PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Musician Tim Kasher (frontman of bands Cursive, and the Good Life) has made one of my favorite movies of the year, Who’s Watching. It takes a lot to make me uncomfortable and fuck, man. Who’s Watching made me so physically uncomfortable that I found myself yelling at the screen through a lot of the film.
Starring Zachary Ray Sherman as Caleb, Gracie Gillam (Superhost) as Krista, and Olivia Luccardi (It Follows) as Tawnia, Who’s Watching is about exactly that. Who’s watching whom?
Caleb is a metal head loner who becomes obsessed with his new coworker, Krista. He begins invading every aspect of Krista’s life. As his infatuation escalates from inappropriate to criminal, we’re left asking who is really watching whom.
To celebrate the release of the film, I chatted with writer/director Tim about bringing the film to life, crafting the character of Caleb, horror movies, and more!
PopHorror: I loved Who’s Watching.
Tim Kasher: Thanks!
PopHorror: It made me feel physically uncomfortable, which takes a lot for that to happen, so I’m really excited to talk to you about it today.
Tim Kasher: Good, good.
PopHorror: What came to you first, the idea for the movie script or the ideas for the soundtrack?
Tim Kasher: For this, definitely the script. The soundtrack was all stuff that I got to work on after everything was… Actually, I think I did all of the soundtrack work before we went into production. That has a little to do with the pandemic, though, time on my hands and whatnot. But yeah, I definitely did the script first.
PopHorror: And this took 10 years, right? The movie took 10 years to get made?
Tim Kasher: Yeah, crazy. There’s actually an even longer story to it. The first draft that I did was in 2010 and it was shorter, very much a first draft. It was only about 60 pages; I kind of wanted it to be mostly improvised because it gives it a documentary feel. But I didn’t do much with it at that time. I set it aside but I dusted it off in 2018, then reworked it and cleaned it up a lot, and that’s when Travis Stevens, producer and director, took an interest in it. He did a great job with it. He was able to find some funding and we had a good run with it for a while there. But yeah, these things do take a while, they do take time. The pandemic didn’t help either so that killed maybe a few years.
PopHorror: I bet. Zachary Ray Sherman, as soon as I saw he was in this, I was so excited.
Tim Kasher: Oh, great!
PopHorror: He gives an incredibly creepy and intense performance. How did you work together to make sure Caleb felt like a real person rather than a generic movie villain?
Tim Kasher: I’m glad you asked that because we worked at length. Zachary’s a great guy. He’s a really incredible collaborator so we were talking about Caleb for years before we actually got together to do the shoot. He really just takes these things seriously. He takes his roles seriously; he takes his work seriously. It’s great; what a great collaborator to have. As you can imagine, when you’re working on things this low budget the paycheck’s small for these actors. It wouldn’t be surprising, it would be expected for actors to show up and be like, “Okay, I learned my lines, let’s spout them out and move on with my day.” But that’s not Zachary at all. He’s really, really incredible. We worked at length, texting, emailing email threads for years before we got to the shoot. Talking about how we wanted to humanize him as much as possible. It’s weird because he’s clearly an antagonist in this story, but he’s an antagonist who’s telling the story and we were stuck with him for a lot of the movie. We follow him everywhere. We wanted to make him so human that people would find themselves empathizing with him and the hope was that that would be uncomfortable, that would be unsettling watching this person do some pretty dastardly stuff and feel almost like you’re rooting for him. You’re not rooting for him, you don’t want him to achieve his goals but you want him to be a better person. We wanted people to root for him to stop doing what he’s doing.
PopHorror: Yes!
Tim Kasher: Move on and be a better person because again, we wanted to create him as a fully formed human that has flaws, but you also see that he’s hurt and that there’s something sad in him, and yeah, accidentally feeling something for him. I consider it to be an enjoyable, subtle manipulation in storytelling.
PopHorror: Yeah, you do kind of feel sorry for him. Something that sticks out is when he was in her room trying on that slip dress, and he tossed his hat and his clothes, and I’m like, really dude? Why are you leaving that there? You’re not at home; this is not supposed to be somewhere where you’re comfortable. Just grab your stuff! And then he had to turn around and go back and get it. You don’t really want him to do this stuff, but like, do it right.
