NOFS: So was the whole process invigorating or just frustrating to essentially go back to how things used to be on your first shoots?
JE: There were moments that were really great and I will say certainly there was some frustration, but that was more about just not having the time and not having hands sometimes. Sometimes we would get everybody together, we’d get film in the camera, we’d be ready to shoot, and we [couldn’t] get the two other people we needed to some sort of gag, like ‘I don’t think we can shoot today, we’ll have to shoot tomorrow’. That was frustrating because it starts as free time and then you realize, well now I actually don’t have any free time [Laughs].
It was also frustrating for Joe because, obviously, he just wants to get this thing done but he’s trying to make it as big and impactful as possible. So, it is really, really lucky that it was a group of friends. It was people who all know each other, we all understand each other, we can get upset with each other if we need to for a brief period of time. It was the right environment for a movie like this to exist. And now, being on the other side of it, I’m very proud of all the work that my friends did on this movie.
I think it’s Matt’s best role in years, I think Joe really upped the ante with $0 to do as much as humanly possible, our camera friends, our buddy Steve Moore who did the score; It’s really just an incredible piece of work, so that tends to wash away all that, you know, laying on the floor in a pile of blood, flicking a light like ‘is this my life now? Is this what I do?’ [Laughs].
MM: That was the prevailing feeling sometimes on set when you get to year three of nights and weekends because it, you know, for the second stretch, we all have other jobs that we do-
JE: How long did the fight scene take with you and Joe?
MM: About two months.
JE: And it’s because Matt would work his day job, doing editing, and he would work until about five or six, he’d have himself a burrito or something and then he would come over Joe’s, but we could only shoot until 11. So it was like, “Okay, we would have four hours with Matt, we’ll try to get three shots today. And that’s kind of what it was for a long time.
MM: A very long time. And, you know, you have this thing where it’s like, well, this is the thing I really want to be doing. I wanna be making a movie. So there’s this sort of prevailing guilt, but also exhaustion. I wanted to be there more. There were other things they could shoot, like effects and sorts of things like that but yeah, I would basically wrap my day at 7:00 PM and then shoot from 7:30 to 2:00 AM, take a shower, try to get the goo off, eat something, go to bed, wake up at nine and work my day.
For chunks of those three years, that’s what we were doing but I will say, I think one of the most challenging things on the back end, to piggyback off of what Josh was saying, when something goes on this long and you’re always making improvements, it’s always getting better and better and getting tighter and tighter- sometimes you go in on these scenes and you’re like, ‘Wait, what? Where does this fit? What are we doing?’ Because it’s a whole new idea and sometimes it’s scripted, sometimes we’re just doing something. I would occasionally go in completely confused about what the fuck we were doing and trying to figure out what it was.
“I’m very proud of all the work that my friends did on this movie […] Joe really upped the ante with $0 to do as much as humanly possible.”
MM: But then we’d start shooting it and then Joe and Josh would get in the room, Josh would cut it and the great thing about this process was being able to see it as we did it. We shot on 16mm film, so they would send in the reels, get them developed, it would come back, Josh would cut it, and that was amazing, being able to see it.
Then suddenly, talking about staying invigorated, I would get this injection of adrenaline like, “Oh, this is cool! I see what we’re doing here now,’ because I’d see the first bit of the scene and it would clarify it and also I would have new energy for it. That was a neat part of the process, ultimately, despite some of the frustrations of like, ‘What, what are we doing here?’ [Laughs].
NOFS: It sounds like you guys are cutting early or, at least, stopping the loud shit at 11-
JE: And we never had a neighbor complain.
NOFS: That was going to be my next question! That’s crazy.
Josh: It is crazy, yeah.
NOFS: Did Joe just have enough of a reputation with the neighborhood that they were cool with whatever you were doing?
MM: That’s exactly what it is, yeah.
JE: 100%. I used to live in that apartment with Joe and we would always throw house parties. We would have chicken wing cookouts, we would have movie nights, New Year’s, Halloween, all the fun stuff. His neighbors were always just very cool with it, they were all really chill.
Then after I moved out, Joe had total impetus to just throw ragers. We started having 70, 80-person house parties there, and he bought a margarita machine. It’s outta control. Joe loves to have a good time, and God bless him for it. So, his neighbors were just totally cool. We were in there shooting and it’s like, you know, we got Motorhead on and people walking around like, ‘Oh, Joe must be having a party,’ and then you hear Joe screaming something like, ‘You fucking Melon-headed douche bags!’
Matt: And then a chainsaw goes off! [Laughs]
JE: Yeah! They never had an issue, but also we tried to keep it pretty respectful. We tried not to go past 11:00 or 12:00 some nights. It was pretty reasonable for what it was. And thankfully, he’s at the end of the building so there was really only one person below him and he’s a friend, he’s a really nice guy, so he was like, ‘Whatever. Sounds like you guys had fun last night’. [Laughs].
Jimmy & Stiggs, the first feature to be released under Eli Roth’s The Horror Section banner, hits theatres Aug 15. Click HERE to listen to our full conversation with Josh Ethier & Matt Mercer, and click HERE to read our full review of the film. Let us know what you thought of their new Heavy Metal Nightmare over in the Nightmare on Film Street Discord. Social Media Is A Cesspool. Come Hang Where The Cool Creeps Are.
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