PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Note: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn’t exist. PopHorror fully supports the WGA and SAG-AFTRA and their efforts.
Horror comedies can be tough to pull off. The balance between the laughs and the scares is precarious, and everyone expects to get different things out of your final product. Add to that a pseudo-meta storyline, and you’ve got what could be either an explosive cocktail of awesomeness or a flubbering, inane private joke that no one is in on. Where did Ian Tripp and Ryan Schafer’s Everybody Dies By the End fall on that spectrum?
Everybody Dies By the End was co-directed and co-produced by Egodeath’s Ian Tripp and Ryan Schafer from a script written by Tripp. The cast includes Tripp, Schafer, Vinny Curran (Resolution 2012), Brendan Cahalan (Egodeath 2022), Iliyana Apostolova (Howard Original 2020), Joshua Wyble (Egodeath 2022), Caroline Amiguet (Immortal Game 2021), newcomer Seton Edgerton, and cult horror darling Bill Oberst, Jr. (Circus of the Dead, 3 From Hell), Most of the cast also worked as crew on this esoteric dark comedy.
Everybody Dies By the End starts with a rather serious interview with cult horror movie director Al Costella (Curran) by scrupulous TV host Willy Wilson (Oberst, Jr.). Everything seems fine until Willy asks Al when he’s going to make something meaningful as opposed to the schlock horror he usually makes like Battery Acid and Pinball Head. To say Al is triggered by this question is an understatement. He starts screaming at Willy, his finger inches from the man’s face, before sliding across the host’s desk in a blind rage and crushing his little houseplant.
Now it’s ten years later, and eccentric oddball Costella hasn’t made another film since the interview. He’s decided that he’s going to make something meaningful, something people will fawn over, his tenth and last film (Tarantino much?), and he wants a documentary crew there to record this groundbreaking event as it happens. He hires documentarian Calvin (Tripp) and his sound guy, Mark (Wyler), to follow the production around from sunup to sundown, recording for prosperity his filmed-in-order, practical FX magnum opus.
And let’s just say that Costella is not completely in his right mind. He’s a self-pitying narcissist who rides waves of mania and depression like a professional surfer. And, for some reason, his crew never question him, hanging onto his coattails and going alone for the ride, knowing that their indie horror genius is going to make something great, and they want to be a part of it.
Anyone who’s ever been on an indie movie set will recognize the tensions and personalities here. As a simple story, Everybody Dies By the End is like a peek behind the movie making curtain. Of course, everything here is over the top and even deadly.
It’s amazing how much Costella’s crew love him, from his obsequious assistant, Grant (Catalan), to his manic assistant director, Laura (Amiguet), to his blood-loving FX artist, Howard (played by Schafer himself), and to his surprisingly understanding actress, Allison (Apostolova). They’re all indoctrinated at his middle of nowhere compound, wearing the same red Hawaiian shirt (a nod to the red shirts on Star Trek), chanting his tagline, “Accept… Celebrate… Immortalize…” like it’s their favorite song lyrics, and falling over themselves to make the director happy. Of course, he’s a total train wreck, so trying to figure out what will please him at any given moment is near impossible.
Stuck inside this microcosm of crazy, you can almost imagine where the story is going to go. But like the best laid vacation plans, Everybody Dies By the End is all about the trip and not the destination. This film is a ton of bloody fun, a smart mockumentary with great special FX.
If you’re looking for a dark comedy with a bloody twist, check out Ryan Schafer and Ian Tripp’s film, Everybody Dies By the End, available on VOD starting September 22, 2023.
