PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Dream Eater, the second selection from Eli Roth’s The Horror Section, and written/directed/produced/starring Mallory Drumm and Alex Lee Williams, and written/directed/produced by Jay Drakulic, is a terrifying found footage film that reminds us just how vulnerable we are when we’re sleeping.
A filmmaker documents her boyfriend’s violent parasomnia during their holiday at a remote cabin in the woods, and as his sleepwalking gets worse, she believes the cause might be something far more sinister.
To celebrate the release of the film, I chatted with Mallory, Alex, Jay, and producer Eli Roth, about the inspiration behind the film, how it fell into Eli’s lap, horror movies, and more!
PopHorror: I really enjoyed Dream Eater! I liked it so much I actually watched it twice.
Everyone: Thank you!
PopHorror: I’m super excited to talk to you guys and learn more about it today. My first question is for Alex, Mallory, and Jay. What sparked the idea for Dream Eater, and was it planned from the beginning to star in it?
Mallory Drumm: The idea for Dream Eater actually came from a larger straight narrative film that we had pitched to a few distributors in Canada but could never really get off the ground. After being told “no” so many times, we decided to self-fund this movie and we took a nugget from that narrative film and that’s where the idea for Dream Eater spawned from. And no, initially Alex and I were not going to act in it. We had some really good actor friends in Canada who we wanted to star in it, but then when we gave them the script, by like 10 pages in, they were like, “Oh, you guys have got some stunts in this.” We were like, oh crap. If they think these are stunts, then we definitely don’t have the budget or the time to have real actors in this. We were sitting around Alex’s kitchen table one day and we both just looked at each other and were like, we’re already self-financing, let’s really go for broke. We knew that we were going to probably going to do things that other people wouldn’t and that just gave us the ability to really ramp up what we had in the initial draft, in terms of like really putting our bodies through it, especially Alex and everything that he did in the snow – naked, barefoot, all of it.
Alex Lee Williams: If we’re going to use our own money, let’s stretch every dollar and let’s do things that we know we couldn’t have ever afforded to pay any actor or any crewmember. It was just absolutely putting everything possible on screen. If we never get to make a movie again, let’s make sure that we went all out for this film and put our bodies through it. Our hope now too is when we work with actors in the future, it’s like you know we’d never ask you to do something we wouldn’t do ourselves. So hopefully it gives us that cred, where we’re like, we get it. We totally understand what we’re asking.
Jay Drakulic: Alex and Mallory have been my muses for years with short films. It was so cool to see them take that leap into the feature film realm because I always knew that they could do it. They’re so incredibly talented at what they do. Watching them behind the camera was such a treat, except what Mallory was saying about the physical toll. When she came back from Dream Eater, her legs were black and blue from recording fully in the snow, having to fall at different moments, crash through the door. It was definitely Cinéma Vérité, in that sense. She put her body through it and Alex put his body through it for sure.
Alex Lee Williams: We recorded Foley after every scene because we also edited the film ourselves and as editors, when you’re in the scene and you’re like, fuck, if we only had that sound, ah shit we didn’t get it, this is a little bit muffled, now we’re going to have to do ADR and it’s not going to feel like it really happened in the environment. So, after every single scene, we’d do the whole scene again just for the audio. Camera, take a break, and we’d run through every single scene so that everything could be perfectly recorded, and that had to happen as well outside.
PopHorror: I’m in Phoenix so I was very jealous of all of the snow.
Jay Drakulic: Once you’ve been in it for a couple of months, you’re not jealous anymore.
PopHorror: Eli, you declared Dream Eater as the scariest film of the year. How did you discover the film and come to select it as the second release from The Horror Section?
