Latest / Cinema Yūgen / Damian K. Lahey: Jennifer Murphy, Booger Mountain & Comic Book Ghosts — A Filmmaker’s Wild Year

Transcript

Damian K. Lahey: Jennifer Murphy, Booger Mountain & Comic Book Ghosts — A Filmmaker’s Wild Year · Cinema Yūgen

0:00
G'day. That's right. It's that time again.
0:03
Time for Cinema Eugenics.
0:16
Yes, welcome back Eugenics 2026. We're flying high as we welcome back filmmaker Damien K.
0:26
Leahy, the writer producer and direct known
0:28
for simple like silver the heroes of arvine
0:32
place and cocaine angel damien's work
0:35
blends compelling storytelling with unforgettable characters
0:39
earning him a dedicated following and critical
0:42
acclaim join us now as he reflects on
0:45
his creative journey shares insights into his filmmaking process
0:48
and dives deep in to the inspirations by
0:51
some of his most memorable projects
0:55
whether you're a cinephile or an aspiring filmmaker
0:59
this conversation is packed with wisdom behind the
1:02
scenes stories about the cinematic magic of Damien's
1:06
films including his PSA for the 988
1:09
suicide and crisis lifeline never call the dragons by its name and his chilling
1:15
petite little thriller Jennifer Murphy still lives here he is the unforgettable
1:22
they always enjoyable and wise Mr. Damien K.
1:28
Leahy Kent, Kent, you are I see that since our last conversation you have definitely gone for the.
1:40
For the big tent carnival, carnival feel here with Sinema Yugen with that boisterous
1:46
intro. I appreciate it. Keep up that spirit. Oh, thank you, man.
1:51
I try. I try. I try. I'm like Brad Pitt in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I try.
1:58
So how you been, my friend? How's life training you? Real life as well as real life. R-E-E-L.
2:05
Well, I am in Karachi, Pakistan. Cool. I've been in Pakistan the last couple
2:11
of years on a, I've been teaching the film and other courses at a university
2:16
while also developing a couple of projects here.
2:20
But I've been busy with, you know, projects,
2:23
elsewhere as well and you know
2:26
come to come to think of it the last
2:29
time that we spoke yes i was watching
2:32
alien movies because as research for
2:35
a project that i couldn't really go into to
2:38
i couldn't really go go into detail with you
2:41
at the time right and i thought it would be it's been a busy since our last
2:47
podcast there's been a lot of alien stuff happening yes so i thought i would
2:52
go into Which is funny because I want to preface this by saying that I'm not
2:56
like some uber alien fan.
2:59
Like I'm not an alien lore person.
3:02
Like, I mean, I'm not an alien diehard.
3:05
But the project that I was working, I was developing with Jill Killington,
3:12
who's a producer most famous for.
3:15
She co-wrote and produced the last miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's The
3:21
Stand. And she, yeah, yeah, she did that movie with Katie Holmes,
3:26
that Katie Holmes directed.
3:28
She's done a number of films. Cool.
3:31
But we were, I was ping-ponging back and forth with her about a idea that I
3:38
had come up with based on a group of students that I taught at the Alabama School of Fine Arts.
3:44
And it was called The Prometheus Club. And it was a comedy mashup of Alien and
3:50
The Breakfast Club. Love it. Okay.
3:54
And so I was developing that and I was researching that.
4:00
I went back and forth with Jill about, you know, we were going back and forth
4:06
about a couple of other different projects as well.
4:09
But she wasn't 100% hot on that and wound up wanting me to develop something else.
4:17
Send her a pitch deck in thoughts about a possible horror icon show for Shudder.
4:23
And then we talked about, we actually did some digging into doing a sequel to Dario Argento's opera.
4:35
Oh, wow. So we pivoted from the alien thing because, you know,
4:40
I had Simple Like Silver coming out with Christina Marcella, which we talked about.
4:45
Severin released that film. Yeah, beautiful release.
4:48
Yeah, yeah. And thank you. And it was, so basically I had reached out to Dardano
4:57
Sacchetti, who is like the Richard Matheson, you know.
5:03
Man of Europe, man of Italy.
5:05
You know, he did everything from work on Caddo Nine Tales to Bay of Blood.
5:09
He worked on the, you know, he wrote the beyond.
5:14
And so, you know, he was he was a screenwriter that, you know,
5:17
kind of a legendary genre screen screenwriter.
5:21
Demons. He wrote Demons. Yeah. And he had I'm not going to.
5:26
That's a whole story unto itself. But long, long, long story short is that the
5:33
short version. We worked with, well, Dario Argento's people,
5:38
me and Jill were kind of ping-ponging back and forth.
5:41
Dario Argento's people didn't even have, didn't know where the rights to opera even were.
5:48
So I had to hunt down.
5:52
I had to hunt down the rights for that myself, for Dario Argeno's people.
5:59
Okay. And so how did you get?
6:02
It just took a lot of...
6:05
There were multiple different companies that had, over the years,
6:08
been acquired by other companies. Right, okay.
6:11
I had to follow these chains of who bought this, who bought that.
6:16
Like searching for Sugarman.
6:18
Yeah, yeah. so i i finally tracked down the
6:20
rights and then our argentos people
6:24
were very flighty in regards to like they
6:27
would set up times for possible zoom calls and
6:29
then those times would pass and then
6:33
dardano sacchetti's wife had
6:36
passed away and he was very
6:38
heartbroken by that and things
6:42
just kind of and you know christina
6:45
marcella was was was it
6:49
was it was all parties involved it
6:52
was very how do i say it move moving
6:56
forward right with any of those parties was becoming increasingly difficult
7:04
right in ways that jill and myself did not feel comfortable going forward. Okay.
7:13
You know what I mean? It was definitely one of those things where it was like, hey...
7:20
It was like, love all these people to death, but this is going to be,
7:26
if this is an indication of how any sort of production will be.
7:31
Like, we just need to, you know, step away from this, possibly.
7:35
And there's a larger, larger story there, but that's the long end and the short
7:43
of it for the purposes of this conversation.
