We love a bone-chilling horror short and Social House Films has been KILLING IT creating some of our favorites! Their hit horror short film “The Ballerina“ has almost 4-million views on YouTube! Aaron Fradkin is an American film director, editor, and writer who started his career in comedy with shorts and films such as 15 North (2013) and Electric Love (2018). While his creative partner, Victoria Fratz is a film producer, writer, and actress. They’re both from the East coast originally and they make a perfect partnership. Victoria stars in most of their horror short films and has quickly become an indie horror scream queen. You’ll find an abundance of their work featured on marriedtohorror.com. Their upcoming feature Val (not the Val Kilmer documentary lol) releases theatrically on October 1st and on VOD October 5th, 2021! It’s a suspense thriller with a comedy-horror twist. We can’t wait to see it! You can watch the trailer for Val here!
We were thrilled to have the opportunity to talk with them about how they got started creating horror shorts, their filmmaking process, and their love for the horror genre.
Our Interview with Social House Films
Married to Horror (MTH): Hi, nice to meet you both. We started our site last year. When we were curating horror short content, we found you guys and are just in love with everything you do. So, we’re so happy to have you here. People seem to be enjoying your shorts on our site.
Victoria: We have a lot of fun making them!
Aaron: Oh, awesome!
MTH: Your first projects with Social House Films were comedy. What made you transition into doing horror shorts?
Aaron: The new camera package that we got was a big reason why we began. I just sort of wanted to test out this camera. So, I didn’t even really spend too much time lighting anything. We just came up with this idea which turned into Bed Head and just put it online just for fun.
Victoria: We started cranking out these horror shorts and they originated because we were going to make a horror feature film which we did shoot last year around February. Right before the world shut down. I think we wrapped production three days before production had to officially lockdown. So, our very first horror short was really just a test to be like there’s definitely an art form to building scares and tension. Also, to get ourselves prepared for the movie that was probably two or three months away from shooting at that point. We thought, “Let’s start practicing.”, and Aaron had really been diving into some of the effects work. So, he was learning some effects tricks in After Effects and we just thought, “Here’s an idea for a gimmick with Bed Head.” That was kind of our first test to have fun in horror and to start experimenting with what we can do in horror and then it did well and we were like, “That was a lot of fun. Let’s do it again!” (laughs)
Aaron: There wasn’t much of a story to it though. So, the next one after that, that was the goal. Let’s actually take some time and develop more of a story. Take some time lighting it and that one performed better at first. Sort of gave us the motivation to keep doing it.
MTH: That’s the best way to do it too. You make something for you and then suddenly people say, “Oh, this is good.” and it’s like, “Oh, okay! I guess there’s an audience.”
Victoria: Yeah, he would tell me, “Oh, Bed Head is up to 30 thousand views or 40 thousand views.” and you’re just thinking, “That’s a lot of views!” and our channel at the time had 40 subscribers. It was nothing. We just had some random stuff up on the channel. We didn’t really have our branding figured out. Our name was always Social House Films for the company but we didn’t really have a clear brand and then it was just like a snowball. We’re having fun making them. People seem to enjoy them. Let’s do another one. What kind of weird, crazy story can we come up with next? It was very, very fun and then the pandemic happened. So, we were just stuck at home together anyway with our beautiful camera package and it just made sense to keep going. (laughs)
MTH: Did you find having the restrictions pushed you to be more creative as far as the storytelling or did you feel like it was stifling because it was like, “Well, I can’t really go anywhere or do anything. Where are we going to do this?”
Aaron: I think that still remains the case. We still feel a little bit restricted but I don’t mean that in a bad way. I think it definitely forces us to be more creative. I don’t know if the pandemic actually changed anything other than the fact that we could not go into production on another movie if we wanted. So, it really forced us to focus our attention on short films instead.
Victoria: There are no other distractions. It’s just us. The big thing I would do on certain days was go to the grocery store. So when there’s nothing else to do but create it was actually quite nice.
