly different) version of the movie. I’m so excited about that, and the opportunity to let the talented actors I’ve assembled so far play around with the material is going to be a blast.
We have less than 20 days left on our crowdfunding, so if anyone wants to be a part of it, please check it out soon. We have perks from as little as $10, like an Associate Producer credit on IMDb and in the film, or a digital copy of the movie, as well as posters, Blu-rays, hot sauce, and more. The better budget we get, the more opportunity I am going to have to pay the great people who are coming together to make this movie, and more budget means more opportunities opening in the parts and crew not already filled.
PopHorror: Who would you say has influenced you as a filmmaker and artist?
D. Ryan Mowry: That’s a good question. Definitely the people I mentioned above – Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith were the first. I am a long-time hip-hop head and when I watch a QT movie, it feels like sampling to me. He takes the best little bits of the best movies and characters and whatnot and weaves them into new tellings or retellings of sometimes familiar stories, and I love them. Kevin Smith’s dialogue is amazing and a huge influence on my writing. I think Clerks was the first movie I ever really recognized that I loved that had basically no action in the plot. It’s mostly just talking but yet it kept me rapt. Same for the rest of the View Askewniverse films that followed, and his larger filmography as well. Red State is his best movie – fight me. I found and fell in love with the idea of Troma movies, and how they could make something out of sheer force of will and with an army of volunteers. These were the ones that influenced me to make movies.
Now, who has actually influenced my writing and films? Well, I can tell you who I love, and that will probably give you a good idea of where I am coming from. First and foremost, Clive Barker was my entrance into horror and the first openly LBGTQ+ person I was aware of at 13. I read most of his stuff as a teenager. Once that opened my eyes to horror, I discovered a slew of filmmakers who I watch on the regular: of course, Barker, Dario Argento, Ari Aster, Benson & Moorhead, John Carpenter, Don Coscarelli, Fred Dekker, Panos Cosmatos, Quentin Dupieux, Alex Garland, Stuart Gordon, Frank Henenlotter, Stephen Kostanski, Pascal Laugier, William Lustig, Sergio Martino, Scott Phillips, Sam Raimi, Roadkill Superstars, Ti West… I could go on but I’m not going to. Except, well… here are some former favorites, non-horror favorites, and honorable mentions: P.T. Anderson, Wes Anderson, Larry Blamire, David Fincher, Lucio Fulci, Umberto Lenzi, Takashi Miike, Alex Proyas, George A. Romero, John Waters. And of course, everyone I’ve mentioned in this article already, like Chris and Jake.
My art is heavily influenced by horror and horror posters, but also impressionism. I lean heavily on impressionism when I do my digital paintings, using “Oil Paint” brushes and techniques that are almost closer to abstract painting. What I end up with is a semi-realistic, semi-impressionistic painting in my colors and style, and after doing this for three-and-a-half years now, I’m really enjoying it. I recently made the poster for Drew’s short, Hermit, and one of the four posters we have so far for Inhuman. I use my art on all of the Horrifying Brewing Company and Horrifying Hot Sauce labels and imagery as well. Finding digital painting has been fun because I used to do large-scale abstract acrylic pieces and enjoyed it, but too many hobbies, I guess. Finding this format – using Procreate and an Apple Pencil to paint – and then also finding a use for what I make has helped me to be pretty prolific, and I feel like I am getting better at the paintings too!
PopHorror: Independent filmmaking is difficult to say the very least, but what continues to drive you on this path?
D. Ryan Mowry: Like I said before – I don’t have a choice. It’s like vampirism or something, at least for me. Once you’ve been bit. it’s in your blood. I guess that works for zombies too, but I think a movie made by a zombie would be pretty boring. Idea!
As you say, it is hard. Like, really, really hard. Especially when we’re talking about movies with not a lot of money; a tiny budget guarantees independence but sometimes at the sacrifice of quality. When you can’t guarantee people are going to get paid, you can’t guarantee they are going to show up, and the movie suffers for it. There are so many scenes in DM! where someone didn’t show up and I was re-writing the scene to write out a character while everyone else is standing around in costume waiting. That sucks. And then, we spent all this time and money and blood and sweat and tears and all the bodily fluids and DM! never got distribution because the audio is not good. My biggest lesson learned!
There’s Something Inhuman in the Woods is going to be the antithesis of that – we’re going to shoot it quick with limited people and limited locations. It’s still going to be hard, I’m sure. But instead of this huge script with tons of locations and a cast of literally 70 people, I wrote a screenplay with a total of 12 named characters, 11 with any dialogue, and basically three locations. It’s streamlined, and the story is fun and funny up front but shifts to being dark and brutal by the time the credits roll. And with us being able to knock out shooting two at once, we are going to have something different that hasn’t really been done, at least not in horror, that I’m aware of.
Getting funds as an independent filmmaker is obviously the hardest part always, and that budget drives so much of how difficult the rest of the shoot needs to be. I am relying on crowdfunding – and hoping we can get more backers in the next few weeks – for the most part, but will put in some money of my own as well I’m sure, even though Friday was my last day at work. If this movie sounds like something you want to see and want to see it be successful, there are a ton of ways to support the movie at the link above.
Thank you so much for your time with this interview and thank you to everyone who took a moment to read it. Also, thanks so so so much to all the artists who are supporting my movie in one way or another. You should check all of them out because they are awesome and deserve support!
Thank you so much to Ryan for taking the time to speak with us. You can find more information about him and his projects on his Facebook page.