Eli Roth: Someone had sent me a link to a TikTok that Chuck The Movie Guy had done, and he just was going on and on, saying you’ve got to demand this movie comes to your town to get released, this movie fucking rips, it’s so scary. The imagery was just striking and terrifying. So, I wrote these guys on Instagram. I had the blue checkmark, so they knew it was me and not a fake, and they told me they didn’t have distribution yet and I said that I’d love to check it out. I said I’d love to check it out and I saw it, and it was such a great joy to be that scared. There was such an incredible sense of dread, and it was so well done. From the sound to the score to the performances, I was watching it thinking, I haven’t been this truly frightened in a movie in a long time, where you really are dreading what’s coming next. I was looking at all the other movies that have been released and I thought, the last 15 minutes of Dream Eater, I don’t think there’s anything scarier in a movie this year. I don’t think anyone’s done it. And what they did it for, the budget. You’re seeing great films that are being made from anywhere from $20-90,000,000 that are fantastic, but these guys did it for $40,000 and it looks like it was shot for $2,000,000. It’s such a beautifully shot film. Because they’re writers, directors, editors… Usually movies feel cheap when the sound is bad, but nothing is sacrificed – the production design, the acting, the visuals, the sound. It’s really total filmmaking and I was so impressed. I thought these are the kinds of filmmakers you want to get behind, the way that David Lynch, Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Robert Rodriquez, other directors, got behind me and supported me, I want to do that for them. Also, for horror fans, we don’t get a movie like this very often. The circumstances under which you watch a movie for the first time really matters. You can pirate a movie but you can’t pirate the adrenaline rush. You can watch Coachella in a VR headset or on your phone, it’s not the same as being there. So, I wanted to give them the opportunity and the fans the opportunity to get totally lost in this world and see it in the theater, screaming with a bunch of other people, and really get that experience of the last 15 minutes of Dream Eater. I was there in the theater, heart pounding, just dreading. We saw it the other night on the big screen with an audience. For me, it was the first time to really see it in the theater, finished like that, with a crowd, and it was magnificent. People were with it, like right up through the last frame of the movie, jumping and screaming, so it’s a pleasure. I think they’re just an incredibly, incredibly talented group, especially when you consider what Mallory and Alex did. You have to write the movie, direct, produce, and also be the actor, and now I find out they finished shooting and go edit, which I didn’t even know, and then Alex also has to be sleepwalking Alex, so he’s playing two different characters almost. And it all blends together seamlessly. It’s really, I think, a remarkable film. The movies that I love in this genre – Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity, Rec, The Last Exorcism that I produced – and I think Dream Eater is right up there with all those movies.
PopHorror: I love that. There’s nothing like the theater experience and watching horror movies with like-minded individuals and experiencing all of that together and seeing other people’s reactions. That’s the best. I also love isolation horror, and I feel like that makes it so much scarier. You could have done this in their own home but the isolation part of it makes it even scarier.
Mallory Drumm: A hundred percent, and we’ve talked about this a little bit but having it also in the wintertime, I think that adds further to that isolation, especially with the amount of snow that we ended up getting going into that process. Initially, we wanted to film this in the fall time, and just with scheduling and everything, it ended up getting pushed to March, and now I can’t see this movie being done in any other season. And to your point, the isolation just makes it way creepier, adds to that tension, and really the snow and the season that we did it in, just really adds to that as well.
PopHorror: It would have felt completely different if you didn’t have the snow. It would have been a completely different movie.
Jay Drakulic: Eli has said that the snow became a character in the film. There’s a path that Mallory has to take in a certain point in the movie that had this like labyrinthian vibe to it and it harkened back very much for us to the hedge maze scene in The Shining, where you just had this being corralled by the environment, not just the horrors that were lurking in the darkness.
PopHorror: How did it feel when you found out that Dream Eater was going to be the second selection from The Horror Section and how did you celebrate?
Mallory Drumm: Oh, man.
Alex Lee Williams: We’re still celebrating!
Mallory Drumm: We’re still celebrating! It still doesn’t feel real to us, whatsoever. A dream come true doesn’t even begin to describe it. It was funny because Eli messaged us on a Saturday and then we got on a phone conversation with him and The Horror Section team on a Monday, which just so happened to be Alex’s birthday, and when we got off that call, we were all shaking. We couldn’t believe it. Being massive horror fans, Eli’s raised us. We all remember when we saw Cabin Fever, we all remember watching Hostel for the first time. Then to have his blessing and validation coming from him has just been unbelievable. The whole team at The Horror Section is just absolutely incredible. Having done everything just the three of us for so long, to have this team come in and take over things and really believe in us has just been… Honestly, there are no words. It’s insane, it’s insane.