Tim Kasher: It’s power dynamic with him; that’s the way I’d see all that. He’s just moving into this woman’s home more and more and feeling more and more comfortable about it, and that’s his way of expressing it, especially in front of the camera because the cameras are on. That’s what he does. The scene just moments before that is when he’s playing her cello and to me it’s just like, how vulnerable? You’re right at the front door and you’re just sitting. You have a cello on you; there’s no way out! If somebody were to come in the door right now or look through the window, you’re cooked. You’re done.
PopHorror: And it’s making noise so if they come up to the door, they’re going to hear it. You’re not being subtle or quiet.
Tim Kasher: Yeah, he becomes incredibly careless, and it’s all based on power.
PopHorror: What did your cast bring to these roles that completely surprised you or changed how you viewed your own script?
Tim Kasher: I’ll still talk about Zachary for that. It was something that we, even into the production, were still grappling with, that it’s a real tightrope walk about how unpleasant or aggressive or antagonistic – really depending on the scene – he should or shouldn’t be in certain scenes. There were certainly times where I was maybe micromanaging that more and trying to make sure that he was pulling back on the reigns in certain scenes. But he would also give me other takes because he was embodying Caleb. It’s really good to trust your actors. He was helping teach me that. He was getting bigger and more aggressive with Caleb in certain scenes and I’d be trepidatious. But generally, those would end up being the takes that I would use. I think he really embodied that character and it was good to let him take the lead on that.
PopHorror: I’m really excited because I get to talk to him on Thursday.
Tim Kasher: Great!
PopHorror: I watched him back when he was on 90210 and he’s come a very long way. I swore to myself that I would bring up Toxic Cock Syndrome and somehow insert it into our conversation. I just want to know how you came up with that band name?
Tim Kasher: Toxic Cock Syndrome behind the scenes was me on guitar, Josh Ethier, who’s one of the producers, is on bass, and then also we had Jonah Ray, who you might know from Mystery Science Theater 3000 reboot and is a really great comedian, on drums. The first time getting together in the practice space, I was talking about how I still need to come up with a strong name for this band and we just started ripping and joking around, and he brought up Toxic Shock Syndrome and that quickly evolved into Toxic Cock Syndrome. If anything, it hits the nail too on the head but I think it works so well as the type of name that some young men might not recognize how damaging… Like what an indictment that is on them. Instead, they just think it’s a cool name.
PopHorror: You filmed this in Nebraska, which is where you’re from. Was it important to you to bring this movie to your hometown roots?
Tim Kasher: It was most important to me really for more pragmatic reasons. It’s a location that I can really wrap my head around. I just know the city really well. For the various locations in the film, I could think of different things that worked, and for the ones that I wasn’t sure about, I know plenty of people who’d have good suggestions for locations so that was helpful. I really just saw Omaha as an opportunity to try to keep costs lower because of that, because I would know where to ask for favors, who to ask favors from, and understand locations better. That was really my primary reason. It just felt safer. I live out in LA and it just didn’t feel very safe. I felt like I’d really hemorrhage money out here if I were to have shot it around here. Beyond that, it’s also really important to me to get to shoot in Omaha and I’d like to continue shooting in Omaha because the film community’s small but they’re really sincere. There’s a ton of heart and just a ton of skill, too. There’s a lot of good people out there working. But also, I love to shoot Omaha.
PopHorror: It’s your home!
Tim Kasher: Yeah, exactly. I have a lot of pride in where I’m from. It’s cool to include that in the storytelling.
PopHorror: It makes it more authentic.
Tim Kasher: Unlike John Hughes’ Pasadena-cum-Illinois where there’s mountains in the background.
PopHorror: I have just one last question for you. What’s your favorite scary movie?
Tim Kasher: Well, there’s certainly a handful of them. Today, I would go with American Werewolf in London, but the shortlist is Rosemary’s Baby, The Shining, and American Werewolf in London. If you go into more modern stuff, I’d go with The Descent, It Follows, The VVitch. But yeah, I’d say American Werewolf in London. I love that movie.
Thank you so much to Tim for taking the time to chat with us. Who’s Watching is now available HERE and in select theaters!