7:46
Conversation now the the prometheus club
7:49
had been pushed to the side for
7:53
an opera sync sequel which makes sense because
7:56
that's you know that's an established ip and yeah you
8:00
know there was there was we could tie it into severin's
8:03
opera release and you know all of
8:06
those things sure but in retrospect
8:10
because look man like i had anticipated
8:13
yes i had anticipated that you
8:17
know there were these other alien properties coming out i had
8:20
anticipated that they were going to be super serious and it
8:23
was time for the franchise to poke fun of fun
8:26
at itself sure and i also knew
8:29
that the brat pack documentary was going to be coming
8:32
out in a year right i knew that there was gonna be a
8:35
lot more brat pack stuff going on yeah and so in retrospect we both agree that
8:43
we the timing was right for the prometheus club but the stars weren't aligning
8:49
at the time right you know so that.
8:54
That project wound up not happening.
8:58
You know what I mean? I looked into, now I have to give credit,
9:03
a young adult writer, novelist, Megan Brothers, who's one of my dearest and oldest friends.
9:11
She collaborated on The Prometheus Club with me.
9:15
Cool. now that that project
9:19
we actually looked into developing
9:22
as possibly a a series of
9:26
comic books to pitch to
9:29
image tool but the it
9:32
would cost just as much to shoot a feature
9:35
film as it would be to produce like five comic
9:38
books even on the cheap right yeah you know
9:41
so it was like that's just not gonna that's not
9:45
gonna happen you know what i mean however what's
9:49
important is that you know
9:53
that led me down you
9:57
know on a trip to the past right
10:00
now there was a period of my life where i was a rabid comic book fan you know
10:07
sam keith was like my idol you know like i would get i would go and collect
10:13
the Marvel Comics Presents with just his cover art.
10:17
Right. You know, like I had the Max, I had all that stuff.
10:21
I don't know if you ever got caught up in that wave of comics in the 90s that,
10:28
you know, had a very sharp rise and then a steep decline. Oh, sure.
10:32
Yeah, sure. I spent way too massive chunks of my paycheck, which I could have
10:39
saved to do more responsible things on comic books.
10:42
Sure. Yeah, so did I. I mean, all the money from mowing lawns and whatever I spent on comic books.
10:48
And then after the implosion...
10:51
Because what happened, I was begging my parents to take me to the comic book
10:57
store to get Tom McFarlane's, Spider-Man's.
11:00
I was all in. And then they burned us all.
11:07
They burned us all with crappy books.
11:11
They burned us all with not releasing the titles on time.
11:16
They burned us all with you know bad management
11:19
bad faith gimmick covers and
11:23
then our whole generation within within
11:27
the two years of the
11:30
of the big comic crash of the 90s
11:33
we were all going to college yeah so
11:37
like so like what did we do you know
11:39
we sold all those comic books for you know
11:42
pizza and party money for spending
11:45
money to have in in college because those a
11:49
lot of those comic books had become a joke now like there's there's a handful
11:54
of them that you know when i was young and stupid i traded that are you know
11:58
worth a lot of money that i shouldn't have but you know when i go back and look
12:03
at those image books on ebay yeah.
12:07
They're all like the same price as when I sold them, when I went to college.
12:12
Right. Cause they just made so many of them. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
12:16
You know, and oversaturated.
12:19
Yeah. Yeah. They oversaturated. I mean, I mean, there's like spawn number one and stuff I had.
12:25
I mean, I didn't have any of the special variants, but there's spawn number
12:28
one and stuff like that, that I had that, you know, is worth more now than when
12:32
I sold it, but it's not worth what you would think. Cause they made so many of them. Yeah.
12:36
Yeah. You know, But what's interesting is that the reason I'm kind of telling
12:42
this story is that I'm now going to be my next one.
12:45
One of my next projects is that I'm doing the Max Requiem for a Generation.
12:53
Wow. And what I'm doing is I'm taking the Max series that people have remastered
13:03
as a pet project and uploaded the internet archive and they've done little fan cuts and tweaks.
13:11
Yeah, yeah. But I'm rewriting it, recasting it, and I'm going to recut it into
13:17
its own feature length movie. Awesome.
13:20
You know, and man, I, yeah, yeah. So Max, the Max Requiem for Men of Generation.
13:28
And, but that, but the Prometheus Club. Yeah.
13:34
Is what, is what set me down that path. Right, right.
13:38
You know, cause I had, you know, that's been, you know, like a lot of people of that generation.
13:45
Sure. You know, after those guys, after those guys made such fools of themselves
13:51
and tanked the comic book business with their hubris and all of this,
13:57
like a lot of us didn't look back.
13:59
Yeah. You know, I mean, especially once, you know, the controversies regarding,
14:05
you know, Cerebus and Dave Sim all came out.
14:09
I mean, all that stuff just like kind of like burned out that generation of fans. Yeah. You know?
14:16
And it was a shame too, because there were some great books.
14:19
I mean, I remember being really into Alan Silvestri's stuff and Top Cow and Michael Turner. Right.
14:27
Joe, Joe Manbraria. I loved that. Yes. Because I've still got all my battle chases.
14:32
I was very sad that that series didn't finish or.
14:35
Yes. And stuff like Gru.
14:38
Yeah. You know, Gru the Wanderer, which I'm sure is right up your alley based
14:43
on the stuff you like to write. Yeah, yeah.
14:46
You know, and, and, you know, that stuff.
14:50
I mean, again, I think it's funny. Like, I just listened to a Rob Liefeld podcast.
14:56
Yeah, yeah, I listened to, yeah, Rob.
15:00
So there's a couple of different podcast Rob observations, but yeah.
15:03
And I'm listening to it and he made some good points.
15:09
Yeah. But I'm, but I'm like, man, like you're like, you need to at least acknowledge
15:16
that your, your business practices tanked the industry and it's never recovered from that. Yeah.
15:23
I mean, have you seen that? Have you seen that image documentary that's on Tubi?
15:27
Yeah. Yeah. I have seen, I watched a couple of them, like after I went down this kind of road.
15:34
Right. Because I had no idea that image would even still be like functioning. Right.
15:41
And I actually ordered some graphic novels. I've actually got the saga box set
15:47
back home in the States. And I'm going to read over this next summer break.
15:50
Right. You know, I didn't know. I mean, I had known they did The Walking Dead,
15:54
but I just didn't know that they were, you know, they were a massive,
15:58
that they were still like, like a thing.
