Nuts & Bolts: Interview With Indie Horror Director Chris LaMartina
By Tom Joyce
True to the throwback aesthetic of his 2013 indie film, WNUF Halloween Special, writer, director, and producer Chris LaMartina took a low-tech approach to promoting it. He used atypical tactics, such as leaving VHS copies lying around at conventions, in the hopes that curious attendees would take them home and pop them into their VCRs.
And the approach seemingly worked for his horror-comedy–a pitch-perfect reproduction of a bootlegged VHS recording from the ’80s, complete with commercials, which depicts a local news station’s disastrous Halloween broadcast from a haunted house. WNUF gained rave reviews and a cult following over the years, which grew when Shudder streaming service picked it up. Last year, Chris released a Covid-delayed sequel, Out There Halloween Mega Tape, which takes a similarly satirical approach to 1990s TV.
In this month’s edition of Nuts & Bolts, Chris talks to the HWA about finding an audience, balancing horror with comedy, and promoting yourself while staying true to your art.
Q: Can you tell us a little bit about how the original WNUF Halloween Special came about?
A: Back in 2012, I wanted to do a “found footage” feature. I’d previously helped producing transmedia content for Ed Sanchez’s flick, Lovely Molly, and I realized how much fun it was. Plus, I thought it would be cheap to produce a found footage flick, and it could be done relatively quickly.
So, I analyzed the found footage genre, particularly the elements I despised: How boring they could be (how do we break up the monotony?), their basic logic flaws (why is this even being recorded?), their minimal cast (how do we inject more colorful characters?), etc.
At the same time, VHS resurgence had begun, and folks all over were getting super serious about collecting tapes. I grew up as a child of the video store and I could totally relate … and there was something about this aesthetic that was invigorating and inspiring. That paired with the found footage problems … It just clicked.
I had been a fan of kitschy local television ever since I was a kid, even working for three years at the government TV station here in Baltimore, and there were two weird stories that really stuck out for me that began the narrative of WNUF.
I’d heard a story about a radio broadcast made at the Edgar Allan Poe house (in downtown Baltimore) in the early 1980s. They broadcast a live seance. From what I understand, nothing crazy happened, but I’ve never heard the actual content. There was something about that idea that stuck with me. It seemed to almost invite the paranormal with a healthy dose of William Castle-style showmanship.
The second inspiration here was Geraldo Rivera and his infamous “Satanic Panic” episode. My late friend Andy Copp had burned me a DVD of that episode, and it was utterly amazing/ridiculous. Watching that bootleg disc with its grain and VCR-hiss was perfect … and I knew this medium (video), and the aesthetic (the “bootleg” look) had to inherently be a part of our story.
Our found footage flick would be a legitimate television broadcast; therefore, the found footage question (“Why is this even being recorded?”) became a moot point. We could break up the stale limited locations with “commercial breaks,” and between a news broadcast and “expert guests” we could have our typical weirdo ensemble cast that populated our previous horror comedy flicks.
Q: How did you find an audience in the years after the original’s release?
A: Even though it’s a 1980s period piece, WNUF has become somewhat timeless because of the nostalgia angle and the word-of-mouth whisper campaign curated by a mini army of hardcore fans.
Early on, I wanted to have folks actually “stumble” upon the film instead of doing a big marketing push. So, back in 2013 before we released the film, we uploaded it to a few torrent sites, especially ones focused on obscure films (sites like Cinemageddon). Then, we begin duplicating the VHS tapes in bulk with a simple white spine label that read, “WNUF Halloween Special” in black marker. We threw VHS tapes out the window as I drove my car. My then-girlfriend/now wife, Melissa and I went to horror conventions and left copies in the bathrooms and stairwells.
Over the next few Octobers, more folks shared the movie with their own friend networks because it felt special to them due to that “secret” vibe and their personal connection to the experience of finding it. Eventually, the audience had grown to a point where Shudder (AMC’s horror streaming service) put it on their platform and that’s when interest in it really exploded.
Every October, I’m inundated with comments and messages from people who tell me it’s one of their cherished Halloween traditions … and that makes my face beam like a jack-o-lantern.
Q: Can you talk briefly about the respective eras in which the original and the sequel are set, and why they were of interest to you as a horror filmmaker?
