You know, the splicing of my character into existing footage was what excited me. So I was working as a director and a producer while these videos were going viral, that to me, were mostly about the edit. It was a surprise to me, it wasn’t necessarily what I was chasing. And so for me, the Internet of it all was really an anomaly. So it really helped anchor Onyx even before anybody had seen the film, or for people that don’t know my character.Ĭulturess: Talking about the idea of bringing a grounded element to something so bombastic, what’s your approach for dropping a character (who exists for many as an internet meme) into a grounded world? How do you develop and flesh out a character like that?ĪB: I think for me, it was was natural, just because I’m a bit older than the generation that truly was raised on the internet. He was integral to this project, because the tone that both of both Barbara and Jeffrey strike, and I said this in a Q&A, but the tone that they strike in a lot of their performances is a grounded emotional reality in response to absurd happenings. It is different when you enter into that partnership of director and actor. But I had a phone call with Jeffrey while in Massachusetts prior to him arriving for the shoot, and I could just tell we were going to be simpatico. But I think it was probably different when you were working with Jeffrey, because you had never met him, right?ĪB: I had, but very briefly. Andrew and I have been friends for more than five years now, so we already had a shorthand with one another. So he was also cut from the same cloth.īC: I think people are more approachable than you realize. And I think I’ve told Barbara, this story, but I randomly walked into Stuart Gordon’s office, before he passed, and he welcomed me in and I sat down and had a conversation with him for 20 minutes. She’s always taking the time to respond and to engage. And you know, they’re mythologized, as I said, so when you get to a place where not only are they willing to engage with you, and look at your material, and then act in your material, it’s just, it’s a real affirmation as a filmmaker, and surreal.īut Barbara is, and has always been a real supporter of filmmakers, and young artists.
Because growing up and watching these films, you know, these people, they feel so distant and mythical, they’re characters in my head. Andrew, what’s it like going from being a fan of someone’s work to directing them in your own movie?ĪB: It really is one of the most special parts of the process.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.Ĭulturess: The film features constant references: character names, lines lifted straight from the movie, and obviously we see a head get decapitated. We got the chance to (virtually) sit down with Bowser and co-star/horror icon star Barbara Crampton (who plays Onyx’s mother, Nancy) to talk all things Onyx, Re-Animator, and what it’s like taking a film to Sundance. Though it may not be the first genre that comes to mind when you think ‘Sundance’, the festival has been the launching pad for dozens of now-iconic horror titles: The Blair Witch Project, Cube, It Follows, Hereditary, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Halloween, just to name a few.Īmong this year’s titles is Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls, a horror-comedy adapted from writer/director/editor Andrew Bowser’s viral internet character of the same name. Every year, the Sundance Film Festival gathers cinema’s best and brightest new titles – and horror is no exception.
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