16:00
Right. You know, because, and again,
16:03
like that's a pretty much like that's that the only thing bigger in terms of
16:12
crushing the comic books was that they didn't do.
16:20
Marvel Refused to do Any advertising or marketing For the comic books During
16:28
that epic run of movies They had over the last 15 years Yeah, yeah,
16:33
I mean, and same to DC. They did nothing for their own comic book side of the
16:42
business, which is absolutely unforgivable from a business standpoint.
16:47
Yeah. And further illustrates just how incompetent and irresponsible the people
16:57
that wind up in these top positions are.
17:00
Yeah. They're like Reggie in that M. Night Shyamalan movie, The Lady in the
17:05
Water, you know, the dude who works it on only one side of his body.
17:08
Right. Right. And, you know, I'm so glad you mentioned that,
17:14
because here's the thing is that there was no excuse.
17:19
I mean, that's leaving so much money on the table. Yeah.
17:25
Both of those companies left so much money on the table by not also using those
17:32
movies and the success of those movies to sell more comic books,
17:37
to advertise the comic books, et cetera, et cetera.
17:41
And now that the movies, I mean, and I know that, you know, some people listening
17:47
to this are going to, you know,
17:49
be like, you know, don't, you know, don't forget about, you know,
17:53
don't forget about inclusive, you know, inclusivity and woke, whatever.
17:58
Verb that all that stuff is just a trend that's
18:01
just another trend that got beat into the ground just like when like punisher
18:07
had like six comic books back in the day and there were five other comic books
18:12
all trying to be like the punisher you know what i mean or when spawn finally
18:17
got a movie and they tried to make it pg,
18:20
Yes, man. Which was ridiculous. I mean, now the HBO series, of course, was better.
18:26
If the movie had been the HBO series, it would have been fine.
18:30
But, yeah, you can't make stuff like Spawn family friendly. I'm sorry,
18:35
because it's just not. The dude sold his soul to Satan.
18:38
Yeah. And first off, and one other thing, I'm sorry to interrupt.
18:46
But you almost gave me a jolt of PTSD because the Spawn movie has to be is one
18:55
of the most rancid things I have ever seen in a movie theater.
18:59
I mean, like, I couldn't believe the level of how unprofessional that was.
19:09
And that was happening around the time that we were, that there was just constantly
19:17
in Wizard Magazine and in the press, there was just tons of drama with all the image people.
19:23
Yeah with them not being able you
19:26
know the whole collapse of the image valiant crossover yeah
19:30
not getting their books done on time having
19:33
a fire rob rob lifefeld who
19:36
was like punch drunk and completely disrupted the
19:39
industry by like paying people like fifty thousand dollars
19:42
a comic book like just absolutely bonkers
19:46
shit yeah you know what i mean yeah and
19:49
so so you've got you know
19:52
content you can have issues you
19:55
can have highs and lows with content right but
19:59
you need to have a certain amount of awareness for
20:02
that to matter yes and and the movies should have been bringing that renewed
20:09
awareness to the comic books yeah from dc and marvel because hey it man it works
20:15
both ways if you're if you're if man if your movies are,
20:19
underperforming like the.
20:22
Dc movies you can highlight you can
20:25
highlight great things happening in the comic book wing
20:28
yeah right i mean you can have you
20:31
can always use one to kind of balance out the the other for the overall image
20:37
yeah right but but you know the the failure of marvel and and dc to to do that
20:48
to capitalize the movies,
20:50
to bring interest, to continue to grow.
20:54
The comic book market is one of the biggest travesties ever and completely avoidable.
21:03
And it didn't just tank Marvel and DC. It also tanked all the other smaller.
21:12
Companies because... Go on. Yeah, it's interesting to go back now that you mention it.
21:18
And to your point and watch that Morgan Spurlock documentary about Comic-Con.
21:23
And there's that whole side plot with the guy who's like, who runs that company,
21:27
like the, the world's largest amount of comics or whatever.
21:31
And, and like he talks about in that segment, like he's been coming to Comic-Con
21:36
since it opened and like, he's complaining.
21:38
I like, this is, I mean, this is of course set when Marvel was just moving in and he said,
21:43
this is supposed to be a convention about comic books and we can't even
21:46
use the loading dock because lucas film owns the loading dock
21:49
and you know right and it's about all the little comic vendors are like you
21:54
know and they're all comparing like oh how did you do this year compared to
21:58
last year and they're like yeah the same not you know and it's like man this
22:03
whole thing this whole culture the whole reason it exists is because of these books and yet.
22:09
They're not nurturing the roots of where it all stems from.
22:14
They're just interested in the, you know, in the cash machine paying out.
22:18
Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. And there's a, I mean, there's a,
22:22
there's a cruelty component as well that I don't, I don't want to get into during
22:28
this conversation, but you see a lot of,
22:31
you see a lot of business decisions made by people in charge that don't,
22:37
that are bad for business.
22:39
But good for punishment right yeah
22:42
i mean you know cruelty and and greed go
22:45
you know sometimes work together and sometimes they
22:48
don't you know what i mean yeah then so
22:51
i and i don't want to get into a larger conversation here about
22:54
human nature and economics but but
22:57
one thing that i wanted to just kind of illustrate is
23:01
how is how one one project not
23:05
going forward you know leads to
23:08
the gestation of another project
23:11
now the alien the
23:16
alien properties productions that
23:19
have come out since we had our first conversation and look i i want to preface
23:25
this by saying that i anybody that's able to consistently produce things in
23:30
the business my hat's off to them okay i am not some i am not some master filmmaker
23:36
i'm a rough around the edges filmmaker So I'm not.
23:39
I try to be really diplomatic when it comes to airing my opinions publicly,
23:44
but I, I thought that alien Romulus, did you see that? Yes.
23:52
So while I thought that was completely unnecessary and I had no need for that story. Yeah.
23:59
If you're going to make me watch that, if you're going to make me watch something
24:04
like that, I thought it was pretty good.
24:06
Right. I thought it was, I thought it was solid.
24:10
I thought it was a worthy addition. If you feel you need to make those things. Okay.
24:17
Right. Now the, property which in my opinion and I've forced myself to watch
24:25
the entire series and I honestly consider this,
24:30
To be one of the worst television shows I have ever watched in my life.
24:34
Right. Was the Alien series by Noah Hawley. Right, right.