A: The original WNUF Halloween Special takes place in the 1980s and was a love letter to my earliest memories of Halloween in Maryland as well as fuzzy VHS memories of tapes I loved as a kid. The 1980s were especially interesting to be in because of the offbeat but lovable blatant localism of regional UHF TV stations… and using that lens to show off a 1987-era Halloween really helped scratch that childhood Halloween itch.
The sequel takes place in 1994 and 1996 … and it’s influenced heavily by the media I was consuming during time where little mom-and-pop TV stations began to get bought up by large parent companies.
’90s TV to me meant two massive things: extreme/over-the-top marketing and sensational/exploitative journalism. Within the world of the sequel, we lean into those two quite heavily with obvious homages to trashy tabloid talk shows and insane, in-your-face commercials.
One of my favorite parts about making the WNUF films has been to look back at our media culture through the lens of what it has evolved into presently. A lot of that has to do with reflecting on fears and norms of the past and calling attention to the ways they are now eerie, unusual, and often comically depressing.
Horror has a unique ability to make the grotesque fun and the fun grotesque … and I think that undercurrent permeates in both the original WNUF Halloween Special and the sequel, the Out There Halloween Mega Tape.
What advice would you give writers on balancing horror and comedy?
A: It is the danse macabre, right? You have to laugh in the face of death, or it will win sooner than we want.
The awkwardness around being human is part of this scary, depressing planet, but when we allow horror and comedy to play out as a dance of tension/release, we’re able to enjoy this flesh-colored roller coaster a little bit more.
I don’t think there’s a magic formula for when to be scary or when to be funny. That’s ultimately up to the artist. However, there’s a musical side to storytelling that helps inform the best opportunities for gasps or giggles. I guess the best analog would be this …
Years ago, I was reading a magazine for haunted house designers and there was a tip that always stayed with me. The author was discussing how around the middle of their haunt, it is a good idea to have a well-illuminated set-piece for customers … essentially a “reset button” for their blackened journey through the attraction.
So, what does that relate to horror/comedy storytelling?
Metaphorically speaking, you should let the audience’s eyes adjust to darkness then blast ’em with light … or vice versa. ;P
Any advice you can give our members about promoting themselves, on social media or otherwise?
A: Do what feels true to you and your work. When I made WNUF Halloween Special, I was convinced no one was going to like it, but I was going to make the film I wanted to see and essentially said “fuck those who don’t get it.”
I was luckily wrong that no one would like it, and instead it has become my most celebrated film. The simple fact is: if you do what you love and pump pure passion into your work, the audience it’s made for will find it.
Social media is largely garbage, and the algorithms choke out plenty of promising voices because they aren’t positioned in way to generate money for those platforms or their partners.
My advice to creative folks is to stay focused on developing meaningful and personal relationships as your network grows but put the majority of energy into developing as a storyteller.
Nothing breaks my heart faster than someone who has become a better self-marketer than a better artist … and sadly, there’s a lot of that these days.
Where can people go online to learn more about you and “Out There Halloween Mega Tape?”
A: You can snag your very own copies of the WNUF sequel (the Out There Halloween Mega Tape) as well as several of my other projects over at: WNUF.bigcartel.com
If you want to get in touch, drop me a line at one of the social channels below:
Chris LaMartina is a Baltimore-based director, writer, and producer. He studied film at Towson University, during which time he filmed the 2007 movie Dead Teenagers. He is known for his motion pictures, WNUF Halloween Special (2013) and Call Girl of Cthulhu (2014). Since 2011, he has been working in marketing and advertising as a creative director as well as director of storytelling for several mid-Atlantic-based ad agencies.
ABOUT NUTS & BOLTS
Watch for more Nuts & Bolts interviews on the craft and business of writing horror, along with instructive videos on the HWA’s social media platforms. In upcoming installments, novelist Jan-Andrew Henderson will discuss tactics a haunted walking tour he owns in Edinburgh uses to keep visitors on-edge; and HWA Mentorship Program Manager J.G. Faherty gives advice on getting the most out of your beta readers. Please contact me at TomJHWA@gmail.com if you have any suggestions for future interviews. For more about what I’m looking for, see here – Tom Joyce