Alex Lee Williams: The support that we have felt from Eli from the jump has been not only shocking but an absolute dream come true. I saw Hostel five times in theaters. When I first saw Cabin Fever, I was like, oh my god. I remember vividly seeing the end of that film and being like, holy shit, so you can just kill all the main characters. I’d never seen a movie end this way and just kill off everyone. Holy shit! As a child, it changed things and I became obsessed with bleak as fuck endings. When he reached out, we were joking. We joked to each other, like it was a joke, oh we could have an Eli Roth Presents poster because we also did original poster designs. We did everything. At the very best, we were like, if he likes the movie, we’re going to ask him, “Can we use your quote on the poster?” And then he’s like, “I want your movie!” Still to this day, at least once a day, I sit and I think back to that and I start smiling and laughing to myself, like oh my god, I can’t believe that Eli brought us in. It’s transcendental. It’s still just completely mind blowing.
Jay Drakulic: Eli said it best with you can’t replicate that adrenaline rush. I remember where I was when I was sitting in theaters watching The Sixth Sense for the first time. I remember Paranormal Activity, and I remember Hostel. What’s so incredible too, with Eli, is that he’s always approaching everything filmmaking first. It’s so cool when you’re talking to somebody from that perspective because we learn something new every day, talking to him. We were doing this on our own for so long. To have Eli’s support and the support of The Horror Section, everybody has been so incredible. The Master of Horror raised us with his movies. To be sitting here right now, I don’t think the celebration has ever ended. To answer your question, we’re celebrating here right now with you, being able to have this conversation. Childhood dreams come true. No matter where our careers go from here, this will be an experience that will never be replicated, ever.
Eli Roth: Thank you. Look, they make it easy because they made a great film, and obviously, how nice they are. But for me, I try to be that supportive producer and now distributor that I always dreamed I had before I made my first film. The fact that I now have the ability to release movies… And by the way, it only lasts if people go see the movie in the theater. If the movie fizzles, if people don’t go see it, I can’t do another one, so like going and supporting Dream Eater in a theater gives me the ability to find other filmmakers and filmmaking teams and put their movies in cinemas because they’re only going to listen to me so much. The movies have to work. But again, it’s a pleasure because I see so much of myself in them and what that struggle is when you just risk everything and you’re like, I don’t care if I never make money or if I live the rest of my life in debt, this movie has to exist because I’ll be dead one day and I just want this movie to be part of the lore of horror movies. That was me on Cabin Fever and it’s me on Ice Cream Man. Fuck it; I don’t care if this is the last thing I ever do, I have to make this movie. I think that’s where your best work comes from. Also, I know there is a difference between movies that get released in theaters and movies that premiere on streamers. There’s nothing wrong with it, but there’s something… When a movie’s been in a theater and it’s been theatrically released, it has that shot of getting in the canon, in the canon of great movies where you want people to look back and remember having that experience. Our goal is to give people one of the most fun nights they’ve ever had in their life, period. Not just for movies. Movies for me, great horror movies, are life markers, whether it was seeing Alien in the theater, whether it was seeing Poltergeist in the theater, whether it was seeing Pulp Fiction. You just remember that electricity and that’s what we want to give other people. And I’m getting scared by it. The filmmakers can never get as scared by their own movie, so the fact that you watched it twice speaks volumes about what these guys have accomplished. It’s remarkable.
PopHorror: I also remember seeing Cabin Fever in the theater as well.
Jay Drakulic: How many times do we say, “Party man!”
Alex Lee Williams: Motherfucking party man! We say it to each other all the time.
PopHorror: Also, “Pancakes!” Who doesn’t repeat pancakes from Cabin Fever whenever that movie comes up?