24:41
I'm not sure if you watched that. I'm not familiar, no. But I've heard commentary both ways.
24:49
I've heard people say, yeah, it's okay. People, yeah, it's not that great.
24:54
You know, I mean, coming from a person, I mean, this is coming from a person
24:57
who doesn't watch a lot of TV shows.
25:00
Like period right i mean i i watch film
25:03
i've only ever watched films most of life most
25:07
of the the tv shows that i've caught up on
25:10
is well certainly in modern days like for
25:14
instance my wife when we met was an avid supernatural
25:17
fan so oh oh okay yeah
25:20
yeah yeah i had an ex-girlfriend and still still still
25:23
a close friend of mine who who is huge
25:26
into that show too yeah and and and it
25:29
was it was good right up until like because when we
25:32
met we slowly she slowly caught me up
25:34
we went season by season and that
25:37
look there's some good stuff that i personally think they ran out of ideas around
25:41
the the 11th or 12th season or something but yeah
25:45
but she did say that there was one point where that the producer who i think
25:49
is the same producer who does the boys kripke i think his name is and she said
25:54
that at one point he said that this particular ending of this particular season
25:59
was where he saw the ending of the whole story of the Bruins.
26:05
But then it kind of went on.
26:08
Well, I mean, that's unavoidable. I would say that it's unavoidable,
26:16
but I'm saying that more so now because there is no luxury in,
26:24
There's no luxury for artistic integrity in the year 2026.
26:28
Right. If the money's on the table, you take the money.
26:33
Right. It doesn't matter if it's,
26:35
you know, hocking yogurt, if it's toilet paper commercials in Sweden.
26:43
Just the every agent and manager's mantra, and this has been for the last few
26:48
years, is just take the money.
26:52
Take the money because this is all going to end and it's all it all is ending
26:56
yeah you know what I mean so you know if there's any opportunity there's any opportunity,
27:05
for there's money to continue something even if it's going to be half-assed
27:12
not necessarily half-assed because a lot of people are going to put the effort
27:16
in to do the best that they can no one says that to make a bad movie
27:21
right but they're gonna take the money right whether it's even if it's bad for the legacy,
27:31
right even if it's even if it's bad for the you know kind of like sean michaels,
27:38
well yeah well like even like sean of who's a wrestler sean michaels coming
27:43
out of retirement for some WWE crown jewel thing in Saudi Arabia.
27:50
And then they, like, the whole match is a complete fiasco and a mess,
27:54
but, you know, it just had to come back for that because that money was on the table.
28:00
You know, so people are, I mean, we talk about.
28:05
So when, when the money's there and you mentioned Dial of Destiny,
28:09
and I actually have to say that that's a, that's a stranger.
28:13
I'm not sure if that falls under that category simply because that was like
28:17
a passion project of Harrison Ford's. Right.
28:20
You know, so that, that wasn't something where all the money was on the table
28:25
and they had to, you know, drag everybody back for, you know,
28:29
and everybody relented for the paycheck.
28:31
That's not kind of how that went down. Yeah.
28:34
But there are. But I mean, as far as like all of these heroes from our youth,
28:40
like just being shit on, like he doesn't get to ride off into the sunset.
28:45
He's a washed up, divorced, alcoholic, fired from his job, replaced by younger
28:52
people. What a sad end for a hero, man.
28:54
Well, I mean, I think that what was interesting about, I'm not sure if the last
28:59
podcast we had talked about the movie.
29:02
Because i did see the movie that summer that we
29:04
did the first podcast a year ago right but
29:08
i thought that the movie made i thought
29:11
the movie was clever right but it made some uh like head scratching like obvious
29:18
mistakes right you know what i mean where it was like oh like you probably you
29:23
know You easily could have had short round back. Yeah.
29:30
You didn't need...
29:34
You know, like that was an obvious one. And then the other obvious one was that
29:38
there was an opportunity action sequence.
29:42
Right. Which that was kind of like a de-aging thing like they did at the beginning,
29:47
which was awesome. Right.
29:48
So, so like there was some opportunities, there were some blatant opportunities
29:54
or rather blatant things that the movie did.
29:59
So it came up short a little bit. but I thought the overall like I thought the like,
30:06
I thought him fighting Nazis again, I thought it was good.
30:11
You know what I mean? Like, I watched it, and I was like, I'm pretty satisfied with this.
30:15
But there's just obvious things they did that are, like, head-scratching.
30:19
Now, the one thing, I don't want this to be a podcast about Dial of Freaking Destiny.
30:24
But I will say this. There's only one complaint that I had a problem with,
30:29
is that people saying, you know, oh, my gosh, they wasted Antonio Banderas.
30:35
Right, right. Please, please, nobody wastes Antonio Banderas like Antonio Banderas.
30:41
They were doing him a favor by putting him in that film.
30:46
He's been doing nothing but, you know, straight, straight to VOD dreck for like 15 years.
30:54
Yeah, yeah, no quiet. Don't come at me with, oh my gosh, Antonio Banderas deserved better.
31:01
No no that's not that doesn't
31:04
go down like that yes but the mainstream cinematic
31:09
monster has quite enough money to advertise itself
31:12
damien tell us a little bit about or
31:15
a little bit more about tell us a little bit some of
31:18
the short films you've been doing your psa
31:21
for 988 suicide and
31:24
crisis lifeline never call a dragon by its name and
31:28
your petite but poetic little chiller
31:31
jennifer murphy still lives never call a dragon by its name yes i did with cullen
31:41
moss from uh the outer banks who is also who also starred in my film the heroes
31:46
of arvine place actually he and his wife did the,
31:50
did the narration for Never Call a Dragon by its name.
31:54
That was, that, that was for the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Right, right.
32:01
And that was something actually a blast from, from the past.
32:05
That was a commission by an old dear friend of mine, Shirley Singleton,
32:10
who is actually a backer.
32:11
One of my very first films, Cocaine Angel. Right.
32:15
But I never call it a dragon by its name again was that, that Shirley had seen
32:24
the girl from the burning house and she was like, why don't we do,
32:28
you know, let's do something like that.
32:30
And her and I wanted to get something on the books.
32:33
She was like, I'd be down with doing something. I was like, oh, well, let's do another.
32:37
You know, how about another PSA for the holidays? A lot of people battling with,
32:40
you know, depression, et cetera, et cetera.
