A conversation with Matt Farley and Charlie Roxburgh

on evil puddle, micro cinemas, despotic pizza sultans, "murder by phone," a G-rated de palma homage, and more

Last summer, I had the honor of shooting a small role in Matt Farley and Charlie Roxburgh’s newest film, Evil Puddle, playing Gladys, the receptionist of the water department in the fictional town of Medialight. This past weekend, I got to chat with Farley and Roxburgh about the making of Evil Puddle: a low-budget disaster film homage about magic rocks, evil water, pizza sultans, and placing faith in one’s community.

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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Brianna’s Digest: Is this the biggest, or even only, premier circuit you guys have done for one of your films? And what has that been like?

Matt Farley: Well, we tried with Slingshot Cops back in the fall of 2016. We had a rollout where we had a premiere at the local town historical society, right? The Danvers Historical Society Tapley Hall, and then a comedy club in Providence at noon on a Sunday. Then what? Then the Connecticut one?

Charlie Roxburgh: They were like, sweeping up the floor during the screening. We show up, the door's locked.

MF: A lot of light coming through the windows too. You couldn't really see the screen well. And then the Connecticut one, that was probably one of the better ones. And then the sad ending in Binghamton, New York. I mean, we didn't make another movie for five years after that, Charlie.

CR: Yeah, there was less people podcasting and less social media spread of the movie at that time. So, it's really moving mountains when you're just trying to get people out to these movies without those two things. And having more friends and people espousing about the movies for us a little bit, because there's only so much we could do. And especially in some of these other cities, if they know somebody there. There's somebody who just showed the movie in Tennessee at a local hall, kind of thing. There's just someone who went to the hall and said, “I know some guys who made a movie, can we play it here? It'll be free.” And, you know, people can come and pass a hat or whatever and just watch the movie. We couldn't necessarily do that ourselves, you know, we don't know anyone in in that town.,

MF: So, the moral is: We’ve come a long way, thanks to word of mouth. Or, specifically, word of Will Sloan and Justin Decloux and Peter Kuplowsky’s mouths—and your mouth, frankly. Thanks to all that. In L.A. [at the screenings] I'm asking, “How did you come upon us?” “How did you get here?” is my question, usually. And so frequently they're like, “Well, I listen The Important Cinema Club.” So, we're really lucky to have them as our champions. And we definitely haven't made it by any means, but we're a heck of a lot farther now, nine years down the road, than we were in 2016.

CR: Also the rise of the micro cinemas. Back then, if you went to a theater and we wanted to rent it, they'd be like, “Okay, you could rent it. You're paying for every seat.” And it's going to be this exorbitant fee, and maybe they don't even want to deal with us. And now the complete flip side, there's these unique little venues that are like, “We will work with you, and it'll be reasonable terms, and we could just make it happen,” you know? “And it could be a one-off screening. And if you guys could get here, come here and talk,” and it'll be this community thing. So that rise of the micro cinemas has been huge, and I think it's especially important for comedies, because these movies are 100% designed to be watched with a group. It's got a lot of weird, subtle senses of humor, and people need to know it's okay to laugh and tease us and just get into it.

MF: And talking about watching in a crowd, you know, Kevin McGee comes on... if you're watching it on your computer, Kevin McGee comes on the screen and you just go, “Hey, there's Kevin McGee.” You're in a theater, people start cheering the minute that his face is on the screen. The audience is cheering. When I give out my phone number in the middle of the movie, people are reciting it along with me and cheering. This movie in particular is built for a crowd.

William Van Rhyn and the magic rock

Brianna’s Digest: I saw you post that there was going to be a screening in Lancaster, and that's when I was like, woah. Because, I have a friend from high school who lives in Lancaster. He never goes to see movies anymore because there's just nothing to see out there. And I texted him when I saw you post that, and I was like, “Andy, that very, very small movie that I am in—you can go see it! It is playing near you.” And he was like, “I'm gonna get tickets now, I'm going to see it.” That was really cool to me. I was like, wow, they've made it. They're out in Lancaster.

MF: Yeah, I mean, in L.A. it was the brother of… you know the egg salesman in one of the opening scenes? That guy's brother lives in L.A., so he came to the screening. And that's just got to be great. But most of the screenings are—like Charlie said with Tennessee—where we're just encouraging fans to reach out to their local Cineplex or micro cinema. And it's working. We got Tampa coming up on Wednesday, right?

CR: Yeah, so it's a mixture of that and Farley did like a grassroots emailing to these people, reaching out to them and—

MF: It’s so humiliating, emailing every cinema in America.