Alex Lee Williams: Pancakes! Pancakes! I just have to say, we couldn’t have asked for a better mentor. Every day is better than the last.
PopHorror: And look, you went from an Instagram message to doing interviews together about your film.
Mallory Drumm: Like, what is life?
Alex Lee Williams: I’m always scared I’m going to wake up and it’s the morning of May 10th and none of that shit ever happened.
Eli Roth: I get it, though. When you meet someone that’s like-minded it feels like you’re kindred spirits. Like with Quentin, it felt like we grew up together and then the next thing you know you’re starring in a movie with Brad Pitt and Quentin’s directing what he now considers his masterpiece. I didn’t see that as part of my career trajectory. But the opportunity presented itself because we clicked creatively so much and it was the right thing. I was sitting there at Beyond Fest with them and I was just so happy to get to be the bridge that got fans to discover them and their movie. That’s the joy for me. I do feel like certain movies, I’m like, I’m going to have to sell this, and this and that, and other ones you can really just sit back and let the work speak for itself. I don’t have to carry the interview. I can just sit there. I learn something new every day of how they did it and what they did and how they’re working as a trio because I always work solo, so it was really a pleasure for me at Beyond Fest to be there watching the final cut of the movie for the first time, with that audience, just to see people loving it and really respecting what they pulled off and being excited to share it. When I watch a scary movie, the first thing I do is like Quentin, Edgar Wright, there’s a handful of people, Chris Jericho, I’m like, “Dude, you’ve got to see this fucking movie!” That’s what it’s all about. It’s like when you’re 12 years old and you go to school and you’ve got this videotape of Evil Dead and you go, “It’s the fucking scariest thing I’ve ever seen! Don’t watch it!” You’re passing around that tape of Demons that we all got like, “That movie’s fucking crazy! I want it, I want it!” It’s that same excitement and enthusiasm. I’m glad you feel that way. Hopefully that carries that. That’s why it’s important for people to go out and see it opening weekend so the theaters know that they can… I think it’s going to get really great word of mouth, and you want it to hang around there. So I think people will come out.
PopHorror: This question is for all of you. What draws you to the horror genre?
Jay Drakulic: Honestly, what I think is so impactful for me personally about horror films is I think horror films are able to contextualize and reconcile some of the darkness that you experience in the some of the horrors you go through in life. I mean this with every degree of seriousness; I think horror films can really save people’s lives. I think that there’s a power there. I will never forget as a kid seeing Phantasm for the first time and at the end when Mike finds out from Reggie that his brother Jody had died a week earlier, that was something that shattered me to my core. It ripped me open. I remember being really, really impacted by that. I lost my father when I was 24 years old and I remember seeing Phantasm and The Exorcist right after that happened, maybe like 6-7 months after, and seeing that scene now with the context of what I had gone through, it tore me open in a way that I can’t even really express, but that’s where my true healing began. You see in life that it’s our job to fight the darkness. It’s like that beautiful line at the end of True Detective, “It looks to me like the dark has a lot more territory,” and he’s like, “Well, you’re looking at it wrong. Once there was only dark.” To be able to contribute to a genre that has contributed to me so deeply… I might not be the most knowledgeable person when it comes to horror, but I can tell you that I feel it in my bones and that it is really what gets me up in the morning and keeps me creating because I really just want to tell those really fucked up scary stories, but at the end of the day, hopefully can help somebody as well.
Alex Lee Williams: For me, everyone is always curious to peek behind the curtain. I always equate horror films with the same thing as a roller coaster. Why do we go on a roller coaster? Because for that split second where we think we’re going to die, that is the thrill because then when you safely come back, the euphoric wave that comes over you and how fun it was. Horror films are that gateway with cinema because a perfect horror film or a perfect horror scene, that can make you just for a split second, whether it’s a well placed jump scare or just an incredibly tense scene with unbelievable dread, you can forget for that split second that you’re safely sitting in a seat watching this film. When you forget that, the joy that washes over me like holy shit, that was great! That thrill! In my opinion, this genre is the one genre that encapsulates all the other genres. The best drama is in horror films. Some of the best comedy comes from horror films. Party man! It’s endless, it truly is. So for me, it’s that unbelievable thrill and joy that washes over me after leaving just a terrifying film.
