Fran Kranz Reflects on Hidden Gem Horror Film

On Friday nights, IndieWire After Darkish takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema within the streaming age.

In October 2024, we’re doing the Midnight Film Monster Mash with movies that problem our understanding of evil characters and creatures simply in time for Halloween.

First, learn the spoiler-free BAIT: a strange decide from any time in movie. Then, come again for the BITE: a breakdown of all of the spoiler-y bits you’d need to unpack when exiting a theater.

The Bait: “The Cabin in the Woods” Companion You Didn’t Know You Already Had

For years, scary film followers have been dying for a “Cabin in the Woods” sequel. There are many causes that might by no means and will by no means occur; chief amongst them that it’s a damn-near good movie and ends with a planet-destroying apocalypse heralded by none aside from Sigourney Weaver.

However Fran Kranz — AKA Marty AKA the style’s most beloved remaining man since “Nightmare on Elm Street 2” — has a special horror comedy he’d be keen to revisit. It stars Pedro Pascal as its sexy-silly killer, encompasses a cameo from “Scream” king Matthew Lillard, and contains a few of the funniest improv comedy beats ever soaked in gallons of pretend gore.

Welcome to “Bloodsucking Bastards.”  

“I’m proud of the film. So it feels funny to be like, ‘God, it would’ve been amazing as a million dollar feature,’” Kranz mentioned in an interview with After Darkish. “But imagine ‘Bloodsucking Bastards’ with enough money to have even one exterior shot.”

Directed by Brian James O’Connell, this 2015 “Office Space” redux stars Pascal as Max: a seductive vampire who brings his menacing managerial skills to an already soul-sucking gross sales division as its readying for its subsequent huge penis enlargement account. This hidden gem was shot on a shoestring price range, estimated to be underneath $100,000 by Kranz, and follows a rag-tag group of wildly unmotivated workers as they try to withstand onboarding with the undead.  

“I hadn’t really seen that story,” mentioned Kranz. “The whole conceit — turn ‘em into vampires to make them more productive because these humans are total deadbeats — there’s something really clever and original there that put the offer over the top for me.”

Kranz, who’s greatest recognized for Drew Goddard’s directorial debut and Joss Whedon’s sci-fi sequence “Dollhouse,” has an extended historical past with each sketch and improv comedy, however he didn’t know concerning the comedy group Dr. God till he was solid within the first movie they wrote. The Los Angeles-based humorists (who haven’t been very lively because the pandemic) made their leap to the massive display screen with “Bloodsucking Bastards” and pulled off a small miracle utilizing the restricted sources that they had.

 “When I met with the guys and understood what they were all about and realized how much we’d be playing, because their world is improv comedy and that’s their wheelhouse, it felt like a no-brainer,” Kranz mentioned. “I think the movie became much more elevated because of that.”

Shot in an actual workplace constructing in Canoga Park within the San Fernando Valley, this shaggy function casts Kranz as Evan: a reformed slacker who we meet in the course of blowing it with hottie from HR, Amanda (Emma Fitzpatrick). Within the better pantheon of office humor, Evan’s ambition to grow to be Gross sales Supervisor — versus “Acting” Gross sales Supervisor — resembles Dwight Schrute’s profession trajectory in “The Office.” However the character can be seen as what might need occurred to stoner icon Marty if he’d survived “The Cabin in the Woods” and determined to work a crappy workplace job.

“Evan is more of the straight man, whereas Marty is the stoner-clown-jester or whatever,” mentioned Kranz. “They struck me as different roles, but the idea of it being like Marty cleaned up trying to get his shit together is kind of wonderful. I love that.”

Actor Joey Kern, who style followers could acknowledge from Eli Roth’ s “Cabin Fever,” takes on the a part of the punchline right here because the lovably lazy Tim. He, Evan, and the massive dangerous Max all went to varsity collectively, however they fell out of contact when Evan received Max kicked out of faculty. After Evan is handed over for a promotion and his boss (Joel Murray) hires Max as a substitute, the corporate’s douchiest worker Mike (Neil Garguilo) is discovered useless within the lavatory earlier than mysteriously reappearing, superb just a bit bit… off.

“Pedro and I quickly became really good buddies,” mentioned Kranz, who shot a pilot with Pascal shortly after “Bloodsucking Bastards.” That undertaking, titled “Exposure,” didn’t get picked up, however the duo bonded later after they each had theater gigs in New York. (Performing “Death of a Salesman” on Broadway saved Kranz from attending the “Bloodsucking Bastards” premiere at Slamdance Film Competition in Utah.)  

