Interviews
How ‘The Boogeyman’ Director Rob Savage Pushed the PG-13 Rating with the Film’s Creature Design [Interview]
Up next from Host and Dashcam director Rob Savage is The Boogeyman, based on Stephen King’s 1973 short story, which is now playing in theaters this weekend.
Savage spoke with Bloody Disgusting about making a studio film on the heels of two smaller-scale found footage horror features, while also discussing his lessons learned from those experiences, as well as his approach to designing a PG-13, boundary-testing creature.
“I’d never really thought of myself as being somebody who would direct found footage movies, and then I ended up doing two back-to-back,” Savage says of transitioning from Dashcam to The Boogeyman. “But it took a little bit of a jolt to get back into that mode of storytelling. I was amazed by how much I was able to take from working on Host and Dashcam and work into this movie. Both of those movies were totally improvised.”
Savage continues, “This movie I assumed would be much more rigid because it’s a studio movie and it’s a very different beast. Actually, there was a lot of room for improvisation and playing around with the scenes with the cast. So many of the best, funniest, most touching moments in this movie we came up with on the day, or the cast brought from personal experience. There was still a lot of room and a lot of shared DNA, more so than I would’ve thought.”
Director Rob Savage on the set of 20th Century Studios’ BOOGEYMAN. Photo Patti Perret. © 2023 20th Century Studios. All Reserved.
If there’s one common throughline among all three Rob Savage-directed features thus far, it’s the filmmaker’s steadfast commitment to scare crafting. The answer from Savage was more complex when asked if that shared DNA helped when making The Boogeyman.
“The parts that I was really having to learn on the job, it was more towards the end of the movie, the action-horror beats,” he explains. “I’d never done anything with, I mean, I guess a bit in Dashcam, but again, it’s like found footage, so it’s a different beast. But that kind of more physical aspect of the creature, especially when it’s an entirely CG creation like our monster was. Wrestling with this thing. We had a 3D-printed creature head that I had on a stick, like a pantomime horse, and I’d be running at the actors screaming.
“I was shooting all the angles, and I’d storyboarded the whole thing, but it’s very hard to know if that’s going to come together until you see it with the creature. But the stuff that was useful was the first two-thirds of this movie; I looked at it more as a haunted house movie. I wanted to not see very much of this creature. I wanted you to feel very unsafe anytime there was darkness in the frame or a doorway, and a lot of that was playing in the same ballpark as Host. So, I felt like I’d done my homework there.”
Because the concept of the Boogeyman is so commonplace and nebulously defined, it created a challenge for Savage when it came to developing the film’s original creature design.
He details, “I didn’t want to invalidate anyone’s idea of what the creature is because everyone’s got their own idea. The Boogeyman is really just this name that we give to whatever we imagine in the darkness as a kid. So, I wanted people to leave and still feel like they could project their own fears onto this creature. We wanted something that was very simple and striking. I also wanted it to be that you saw the creature at the end, obviously because the family’s got to face down this thing, but I wanted there to be an aspect to it that you didn’t quite understand or that hinted at this deeper mythology.
“We ended up pushing in this weird Lovecraftian body horror place that I’m still amazed we got away with in a PG-13 movie. But that was our attempt. It was our attempt to honor the story, which ends with some skin-peeling grizzlies; and hint at this cosmic horror beyond what we see on screen.”
Witness Savage’s cosmic horror in The Boogeyman, now playing in theaters.
Interviews
The Work ‘Grind’ Is Hell, So Brea Grant & Ed Dougherty Made a Horror Anthology About It [CFF 2026 Interview]
Genre fans rejoice! Chattanooga Film Festival is back for its 13th year in 2026 with a killer lineup and once again offering audiences both in-person and virtual options. After having its World Premiere at SXSW this spring, the horror comedy anthology Grind is playing CFF 2026 opening weekend.
From a screenplay by Brea Grant (Torn Hearts, 12 Hour Shift) and Ed Dougherty (MLM) and segments directed by Grant, Dougherty, and Chelsea Stardust (Satanic Panic), Grind features four interwoven stories that parody the gig economy, hustle culture, and the evils of late-stage capitalism.
The anthology follows weary everyday people juggling side hustles just to survive, while going up against greedy oligarchs, and cleverly uses dark humor and bloody practical effects to portray a world much like our current economic nightmare.
Bloody Disgusting had the pleasure of chatting with Brea Grant and Ed Dougherty about the socioeconomic commentary in Grind, casting Barbara Crampton as a villain, and DIY filmmaking.
Bloody Disgusting: Every segment in this anthology feels relatable because people are actually struggling to survive in the gig economy right now. How did the two of you come up with the idea of creating Grind?
Brea Grant: Like you said, we were trying to come up with a cool idea that seemed relevant right now. The thing that everyone we know is talking about is the economy, the lack of work, and the nightmare hellscape that is late-stage capitalism. It felt like the right time to write something that really featured that as the main horror. As the main thing that people were scared of, this world sort of came to us over the course of a couple of years.
Ed Dougherty: We wanted to make a hit film, and we said, “Let’s make a horror anthology, that’s the most marketable thing there is.” [laughs]
BG: [laughs] Definitely not!
BD: I love anthologies!
