One of my biggest surprises of Fantastic Fest was Little Bites, the latest film by Spider One, lead singer of Powerman 5000 and sibling to Rob Zombie. I came to the film thanks to one of its stars Barbara Crampton, who was discussing her latest collaboration with the director after starring in not only Little Bites, but their latest on twitter, that’s mentioned later in this interview. The film produced by Cher (Yes that one!), stars Krsy Fox and explores domestic abuse through the guise of a vampire film. The film focuses on Mindy (Krsy Fox) a troubled young woman (Krsy Fox) who is a familiar/walking blood bag to a vampire, who has his sights on her young daughter. It’s a bleak and rather heartbreaking portrait of abuse, that uses genre as an effective vehicle for delivery and I can’t recommend it enough.
The film is currently on the festival circuit and while it will soon be streaming on Shudder, the theatrical presentation is well worth a trip, thanks to not only being able to experience this with a live audience, but the sound design on this is top notch. After my screening at Fantastic Fest and I got a chance to not only speak with the film’s director Spider One, but his jack of all trades lead here, who turns in a transformative performance, while also being the film’s editor, producer, start and sound mixer.
So, firstly, I have to ask about the title card at the beginning of the film produced by Cher. How the hell did that happen?
Spider One: We ask ourselves that every day? How the hell did that happen? Because, I mean, I grew up watching Sonny and Cher. I’m that old. It’s very, very bizarre scenario.
Krsy Fox: Her son, Chaz Bono and I are best friends, and I was at her house for a little birthday dinner for him that she hosted, and she started asking questions about these indie horror films we were making. I remember thinking like, how does she care about this? Like, why is she even asking? But, I thought she’s just being nice. But getting to know her a little more, she’s a wonderful, very kind person, but she’s very smart and very direct, you know what I mean? And I was like, oh, wow, she really was interested in this.
Some time went on and she had kept bringing it up to Chaz, and Chaz ended up coming on board for our last film Bury the Bride and it went very well. When Little Bites, came about and the script was done, and we’re about to start production on it – on Mother’s Day, I remember she was like, ‘I’m in, I wanna do this film with you guys’, (laughs) and we’re like, this is crazy. So, we just, shot the film and we took it to her house and watched it in her theater with her and got her notes. And it’s just been a really surreal experience.
Spider One: I mean, talk about nerve wracking. You’re sitting with an Academy Award winner and we’re just like, what? Four or five of us Watching the movie with Cher and I’m just like, oh God, I hope she doesn’t walk out. Remarkably, she really loved it, and she was very complimentary of all the performances. It was such a relief and you know, you can count on one hand someone of that caliber and entertainment, so it’s been amazing.
Krsy Fox: Yeah. Not to mention, every question or is backed by extreme experience and knowledge where that’s not always the case.
And, the stories she would tell you about shooting Moonstruck, or, The Witches of Eastwick, like ‘that reminds me of this’. And you’re just like, you could listen to her talk for hours.
Little Bites is this rather impressive look at domestic violence through the guise of a vampire movie. Like, how does that take even cross your mind? It’s such a great take.
Spider One: I’ve always thought that the real power of horror and science fiction, historically has been to take a subject you couldn’t talk about and represent this social issue with a robot or a monster.
Like Planet of the Apes.
Spider One: Yeah, exactly. Planet the Apes, Godzilla, you know, every, every generation has their atomic bomb. I think that sometimes nowadays that goes missing, because we can now talk about so many things. But for me, it’s just such a fun way to tackle things that are somewhat universal for all of us, whether it’s protecting a child or abuse, or even just feeling like, where do I fit in the world?
For me, you could tell Little Bites without a monster, but it wouldn’t be as fun, you know? So, to create this unique creature that kind of represents all of her fears, all of her insecurities as a parent.
You’re literally at a certain point stacking some rather poignant metaphors here.
I mean, just the idea of the pressures of protecting a child can slowly eat you alive. I think anyone who is a parent at some point in their life feels like they’re exhausted, they’re tired. The world is crashing down. Your mother thinks you’re doing a terrible job. The other parents seem to have it all together, but, it was just a fun space to play in.
So, Krsy, we all kind of known a character like Mindy. How did you find her, and did you know a someone like that? Because it just felt really truthful to people who would have experienced that in their lives.
Krsy Fox: Thank you. I’m a mother as well and I would do anything for my daughter, so I connected initially with that. But also, you know, of course we’ve all struggled with different things, whether it’s personal abuse or someone close to you and watching that. I just really tried to take in those feelings of fear and anger and trying to control it all at the same time. It was a hard character to live in because she basically never gets to be happy.
I just really deeply related to it, with like my personal life and certain things growing up. But then also I’ve had friends who’ve had such deeper struggles, and I’ve kind of gone through it with them. To me, yes, it is about parenthood, but it’s also about substance abuse and, struggling with that and struggling with just abuse in general.
