MTH: That’s super creepy! Do you feel that you get the inspiration for your shorts from your fears?
Victoria: I definitely think it’s a little bit of a blend. So, usually, there will be one inciting nugget with Happy Birthday, for example, it had just been my birthday and we had cake sitting around and Aaron’s thinking, “That would be interesting. Like a cake monster. There’s always one little thing where it’s like, “That would be interesting!” and then from there, we start to think, “Okay, what’s a true scare to me?” and that comes out in the hopefully terrifying theme or literally the way this apartment is structured. I’ve been afraid of the hallway for a long time. So, the hallway gets a lot of front-row seat in a lot of our shorts. Ideally, you just need that one jumping-off point that kind of puts you in the creative box to be like, “Okay, so now how am I going to get out of this box?” It’s so, so much fun in the context when we get it. The sky’s the limit and it definitely becomes a fun puzzle put together.
Aaron: With In the Walls, that was also more of a psychological thing and that’s what scares me the most. I like making things a little bit more heady and psychological. Losing my mind is one of my worst fears. More than somebody just showing up in my apartment. So, if you can have both, if you can make a psychological horror film with practical scares then that is terrifying.
Victoria: In the Walls was interesting because I feel like there’s more to tell. So, that was kind of based on a sort of true thing that happened. I had an apartment that I loved. A couple of other girls lived there with me and it was a while into living in the apartment where we had found out there had been two deaths in our apartment. The building was a little bit creepy as well. I always felt good there but my roommates were like, “This place is haunted! You didn’t realize?” You do a little Google search and you can see all this information.
MTH: Ohhhh!
Victoria: Potentially the death happened in my bedroom. I don’t even know but you’re sitting there kind of thinking you don’t know what you don’t know about that building, that structure, who’s running this place? So, that was a nice little jumping-off point for In the Walls. Again, even in this apartment, we don’t know who was here before. You just really don’t know what’s happened in a place that might have some stories to tell.
Aaron: Your walls weren’t bleeding though.
Victoria: Weren’t they?
Aaron: (laughs)
Victoria: I saw blood. You didn’t?! (laughs)
MTH: That’s so true and scary. That’s in a lot of horror movies, “No, this is my house!” You can have this house! You win!
Victoria: You win! Immediately you win!
MTH: Would you tell us about your collaboration with Robot Disco Puma because we think his music is great in your shorts. How did you guys find him?
Aaron: He and I were actually roommates a bunch of years ago in Los Angeles and then he moved to Florida. He started his own studio there and we’ve kept in touch. Every time I make a short film I’ll just shoot him a message and just say, “Hey! This is the idea. This is what it’s about. Do you want to start making some music?” and he’ll just sort of send me a bunch of options and I’ll cut it in. But, he’s great!
Victoria: He’s wonderful. We had just filmed Happy Birthday and hadn’t shown anything or told him more detail about Happy Birthday. We’re driving home from a location and Aaron plays a new sound snippet that Robot Disco Puma had just sent us and it’s that wonderful creepy music that’s in the short and you’re just like, “Ah, it’s so great and he hasn’t even seen it yet!”
Aaron: It’s important to us that he gets weird with it. That’s why I like it.
Victoria: Weird is key!
Aaron: Oftentimes we want more than just the basic drone sound. Something analog, weird, and inventive and he does it.
MTH: That’s great that you guys were roommates. It feels like in that way he’s probably in tune with what you want probably that you probably don’t have to give him too much direction.
Aaron: Yeah, the first thing that we ever did together was a web series called, Where’s Wally Now? Which is sort of a Tim & Eric inspired about just a weird guy against a green screen who’s in love with his cat Wally. It’s kind of a musical where he just breaks out into song.
Victoria: Under the Sea, Space, and Wild West! They are amazing! They’re on YouTube!
Aaron: It’s actually the only thing that my parents watched and then directly told me that they don’t get it and they don’t really care for it. But, that was when we made it. Actually, believe it or not, 8 or 9 years later they said, “You know what? We were wrong. It’s actually very interesting and funny.” So, they came around. It took almost a decade but they came around. (laughs)
MTH: We love weird and are very much into weird comedy. Weird everything.
Aaron: I think Under the Sea is my favorite episode.
MTH: So, this is our fun last question. What’s your favorite scary movie?
Aaron: Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness. Of course, the first Evil Dead is you know…it led to Evil Dead 2 which is essentially bigger and better I think. It’s just the perfect blend of horror and comedy. It’s very inventive and what Sam Raimi did with the Evil Dead series made me think like, I didn’t even realize that you could do that in movies, that you could blend genres like that…that over the top and entertaining.
MTH: You couldn’t! I feel like he made that okay. Before then it was, “No, this has to be serious. It has to be scary.” That’s what we love about Sam Raimi. He’s just like, “This hasn’t been done. Great, I’m going to do it!” He spun around Bruce Campbell in front of the camera on a rig!
Victoria: Yeah, I love it. We have a little nod to Evil Dead in Val in the final dinner scene that I love, love, love. I also love The Cabin in the Woods. I really could just rewatch that so many times. So fun! I want to see more. I just literally want it to be going on forever. Also, definitely Midsommar. Once I did pull the trigger and watched it I thought, “This is an incredible film! What an amazing creation!” and then I know it’s technically more of a comedy but Beetlejuice lives in my heart. It’s just so wonderful and it’s so fun and weird. That’s definitely in the top there. So many! There’s so many!
MTH: I know! It’s tough. There’s too many good ones! Thank you guys so much for joining us!
Aaron: Thank you for having us.
Victoria: It was so nice meeting you guys.
MTH: We look forward to seeing what’s next!
Aaron Thanks!
Victoria: Have a good one!
Looking for more from Social House Films? See more of our favorites in the videos section! Watch the trailer for their new feature film Val coming soon October 5th!
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