ED: We do, too. We feel like it’s kind of an undervalued form of horror film, but it’s a hard sell.
BG: People told us not to make it. They said, “Don’t make an anthology. It’s too hard to sell.” But we did it anyway.
BD: I guess I’m just one of those weirdos who likes anthologies and watches them all.
ED: We believe that there are a lot of weirdos like you out there. It seems like every good horror anthology has a long life, but it’s just getting over the initial hump that’s difficult.
BD: Chelsea Stardust directed some of the segments with the two of you and serves as a producer. How did she first get involved with this project?
BG: The project has a long history. We shot the first segment, which is about multi-level marketing, a couple of years ago. We had decided we wanted to make a full anthology, but it took us about a year after shooting that initial segment to shoot the rest of the movie. When we did that, we knew we needed to bring on a producer aside from Ed and me, since we were directing the bulk of the movie, so that was how she came on board. I’ve been friends with her for a long time, and the one thing I know about her as a friend is that she is very organized, so it felt like a good fit. I just called her one day and said, “Would you want to produce these three segments that we have left to shoot of Grind?” and she came on board.
BD: There are some fun cameos in Grind, but we have to talk about Barbara Crampton. She’s so good as a villainess. Why did you want her for this role, and what was it like working with her on this film?
BG: She’s in her villain era, which is so fun. [laughs] Obviously, we’re huge Barbara Crampton fans, and when we were making MLM, it was a smaller part of the movie that we knew we needed to call on people who could do a good job but were also friendly to us [laughs]. I’m friends with Barbara Crampton, and we’ve done three movies together before this. So, it felt like someone within our reach, but could also really draw a horror crowd. She has a huge fanbase, and she’s also super supportive of all the projects that she’s been in, so that was also really exciting. She’s a great actress, and she’s super funny. I think a lot of these horror actresses, especially those who came up in the eighties and nineties, weren’t given an opportunity to be funny. I think she was ready to jump on an opportunity that was different than what she was used to; it’s not running around and screaming. She is a cult leader, and she is quite funny in it. She just takes the comedy so well and seriously, and she does such an amazing job with it. She has a scene across from Rob Huebel, who is obviously a comedy master, and I feel like the two of them together were hilarious. It’s been fun to watch Barbara go from these iconic roles to a different kind of role at this point in her career. We’re super happy to be a part of that.
ED: And she loves the movie and has been so supportive. Every time she posts about it, I’m like, “I can’t believe this. This is amazing.”
BD: This is an accurate parody of the current socioeconomic situation in this country, as well as our obsession with online culture. It repeatedly asks the question, “What are you willing to do to make money,” in a world with wealth inequality and evil oligarchs. It’s fun, and it’s a horror movie, but it’s thought-provoking. What do you hope audiences take away from Grind, besides having a good time?
ED: I read every review and every Letterboxd review; Brea does not. So, I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen some reviews that say, “Good movie but doesn’t propose a solution.” I think we do propose a solution, which is that the power of unions and organizing is the only way that we will be able to fight back against oligarchs. I do think that is the message of the film. Organizing is the only way to defeat these villains. I do think we have a lot to say in the film. I’d want someone to say, “Man, I’ve never seen a horror anthology that had a political message before.” [laughs]
BG: I think the other thing is that what is currently happening is that we live in a world in which people kind of feel alone in this. They’re like, “Well, I’m doing bad, “or “I’m having trouble paying my rent.” We wanted to hang a lantern on the fact that this is happening to everyone, that wealth disparity is at an all-time high. We’re pointing out to people that you aren’t in this alone; you’re not the only person doing side hustles. Every filmmaker friend I have is working a side job of some sort at this point, and that is just in Los Angeles. Outside of this city, I think things are more dire. I think it was about infusing some politics into something that could make people realize that they aren’t alone and that there are ways of fighting back and fighting the system that has been set up against them.
ED: I think the tone of the movie, which is darkly comedic, also really matches the tone of life right now. Everything seems almost at a parody level as far as the disconnect between oligarchs and trying to make a living and reality. The absurdist nature of the film kind of captures the real tone of life.
BD: There are some cool creature effects and makeup effects in this movie. Can you talk a little bit about the practical effects and makeup?
ED: I think especially because of the message of the film, which is pushing back against the current hellscape we’re in, we wanted to use as many practical effects as possible. We used matte paintings, miniatures, and practical creature effects. I’m always afraid of the matte painting because we used the old school matte painter, but they do look a little AI. I heard someone make a noise behind me during one of the shots, and I was like, “I hope that noise wasn’t them using AI because that’s a matte painting.” [laughs] There’s also the fact that it’s pretty DIY. It’s a film that we financed ourselves and shot in our houses as much as possible. We wanted the whole thing to feel handmade and very tactile.
BG: We’re old school horror fans, so we love seeing practical effects. The practical stuff is really fun for us. It’s the stuff that we think is actually cool. [laughs] So, practical stuff made the most sense for us. We both grew up in the punk scene in the nineties, and I think it just kind of comes naturally to us to try to do things ourselves. And we both work on projects for big companies, with smaller companies, but always for other people, so trying to do something ourselves to see what that felt like was also part of the experiment of Grind.
ED: This was our chance to do everything we wanted our way.
Grind screens at the Chattanooga Film Festival on June 20.
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