32:43
Now, it was inspired. I did. There was a Bored Panda piece that I had seen months
32:48
earlier called 136 Artists to try to show what depression looks like.
32:53
Right, right. I believe. and that was I used the art from that piece I credit
33:02
them in the YouTube description and everything but that's where that came from
33:09
it was cool at the time because I was teaching.
33:14
I was teaching a screenwriting course. Okay, cool.
33:19
I was teaching a lean and mean screenwriting course here in Karachi. Cool.
33:23
And I was in real time. And actually, as this is more of a screenwriting podcast,
33:30
I have a good story for you there. True.
33:35
But basically, there were quite a few students that were fans of the Outer Banks.
33:41
And season five had just dropped.
33:44
Right. So, so me doing this PSA around the same time with one of the stars from
33:52
Outer Banks, you know, that was something that the, you know,
33:55
the kids dig seeing that, you know, and it was, look, Ron Howard is absolutely
34:01
correct when he says that, that, I mean, every project, no matter how big, no matter how small,
34:08
will, will break your heart at some point.
34:11
And man, the audio editing of never call a dragon by its name,
34:18
the way, the way, the way that Colin had recorded this thing.
34:25
And he was busy elsewhere shooting something else.
34:29
So he was doing this, trying to squeeze this in here and there.
34:33
And it was getting close to the holidays.
34:36
Thanksgiving's happening, all this stuff. And he recorded, and it had so many issues with the sound.
34:44
And I was trying to make it work, trying to make it work, because I didn't want
34:48
to ask him. Didn't want to ask him to have him re-record it.
34:52
Do you know what I mean? yeah and but i wound up having
34:55
to have them re-record it and you know it's one
34:57
of those things where the audio of this take and the audio of that
35:00
take i mean it's always going to be that you know
35:04
i mean you're always going to have have some of that yeah
35:07
i have met a lot of that and whenever
35:10
you're doing the audio stuff especially with voiceover and
35:13
narration sure but for this piece for
35:17
this piece in particular it was it was
35:20
crazy and getting it you know you know
35:23
barely got it done on time but look
35:26
cullen and his wife did an excellent job and you
35:29
know it turned out to be you know something that people i think you know some
35:34
other you know some other third parties you know could shape it and so yeah
35:41
that that that turned out to be a nice piece and it was nice to get something
35:45
on the books with Cullen and his wife.
35:49
Yeah. But during that same period of time, I was also rewriting a script that
35:57
had been written by David Gordon Green and Craig Zobel. Right.
36:01
Now, Craig Zobel had, at the same time, had the Penguin series was out. Right, right.
36:07
And, which he directed. And then David Gordon Green, of course,
36:11
you know, who had done the Halloween movies and Pineapple Express and all that stuff.
36:16
So, what happened there was, it was an older script that years ago I had been
36:23
involved with producing. It was this holiday script called Dearborn.
36:28
Right. And the original title was Booger Mountains.
36:32
And the version Of the Film that we were developing Right The version of the
36:41
film that we had been developing Was trying to do this early 2000s.
36:46
Like half artistic vague humor
36:51
kind of thing you know what
36:53
i mean like like almost like you know how there was that
36:56
period of films indie films in the 2000s where
36:59
it was like oh to be to be
37:03
blatantly funny is basic we have
37:07
to be sly and ironic because to
37:09
be actually funny is like selling out for
37:12
the normies you know what i mean and that
37:16
had always that had always bugged me
37:19
yeah about the about the script but
37:22
i am as you know you know i made a
37:25
holiday film the heroes of our vine place i you know i'm a total
37:28
sap around the holidays i'm a sap for holiday movies
37:31
yeah and i always i always thought
37:34
that that script was something that
37:37
i could turn into something better yeah yeah and
37:40
so i i reached out to craig and i
37:43
was like hey man i'd really like to go ahead and take a stab
37:46
you know i pitched him my idea for
37:48
it and he was like okay let's rope in david and
37:52
you know i pitched it to him and they went they went
37:55
ahead and gave me the green light to go ahead and rewrite it and i
37:59
i i rewrote it as a as an
38:03
animated piece that was just very irreverent
38:06
very funny i kept the original title booger
38:10
mountain yeah you know and then.
38:13
I add so this is just so you know people listening can kind of get an idea of
38:18
how this process works and then i so i got it done around the holidays so they
38:21
could read it during the holidays they were both extremely busy you know they're
38:26
i mean those are super busy folks and um but they never.
38:33
Like they would never like they would get back to me within 36 hours directly
38:37
right okay so they were definitely okay,
38:41
courteous professional and and interested and so i went ahead and i followed
38:48
back up to him in february and they were like they were like man we haven't
38:52
had a chance to read it yet and you know,
38:57
why don't you follow up with us you know schedules
39:00
are clearing in spring why don't you go ahead and follow up with us
39:02
after spring you know so what
39:05
i did was i was like hey you know this is the year 2026 so you got you're only
39:12
going to get away with just having the script once right so i was like okay
39:17
i know when i follow up with them when i follow up with them you know in the summer.
39:25
I'm gonna need a mock poster i'm gonna
39:28
need examples of animated styles i think
39:31
would work best you know what i mean like i'm
39:34
gonna need stuff like that right and and i'm
39:38
gonna provide some synopses to make
39:41
it a trilogy so i had escape from booger mountain return to booger mountain
39:45
right so you can like kind of create an ip create a franchise sure you know
39:51
so i went ahead and i actually had a student here at the university i'm teaching
39:56
at here in pakistan booger mountain What's not to like?
40:01
Yeah, so I actually had a student here who did the mock-up of the poster. Uh-huh, cool.
40:07
All right, and then I, you know, so when I followed up with them,
40:12
boom, I hit him with the poster.
40:16
Then...
40:17
Then beneath the poster, I'm talking about different animated styles.
40:22
And I provided, you know, visual examples with how much these different animated
40:27
styles usually cost for this, for that, or the other.
40:31
You know, what I felt was most appropriate for the film. And then I went ahead
40:35
and included, you know, a paragraph each for Return to Booger Mountain,
40:43
Escape from Booger Mountain. Right.
40:45
Again, they got back to me within 48 hours, you know, and David was like,
40:50
you know, I love the poster. I love, you know.