Aaron: It was a little bit nerve-wracking the first time we cast somebody other than Victoria because we had to have someone come over to the house. We had a friend, Misha Reeves, that’s the star of our film, Val and she was the first person in one of our shorts that wasn’t Victoria. She basically said, “I don’t go out anywhere. I’ve basically been home this whole entire time.” So, we were like, “Okay!”
MTH: Safe enough. Yeah, it’s been so crazy. When is this going to be over? Is there anything you can tell us about the new film Val?
Aaron: It’s sort of like this fantasy/thriller/comedy horror movie. I love the Evil Dead movies and we sort of infused a lot of that style into it. It’s basically about a criminal on the run from the police and he breaks into the home of a high-class escort and while he’s there the power shift sort of changes between them. It turns out she’s not all she says she is.
Victoria: It’s very fun. We found this beautiful gothic mansion in Ojai. So, we shot the entire film there. There were one or two pick-up shots here in LA but other than that it’s all in this beautiful 1920s mansion and it’s like really cool fashion for the star character Val. Things get a little bit weird with our story. I like to think that the story just keeps twisting and turning and something new and Beetlejuice-like happens constantly. Tonally it’s inspired by Tim Burton and Sam Raimi films.
Aaron: It is the type of movie that while we were filming we were just asking ourselves at the end of the day, “What are we making? Like, this is just so bizarre.” and we would watch through dailies and like I hope this cuts together and I hope this works. Sure enough, a year later I think it did.
MTH: It sounds very fun. We like the twists and turns. Definitely excited about it and that mansion sounds amazing! Let me ask you, for both of you because you have so many ideas. You’re doing so many shorts and movies are you able to focus on one project and then the next one, or do you have many projects going consistently?
Aaron: In order to bring any idea to life personally I can’t spread myself too thin. I really have to live in that project and only that project. So, I can really only do one at a time.
Victoria: Which is great. So, he’s focused on one at a time and into perfect completion and I’m sitting there like, “Okay! I’ve got three ideas! Let’s do this, this and this.” and then I’ll set meetings with him and say, “Okay, let’s set this one on the schedule and move this one.” So, I do think it’s a good mix for both of us.
Aaron: I do think the good thing about having a lot of ideas at once is that over time you have kind of a better understanding of what sticks and what doesn’t. So, if you come up with an idea and it’s still lingering in your head two months later then you know there’s something to it.
MTH: Oh, our relationship is pretty similar. Ha! We recently watched the Happy Birthday short and loved it and saw the great effects you did with the mirror! We love the BTS you two put up because it’s so cool to see how it’s made and then you’re sharing tips for filmmakers.
Aaron: That is why we did it. I just asked myself, “What would I want to see?” and that’s what I enjoy as much if not more.
MTH: Aaron, I read that Comedy and Horror are your favorite genres. Same with us. We feel like most really good horror has a comedic sensibility or there’s some irony. What do you think attracts you to those genres? For us, it’s like the heightened senses.
Aaron: For me, it’s always rewarding to get that visceral reaction from people. You know where people stand with your film when you can actually hear someone laughing. Making just a drama I think would be anxiety-inducing for me because there would just be silence the entire time and I don’t know what people actually think, but I do think horror also has that same kind of reaction from people. Where they will jump.
Victoria: It’s so rewarding seeing people reacting the way you thought they would in certain moments.
Aaron: Yeah, we get a lot of reaction videos from the shorts that we’ve made and it’s so cool to actually be able to look an audience member in the eyes, as creepy as that sounds, while they are watching the film. You just see the anticipation on their face and their reaction. It’s just very rewarding.
I think in the horror genre you can get so much more creative and weird. It’s encouraged and it heightens everything.
– Aaron Fradkin
With comedy it’s a lot more character-driven and doesn’t have to be shot as beautifully or cinematic I guess. Obviously, there are exceptions but I like the creative freedom of horror films.