I just think that those are topics that are really heavy, but really important. I like that she’s a survivor, but a flawed survivor. It isn’t necessarily a happy ending, but it’s something that she overcomes some things throughout the movie and she gets some power and, and she figures out how to stand up for herself.
Now, Spider we’ve seen vampires almost for centuries on film since its inception, but this character feels somewhat on its own plane, like it’s rooted in what we know, but it’s also got that extra layer that if they were real, that’s what I kind of think would happen. How did you come up with that mythology and how well is it like thought out?
I mean, it’s funny that people are using the word vampire, which I never even thought of, but I suppose he is a vampire. I guess that’s the most relatable, I just sort of think of him as own his own creature. The thing with Agyar, you know, is that his form? Or if there is just one Agyar or maybe everyone has their own Agyar? I think it would take on a different form depending on your life. But in terms of conceptually coming up with this monster, I mean I knew from the very beginning that I wanted to him to be human enough, because it was a real acting job. He wasn’t just kind of grunting in the corner.
To try and find this unique space in the monster world where, we’re not doing the silent killer, you know, like a Jason or a Michael Myers. Sort of just walking with a mask on, and we’re not doing something like a caricature, throwing one liners out. I wanted to create this creature that his psychological torture, was equally as painful as his physical torture to sort of represent all of her fears and insecurities in life. Then creating a look for him that clearly isn’t human, but we didn’t want to go overboard with prosthetics, where now we can’t really relate to his. We wanted to see him to be able to, to put on a real performance. So I hope we succeeded. We were really thoughtful about how we revealed him very slowly. You get a little bit more and a little bit more as the movie goes on, until finally we kind of see all of him at the end.
Krsy, yesterday Barbara Crampton brought this up in the Q&A and and my literally hit the floor. So, not only did you edit this film, you did the sound, and I really hope people see this movie in the theater, because the sound design really enhanced the experience and just make it that much scarier.
How did that all come together and how collaborative was that process for you two? Because as an actor, that’s got to be great because you have so much control over your performance at that point.
Krsy Fox: It’s great because I’m not just a producer that I have my name on the movie because I’m in it. I do everything. It’s a strange thing to edit a film like this, where it’s just all yourself. You get really sick of yourself. The one thing that was helpful with this movie is that I really don’t look like myself and I’m not acting like myself. So those are the types of films I have an easier time editing. So what I usually do with the films is, actually when we wrapped this film, Spider went on tour for a month, so it was a great time for me to get sort of my first cut. He was gone so I could focus.
I got a first cut and then I would send him scenes often while he was on the road and then we’d talk on the phone and get his thoughts. But we’re very aligned. When it comes to our prep and working with our DP, I’m sitting in on every meeting, I know what he’s looking for, I’m on set the whole time. I remember which takes he was connecting with. It’s not like it’s way out there and I’m going through 7,000 clips and I have no idea. It’s a quick process and once I get my first cut, he’ll have some thoughts, but it’s never really a big challenge. The sound design with this one was really cool and we did work with a company that mixed it and they did a great job, but it was important to be disgusting and scary and also very minimalistic. Whereas there’s other films where I’m like, every single time someone turn turns their head, you hear it.
When this one hits it hits!
Krsy Fox: To make it effective, you have to have the space and the silence and we tried to be really mindful of that. When we got into the music side of it, what I like to do if I’m not scoring the movie, which I did do some of the music in Bittle Bites, but like 99% was this amazing composer Roy Mayorga. We really wanted it to feel like seventies. All of his equipment was really from that time period, he had such a great sensibility in the films he loved. What I did was, I put in some temp music and I’m like, this is the direction, this is where we like the scene to go. This is where he would like it to build. And he just took it from there and I just think really did an amazing job with the music. Which was really exciting because at that point I was like, if I have to sit here and look at myself anymore, I’m going to jump out the window. So, it was nice to have someone else come in and do that.
But it’s usually a very great collaborative process. The only time we wanna kill each other is if I’m like, let me get my first cut, and then we can do it, then we’ll go through it.
Spider One: I know when to stay outta the world.
Krsy Fox: It’s sort of like all of our films. We all do a thousand jobs and everyone just kills themselves to make these films and that’s why there’s so much heart in them, we all do it just because we love them.
I agree 100% and it really came across on screen yet last night. So, what do you have planned next? Are we going to get another creature feature?
Spider One: Well, the next idea is already finished. We shot it. We have a movie we actually just finished the first edit on.
Oh, wow.
Spider One: It’s called Big Baby, which I describe it best as like a meta slasher. Because I’ve always wanted to have the benefits of making a slasher film, you know, the character and fun kills. But I didn’t want to make, you know, six teenagers go into a cabin and each one gets, you know.
Yeah.
Spider One: So, Big Baby is the next one. It’s about a screenwriter whose creations come to life and haunt him and the lines between reality and his fictional story are blurred and it’s a true descent into madness for this guy. So we’re very excited about that movie. Very scary. And it deals with a six foot five hulking man in a baby mask and a onesie. So, get ready for that.