40:54
Man, all of this sounds great. Then, you know, this is like a big project that
40:58
I, you know, I just can't get into right now, you know?
41:03
And so he was like, look, I mean, here's what I can do, though,
41:07
because, you know, we don't want to get.
41:09
And I don't want to get bogged down in lawyers and stuff like that.
41:14
I can just do, you know, a simple I can go ahead and let you have this to, you know, shop around.
41:20
Right. And then, uh, Craig Zobel followed up. He was, he was,
41:26
he was like, but I concur with David. I think all of this is wild. Sounds great.
41:31
You know? And, and when, when Craig emailed me back, it was like literally the
41:36
day before they were doing the announcements for the Emmys before,
41:41
which he was nominated for like eight of them for like the penguin.
41:44
But anyway so he he got
41:47
back to me and he was like i concur
41:50
with david i've got too many plates in the air to
41:53
you know devote to this but you know totally
41:56
have the blessing go ahead and shop this around you
41:59
can have the rights to it and then you know just uh
42:03
whenever you're whenever you're ready we can do a simple
42:06
you know kind of like a chain of title thing to make sure we're all on
42:09
the same page and then he he was like
42:12
look he was like and then craig actually recommended a couple of animation studios
42:18
and he his exact words were his exact words were even though it makes me gag
42:24
you know you're gonna need you're the best way to do this is is gonna be with ai assisted.
42:32
You know right many animation you
42:35
know and he recommended a couple of studios that
42:39
could possibly assist with that
42:43
right so you know obviously any situation
42:46
a situation like that ideally ideally
42:51
and what i was pitching for was obviously with their
42:54
infrastructure for them to take on the project i don't
42:57
have the infrastructure for a freaking you know animated trilogy or level let
43:04
alone one animated film and you know i i mean but i had even like you know i
43:09
when i was in my pitch i had been like oh man for all these different characters
43:14
you know here's actors you've,
43:17
both worked with that would be perfect i mean i i gave it the full the full
43:21
monty which is what which is what you have to do and so so with something like
43:28
that what would realistically happen is that if you know as soon as somebody
43:31
bites right you know you would go back to them.
43:36
Because people are going to want executive producing credits.
43:40
You're going to iron out that kind of stuff. You know what I mean?
43:43
As soon as the bite happens, as soon as it looks like it could be real,
43:46
obviously I would be going back to them.
43:48
And you would have to work out what kind of credits they would want.
43:52
And then once something becomes more of a real thing, then their involvement would possibly change.
44:02
You know what I mean? Yes. but that's
44:06
that's actually one of the that's one
44:09
of the last like like like like screenwriting things that
44:13
i did over halloween i saw jennifer your short
44:16
film jennifer murphy still lives tell us all about that mate
44:19
all right well first of all i want to thank you for the
44:22
kind words that i saw you post on my
44:25
wall for that so jennifer murphy
44:28
still lives was this man everything's
44:32
a story right totally this biz this business
44:35
so jennifer murphy yeah jennifer murphy still lives was actually something written
44:41
that that was written years ago okay that i had i i had wanted to get on the
44:47
books for quite some time right okay now completely independent of that.
44:55
Completely independent of that. I've also, you know, wanted to work with Danielle
45:01
Harris in, in some capacity. Okay.
45:04
Okay. She's, you know, I, I grew up on Danielle Harris, not,
45:09
not just Halloween four, but the last boy scout and all that stuff.
45:13
Yeah. You know, I don't, I don't, I don't follow her career.
45:18
Like I'm hardly, I'm hardly somebody that would be considered a fan. Right.
45:25
But she's somebody that every once in a while, I'm like, man,
45:30
I'd like to work with Danielle. You know, I'd like to.
45:33
And so actually, I'll tell a story. I remember, you know, the first time that
45:39
I ever rented a rated R movie from the video store, me and a friend of mine were 13 years old.
45:47
And we got on our bikes and we
45:50
we rode our bikes to video magic which
45:54
is a place that i credit for my almost my entire film education and the first
46:01
rated r movie that i ever rented was halloween for but anyway anyway but again
46:09
daniel harris is not somebody who's,
46:11
on my mind very much. Right.
46:14
But I was grading papers at school before the break.
46:21
And often what I do is I throw on a movie in the background. Yeah. Right. Right.
46:27
And I threw on the movie Daylight with Sylvester Stallone. Uh-huh.
46:33
And Daniel Harris is in that. And I was like, oh, man, I haven't thought about
46:38
Daniel Harris in a few years.
46:41
Right, right. You know, and I was like, that reminds me, you know,
46:44
maybe Jennifer Murphy Still Lives would be a perfect fit.
46:50
Now, here's where technology helps filmmakers today. Right.
46:58
Is that Jennifer Murphy Still Lives is a short film. Yes. Okay.
47:04
In order to produce, if you were to produce Jennifer Murphy Still Lives. Yes.
47:12
And go out there and shoot all those things that would need to be shot for that to have the impact.
47:18
Yes. That it needs to have.
47:20
Yes. it would first of all
47:23
you wouldn't have money for daniel harris because all the
47:25
money would go to shooting stuff right but we live in an age where you have
47:32
all this multimedia available online sure that people i mean you can you know
47:39
license things and people post things just for free use.
47:46
Right and so it wound
47:50
up being amazing that it
47:53
took years to finally make jennifer murphy still lives because if i had tried
47:58
to make it because the way that it turned out is the best way it could have
48:03
ever been thanks to the technology that's available to us now right i had so much fun being,
48:11
I was like a kid in a candy store with all these options to go along with that text. Yes.
48:20
You know what I mean? Yes. And so, you know, it's an urban legend.
48:25
So, so I, you know, and also look, you're also, you're paying creators,
48:32
right? A lot of that footage I had to pay for.
48:34
Yes. And then other, you know, creators that put their work out there for anyone to use.
48:40
Sure. You know, it's, it's a boon for them as well.
48:43
Sure. But that was a multimedia, you know, and they're, you know,
48:47
a multimedia piece, like almost, I wouldn't say found footage.
48:54
Right. So then I'll use the word multimedia. You know what I mean? A cinematic collage.
49:00
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a collage, but it, it's, it, and you have to,
49:04
you have to, you have to hit the right tone. Yes.