Mallory Drumm: Some of what Alex is saying, I totally agree where like the best drama, the best comedy, all comes from horror. The one thing I love about horror films, I think it’s the one genre that actually changes you once you leave. Like Jaws changed the way we went into water. Psycho changes the way you take a shower. I remember seeing Hostel and my girlfriend and I went on a three month backpacking trip and all we had was money to stay in hostels and we were like, are there any hotels we can afford? I really don’t want to go to a hostel! I don’t think that there’s another genre that leaves that kind of impression on you as a person when you’re leaving the theater and when you’re just now going to live your life again and that’s huge. That’s why I love horror as a genre.
Eli Roth: I think as children, we loved Grimm’s Fairy Tales and there’s a reason they’ve been around for hundreds of years and that’s kids being baked in ovens and witches. Children love that stuff because death is impossible to explain. I just shot a horror movie with kids and did incredibly violent things and the kids loved it! It was like Christmas morning with a hacksaw. It was crazy! But I think that horror movies are fairy tales for adults. As you get older, you’re not allowed to show fear. I learned that Hostel was being screened on military bases and soldiers were squealing watching Hostel, and I talked to these guys and I’d say, “How can you… The stuff you see in Iraq with faces and friends being blown apart…” They’re not allowed to process the fear. They take it in, but be a soldier, be a man, don’t be afraid. Then for 90 minutes you’re allowed to be afraid without being a coward. It’s like sports events and horror movies, the last two places you’re allowed to scream. But it’s the only place where it’s okay to be scared, where you’re not seen, in society’s eyes, as being a coward and it’s great to release that fear. Everyone’s had that like, what is that spot on my hand? It’s our way of dealing with death and dealing with the monsters inside, and sort of reconciling. We look at the world and we just think, how can these horrible things happen? There’s no explanation. How do you deal with it? And then horror movies somehow give you a way to deal with these things we’re processing all the time. And they’re also the most fun. It’s like pizza. It’s never going to be bad, even if it’s a piece of shit horror movie, I will love it and I will defend it until the end of time. I don’t care! I don’t care how bad it is, I will fucking love that movie. If you watch a movie with your friends, there’s always like the A movie, then there’s the B movie, then there’s that C-what-the-fuck movie, the one you put on at midnight, and often that’s your favorite one because it’s so terrible. And then you find someone else that is completely obsessed with it, or one line from it, or one character or one part of it. I’ll take something from some obscure movie, that grade Z horror movie, and everyone’s like, “I fucking love it! That’s my favorite one, that character is so awesome! Who was that guy? Why didn’t he ever act in a movie again?” That’s what it’s all about.
PopHorror: Those are some really answers! I have just one last question for you all. What is your favorite scary movie?
Alex Lee Williams: It’s what jump-started my relationship with horror. My mom showed me Black Christmas when I was inappropriately young. So, Bob Clark’s Black Christmas, hands down my favorite scary movie.
Mallory Drumm: I’m a mood-based person, so it’s hard for me to say that, so I’m going to say right now, The Exorcist.
Jay Drakulic: Obviously you know how hard that question is to answer. I am going to say The Thing.
Eli Roth: The Thing, Evil Dead, The Shining, The Exorcist, any of those, but I’ll go with Pieces. I love Pieces. It’s like cinematic junk food. It’s like a sugar rush. You know it’s bad for you, there’s nothing of value in it, and yet, and yet, when you put that movie on for your friends with a crowd, it’s a 10 out of 10, right up through the last shot of the movie. Everyone’s like, that movie fucking rules!
PopHorror: And going back to your comment about picking that one line from that one obscure movie…
Everyone: Bastard!
Thank you so much to Eli, Mallory, Alex, and Jay for taking the time to chat with us. Dream Eater is in select theaters Friday, October 24, 2025!
