PopHorror Let's Get Scared
PopHorror – Thanks for talking with PopHorror, Eddie. You’re a huge supporter of ours and we appreciate it. How long have you had a passion for writing?
Eddie Renner – Honestly, not very long. I had a short stint when I was in my early 20s where I wrote a series of poems I really enjoyed that but then I stopped and haven’t written anything for almost 20 years until I wrote Crepitus. When it came to artistic expression, I’ve always been more of a visual artist. Drawing and painting.
My sister Kim was always the writer in my family and she still is an incredibly talented writer. My sister remains one of my biggest inspirations along with my good friend Tim who’s also a very gifted writer.
I’ve known Haynze Whitmore for a long time but only started working with him professionally the past 4 to 5 years. I started as a storyboard artist and it was during this time that he encouraged me to help edit one of his screenplays called Asylum of Secrets. I found that I very much enjoyed that. I scoured the internet for any free instructional resources on how to properly write a screenplay. I spent about three months absorbing everything that I could find. Shortly after this, I began writing Crepitus.
I struggle when it comes to things like grammar and spelling, so I had asked my wife, Sarah, to help me edit the script. Sarah ended up having a lot more input than just grammar. She also helped edit Crepitus for continuity as well as polishing up the dialogue. She’s brilliant at dialogue and ended up writing a decent chunk of the screenplay. We make a fantastic team.
So yeah, I haven’t really been writing for very long at all. It’s a bit surreal that this is my first screenplay and it’s being made into a film starring Bill Moseley. That doesn’t happen very often.
PopHorror – It’s definitely a huge accomplishment! I think it’s amazing that you and your wife teamed up to write it together – such an amazing duo! When did you roughly write Crepitus?
Eddie Renner – I completed Crepitus about a year ago and it took me about 8 months to write.
PopHorror – Tell us how you came up with the story, the inspiration behind it?
Eddie Renner – Haynze Whitmore and I sat down at a fabulous restaurant in Cheboygan MI called “Your Spirit, Your Place” to throw around some ideas for a new horror screenplay. At that point, all we knew was that we wanted it to have an ice cream truck and a clown, lol.
We are both fans of horror clown films and wanted to write something original to add to this genre. That day we formulated an extremely rough idea about a clown named Knucklebones. We ended up changing the name to Crepitus a few months in as there was another film being released called Knucklebones. I wrote 12 pages the first night and the screenplay evolved over the next 8 months and many rewrites.
Some people when they hear it’s a film about a child eating clown think this is a rip off of IT as both clowns are immortal and enjoy eating children but they’d be dead wrong. The two stories are so very different. I’ll be happy to prove them wrong when they see it.
PopHorror – I can’t wait to see the differences! So please tell us more, how did the film come about?
Eddie Renner – Once we had our screenplay we showed it to producer Lance Paul and he knew this was a winner. Through his help, we were able to bring on Bill Moseley and that’s when this project really started to gain a lot of traction.
We’ve also ran two very successful Indiegogo campaigns. Many of the contributors are from our hometown of Cheboygan were we also shot Creptius. Cheboyganites are very supportive of their hometown as well as local arts and we’d never be where we are today if not for them.
PopHorror – I love that! Although Bill is fantastic, did you envision anyone else as Crepitus before casting?
Eddie Renner – Sure we had a list of hopefuls but honestly, all the way back in the beginning, when Haynze and I sat in that restaurant creating Crepitus, we knew then that Bill was our dream actor to play this role. We never thought though that we’d ever actually one day cast him.
PopHorror – Wow, that’s amazing – what a dream come true. We’ve heard a lot about Bill, tell us about the rest of the cast.
We have a great cast of actors. First off we have Chalet Brannan. She’s a seasoned actress with a superb personality. She’s an all-around amazing human being. Not only is she a cancer survivor but she has channeled that scary reality into not only survival by to reach out and share her story with others, helping them. She may only be 12 but she’s stronger than most adults I know. Her role as Sam is complex and we can’t wait for you to get to see her in action.
Eve Mauro who is also a seasoned actress with some powerful acting skills. She was a perfect fit for the role of the mother. She was so much fun on set and had such a fiery personality.
Caitlin Williams (read our interview – here) gives us her feature film debut. She is a trained stage performer and she blew us away. The world is going to love Caitlin. She stepped right into her role as Ellie, Sam’s sister.
Lance Paul, the executive producer is no stranger to acting despite falling into the role of Jed. We had an actor who had to drop out and Lance stepped in and totally nailed the role of Jed, the town Sheriff.
I feel blessed to have had the chance to have work with all these talented actors.
PopHorror – I love how everyone is supportive of one another. Just by the fact alone, ya know the film will have great chemistry. How was the filming process??
Eddie Renner – Being that this is my first feature, this entire experience has been a crash course in filmmaking. Working on set can be exciting and frustrating. There are always pitfalls that you never see coming. Nothing will ever go as planned and everyone needs to meet these obstacle head on and solve them and they did. Our crew was a group of incredibly talented folks.
PopHorror – What is your favorite moment so far from the experience?
Eddie Renner – Easily seeing sets being built and lines being spoken in such a way that the world we’ve written comes to life. It’s a fantastic and surreal experience to see that happen.
PopHorror – I bet it was truly magical. When’s the film coming out?
Eddie Renner – We don’t have an exact release date yet but will make an announcement as soon as we do. We’re in the tail end of post-production right now.
PopHorror – Fingers crossed that we hear something soon! Are you worried about the competition and success from IT?
Eddie Renner –Not really, it is such a huge name that there simply is no competing with such a giant. Stephen King’s IT is one of my favorite all-time novels and I never really cared for the watered down TV adaptation. I was excited about this theatrical adaptation and wasn’t let down. It was great.
I’m hoping that the massive success of Stephen King’s IT further excites everyone and makes them thirsty for more horror clown films. Crepitus will fit in perfectly while we’re all waiting for IT part 2.
Our film is a completely different tale and it has Bill fucking Moseley, so I feel confident that people will also want to see our film. I don’t want this to be about what film is better. I want people to see and enjoy both films.
PopHorror – Same here! Are you currently writing anything else or have any other upcoming projects?
Eddie Renner – We have three completed screenplays aside from Crepitus and 17 more original concepts, both horror and sci-fi. We can’t really talk about any of them to a great extent but I can say that our next film is going to be brutal and will go down in history for having the most amounts of a particular type of death. A record that is not likely to be broken anytime soon. Don’t worry though, we’re not killing any dogs. We love dogs and they will always be the hero of any film we do that may involve them.
All I can say is that it’s going to be a busy couple of decades and you’re going to want to pay attention. Please check out the Crepitus facebook as well by clicking – here.