49:09
And you have to have a narrative. but the whole point of the piece is nobody
49:13
knows what really happened. Right.
49:16
So the trick in terms of editing for Jennifer Murphy Still Lives is something
49:22
like this, Kent. Is that...
49:25
Only a certain amount of images can directly line up with the narration.
49:31
Yes. If the entire piece, all the images line up directly with the narration,
49:38
it's stale, it's boring. Yeah, and predictable.
49:42
Predictable. However, if you don't have any of the images or footage,
49:47
rather, I'm sorry, I keep saying image, but it's all footage.
49:51
Right. You know what I mean?
49:53
There's only a couple stills in it it's all live footage yes
49:56
but but if you if if you
49:59
have nothing that lines up directly with the
50:02
narration then it's too confusing yes so
50:06
you have to have some things that line
50:09
up directly with the narration you have
50:12
you have to have some things that the narration evokes
50:16
emotionally and then line up something with it and
50:20
you have to have certain things to anchor a narrative
50:23
yeah right kind of like the
50:26
footage the balance like the balance of logic and
50:29
whimsy right right and at the end of
50:32
it you've got enough of a story where you're like okay there was obviously a
50:36
murder there was an investigation there's obviously there's abuse there were
50:43
you know the person was leading a double life right so it's got a little bit
50:48
of a I don't mind saying it.
50:50
It's got a little bit of an A24 meets Twin Peaks kind of vibe.
50:54
Yeah. You know what I mean?
50:57
Yeah, so it has that kind of A24 meets Twin Peaks kind of vibe.
51:04
And so, the reason that I'm going into this with you in this detail is that
51:10
it leads to another project.
51:14
Yes. So,
51:16
I thought, okay, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to get Danielle Harris for this.
51:21
I'm going to see if Danielle Harris is down for this because it made sense because
51:24
Danielle Harris is also my age. Right.
51:27
Right. And, and it's very much a generational piece told from the viewpoint
51:33
of someone my age that's haunted by this thing that happened when they were in high school. Right.
51:39
Yes. So I was like, okay, so Daniel Harris would be perfect,
51:43
but also at the same time, I was developing a feature film called Mrs. Barnes. Yes.
51:50
Which is, you know Nick Clement and some of those fellows, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
51:56
Good boy. So we, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Nick and Kyle Yeah, yeah. And,
52:03
And so that was being developed by their. Cause they've got their own production company.
52:10
Right. And a number of us had, had worked on the feature film rated in some
52:16
capacity that, that recently was finished. Yes.
52:22
So my whole thing with, with, with Mrs.
52:26
Barnes and I, I really can't get into
52:29
detail too much detail other than saying it's a project
52:32
being developed with them because
52:35
you know things are always being developed right
52:38
can't so you know
52:42
that as much as i do my life my life's still
52:45
being developed um right right right
52:48
so so so basically i
52:52
thought i'd killed two birds with one stone where i
52:55
was like oh okay i'm gonna see if i
52:59
can get daniel harris to
53:03
do the voiceover for jennifer murphy still lives right
53:06
and then and then i'm gonna use it as a trojan horse to pitch her mrs barnes
53:11
right then and there right yeah you know and so so long story short is that
53:19
i went ahead there was preston a friend i got to give Preston some props.
53:24
A fellow scribe at Dread Central.
53:28
I had written a couple articles for Dread Central.
53:30
Right. And Preston Fessel was also a writer for Dread Central.
53:35
He's written for Fango before Morg.
53:38
Anyway, he had recently co-written a feature film starring Danielle.
53:44
True. And Preston's a great guy. I reached out to him. I said,
53:48
hey, man, could you get me her contact information for this short film?
53:53
And he actually, you know, Danielle also does voice work and he went ahead and
53:57
gave me her contact info, contact info for her voice work.
54:02
Okay. And now that be, became an adventure in a half of, you know,
54:09
emails back and forth, people falling off the face of the earth for three weeks at a time.
54:13
You know how it goes, right? Yeah. You know how it goes.
54:18
So, and, and I was willing to, I was willing to, to spend a premium just to
54:29
make sure it would happen.
54:31
So I had the opportunity to pitch her the feature film. Right. Right.
54:36
Okay. So, so, you know, to kind of show good faith.
54:40
You know? And so anyway, all the, all the great things that people have,
54:45
have, have said about Danielle, um, are a hundred percent true.
54:50
She's got a great attitude, super friendly, super professional.
54:56
We went ahead, you know, I pitched her, I pitched her that other film and she,
55:02
she really liked it and then put us in touch with her, her other people.
55:07
And then we've been kind of developing the uh
55:10
feature since then again anybody listening
55:14
this is something that's being developed that doesn't mean it's going
55:16
to happen you know what i mean i'm just telling the hell in
55:20
the telling the story and in kind of
55:22
illustrating how i use that
55:26
short film because here's the thing ken yeah is that
55:29
the end of the day i live and die professionally by
55:32
my imdb page right right i've got
55:35
to have content so at the end of
55:38
the day even if the feature film like most feature films in development doesn't
55:45
happen yeah i've i've checked three boxes got something on my imdb right yeah
55:53
got a project on the books with danielle harris Yeah.
55:58
And Bucket List Project, I wrote Jennifer Murphy Still Lives, finished, done. Yeah.
56:05
Awesome. You know, so what happened was that was, and I'm now catching you up
56:11
on, like, some stuff that's very recent.
56:14
True. Is that that was originally...
56:17
I had reached out to Fangoria. Right. And I'd spoken to the woman that runs Fangoria.
56:27
Right. And she was going on leave because she was having a baby. But I pitched her.
56:32
I was like, hey, this is an exclusive for you guys.
56:35
You know, Danielle Harris, you know, short film.
56:39
Blah, blah, blah. Anyway, they're all excited. She winds up going on leave.
56:45
Right. Which means what?
56:48
Like, even on the best day, those
56:51
those genre rags are a little bit on the flaky side and flighty side.
56:57
I love them to death, but it's it's no secret. Right. Right.
57:02
So also, I didn't realize and this is something, you know, I I reached out to
57:08
them way ahead of time because I knew October they were super busy.
57:12
I didn't realize that this was also going to
57:14
be during when they were doing the chainsaw awards okay
57:18
they're big event but anyway preston reached
57:22
out and he was like oh man he was like i i assumed you would be doing this through
57:27
dread you know so i was like i was like you know what because he like loved
57:32
the uh short film right and so i said you know what i said fangoria haven't gotten back to me.
57:39
My contact is on leave because she's having a baby.
57:43
They're having the chainsaw awards. I think this is, you know,
57:46
this clearly isn't happening.
57:48
And so, you know, I'll go ahead and reach out to Mary Beth, who is the.
57:55
Who is the editor-in-chief of Dread Central. Right.
57:59
So I go ahead and email her. And at this point now, we're getting a little bit
58:04
to, we're getting close to the deadline of Halloween. Right. Okay.
58:11
And, you know, this is something originally I'd wanted done over the summer.
58:15
Yeah. Look, it took like three months to arrange everything with Danielle and her people. Right.
58:21
So we're getting a little close to the wire, but I'm like, hey,
58:24
man, And, you know, worse comes to worse, I can drop it through my YouTube on
58:30
my Facebook for my fans and for my fans, for my family and friends.
58:36
So anyway, so then Mary Beth, two days after I send the email,
58:42
she drops this huge like resignation post on Facebook that she's resigning from a dread central.
58:54
And she she reached out to me directly
58:57
she was like love the short you know i'll still be in touch because i had talked
59:01
to her about you know i she's she's writing a book about found footage films
59:06
and i you know and i want to make sure i get an autographed copy so we still
59:10
had other things that we were going to be going back and forth about but she resigned,
59:16
And then I was told that there was somebody else that I needed to correspond with. Wow.
59:24
Now, so then I forwarded the short film. I forwarded all the information that
59:30
they would need, the Vimeo link to download.
59:32
I forwarded everything on to this other guy who was stepping up now that Mary Beth was leaving.
59:38
This guy doesn't respond to me.
59:41
And I'm like, okay, I understand now.
59:44
It's like right around halloween there was this big shake up i'm not gonna fault
59:48
anyone you know i i i went ahead and dropped it on my youtube you know people
59:55
loved it but you know i wanted it to you know danielle loved it but danielle
1:00:01
you know would prefer you know was waiting to.
1:00:04
Share it through like dread central or something because my like
1:00:07
youtube isn't something that i really do anything with
1:00:10
you know what i mean so so so and
1:00:14
meanwhile we're having cop you know conference calls about the other project
1:00:17
and all you know she's doing all these convention appearances
1:00:21
so so she's too busy to do all this stuff so i
1:00:24
get it right it's the halloween horror season everybody's
1:00:28
busy things get lost in the shuffle marybeth you
1:00:31
know reside so then i'm i'm hearing
1:00:34
that once it gets into november
1:00:37
i send like a really polite follow-up email
1:00:40
right because keep in mind i had another article
1:00:44
that i had pitched mary beth as well that i was going to
1:00:47
be writing for him right right and i
1:00:49
was like look i was like you know i'd like to continue you
1:00:53
know working with dread central yeah and and and then i i heard that everybody
1:01:02
that had any sort of arrangement with the previous the editor-in-chief Mary
1:01:09
Beth was being ghosted I don't know.
1:01:13
You know, and then I was like, I was like, OK,
1:01:17
I was like, well, this is now like we're now in a territory of this being a
1:01:22
little bit more stressful than like I, you know, I'm not big time or anything,
1:01:28
but I got a lot of things going on.
1:01:30
I've got other writing assignments coming up like I got things to do.
1:01:34
And so then on December 14th.
1:01:39
Somebody, a staff writer with Dread Central,
1:01:43
then dropped this like blistering, like tell all about why she was quitting
1:01:53
all these horrible business practices,
1:01:56
calling out all these people, et cetera.
1:02:00
Right. Right. And then a...
1:02:05
You know, and then Preston announced that he was taking his column over to a
1:02:12
new site that's kind of starting up. Right, right.
1:02:17
You know, called ProfessorHorror.com, which is more like academic thing.
1:02:22
And anyway, a day after that, a hit piece from one of the Fangoria scribes comes out.
1:02:32
Right. going into all of their horrible practices wow you know so you know house of cops comes down.
1:02:41
Oh it was just i mean there's always been that there's
1:02:44
always been a lot of talk about those those three biggies who i've been covered
1:02:51
by and worked for all of them in some capacity i'm not going to go into right
1:02:55
i'm not going to go into specific stories that's but But so that was,
1:03:01
that was the odd,
1:03:03
I would say that was the unexpected drama involving Jennifer Murphy still lives, just being full,
1:03:13
you know, fully transparent, which is what these podcasts are all about.
1:03:16
I didn't realize that that was going to be, you know, I was just like, wow.
1:03:21
Now it is indicative of just what's happening just in general in the world.
1:03:27
Yes. like you know everything is just like it doesn't matter what it is like
1:03:32
then everything is you know.
1:03:35
On a, you know, falling apart for lack of a better word, you know?
1:03:39
And so it's like, so it was like, of course this is happening, you know?
1:03:46
But so, so that's what happened with Jennifer Murphy Still Lives.
1:03:51
Mate, that's an incredible odyssey. It's always great to talk to you.
1:03:55
I hope that the movie got smiled down on everything you've got cooking.
1:04:00
Damien K. Leahy, it's always great to talk to you. We look forward to your cinematic
1:04:04
exploits here on Cinema YouTube.
1:04:08
Kent, Kent, thank you so much for having me.
1:04:11
All right. I mean, it had been too long. It's always good to catch up.
1:04:15
All the best to you. And here's to another year of movie madness.
1:04:18
Yes. Damien K. Leahy. Fantastic discussion as always. Never uninteresting. Always inspiring.
1:04:26
Always intelligent. We look forward to everything
1:04:29
Damien's got going and everything he's got
1:04:32
on the boil which is plentiful which is good
1:04:35
to see so we hope the movie gods shine
1:04:38
on damien k lay here and hope to
1:04:41
see more of his awesomeness soon you
1:04:45
don't have to wait get down to the links in the description and check it
1:04:47
out now mr damien k lay here get the links in the description and as always
1:04:54
my little eugenites thank you for listening to us on spotify or wherever you
1:05:00
choose to listen to your favorite podcasts i'm ken hill and until next time
1:05:04
you've been listening to cinema.