“Getting to know Pedro more, just that magnetism and that charm, you know he is special,” Kranz mentioned. “Almost to the point where you’re like, ‘Wait a minute, where have you been for the last 20 years?’ He told me, he had just been grinding. He’s the ultimate actor story of having paid his dues in the sense. A lot of people already loved him before his peak.”

Within the film, Evan and Tim evade Max and his evil legion’s efforts to make them into literal company ghouls by teaming up with safety guard Frank (Marshall Givens). With Evan concurrently combating to win again Amanda — and Tim dodging a debt on an workplace betting pool he owes to the vengeful and now vampiric Dave (David F. Park) — the story evolves right into a ensemble effort that, within the parlance of “Office Space,” lets everybody have a chunk.

“Every scene had the space where we could be like, ‘Let’s just mess around,’” mentioned Kranz, describing the shoot as one of many shortest and most gratifying in his profession. “So it naturally found itself giving everybody the opportunity to find the funny parts of their characters. It was a great script, but I feel like it’s quite an impressive piece of improv filmmaking just because you can be assured that a lot of what you’re seeing on screen was created spontaneously on the day.”

Requested why he remembers taking part in Evan so fondly, Kranz continued, “There was also that element with Emma Fitzpatrick and the role of Amanda, that love story element and longing for a coworker, that was quite fun and felt like a different thing that personally I hadn’t been able to do in that kind of space before.” If solely we might’ve seen the actual Marty with a girlfriend!

“Bloodsucking Bastards” is now streaming on Peacock, Prime Video, Tubi, and extra.

The Chew: Now Displaying “Bloodsucking Bastards” (20??)

Murderously mess and nonetheless slaying above its weight, “Bloodsucking Bastards” stands out as an indie success story that Kranz thinks might have been much more. It’s the sort of flick hardcore followers (hey, After Darkish-ers) will double-back for, however may very well be actually fang-tastic as a remake.

“The movie is what it is and it’s very charming,” Kranz mentioned. “You wouldn’t want to mess with it, but God had that movie just had half a million dollars. It’s like where was the financing? It’s such a difficult business to get financing. But look, with a movie like that, everybody did such a great job and, man, just a little extra money and just a few extra days, if one person could have stepped in and given that thing a little more life, who knows?”

Learn on for extra tidbits from IndieWire After Darkish’s interview with Fran Kranz:

Taking pictures within the Valley in Los Angeles, “Bloodsucking Bastards” took the underside ground of a constructing that was in any other case occupied by actual workplace employees. “By the end of the shoot, it was covered in blood and totally destroyed,” Kranz mentioned.

He continued, “But the people we shared the space with definitely had a sense of humor about the fact that there was a horror film being shot downstairs. It was also this incredible source of material that we could go up there and watch this company and team of people at their desks staring in front of their computers, bored out of their minds trying to get through the day. We had all the inspiration we could ever need just right there in front of us.”

“Bloodsucking Bastards” is the shortest shoot in Franz’s profession — “and that’s saying a lot because ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ was 11 or 12 days.” As a fan of Shakespeare, the actor appreciates meticulous language in his scripts and mentioned, “You can feel that background and training when you’re working with certain actors that have it.” Whereas bonding with Kranz in New York, Pascal was performing Shakespeare within the Park.

Kranz in contrast witnessing Pascal’s explosion in recognition due to “Game of Thrones” (and later “The Mandalorian” and “The Last of Us”) with Chris Hemsworth’s first-ever movie position for “The Cabin in the Woods.” That undertaking helped Hemsworth safe “Thor” when he was a complete newcomer to the trade, mentioned Kranz, who witnessed the delivery of “an obvious star” by means of the screens on that set. Kranz famous once more that Pascal had been working for much longer after they met for “Bloodsucking Bastards,” however mentioned the experiences for him as a fellow actor have been considerably comparable.

Matthew Lillard seems briefly as a consultant for Phallicyte — moments earlier than Evan declares “MEETING’S CANCELED!” — however Kranz (who additionally labored with Lillard on “Bickford Shmeckler’s Cool Ideas” in 2006) didn’t keep in mind Lillard’s position: “God, I would think there’s probably a lot of people who have watched this movie and totally miss that that’s him. Look at me forgetting that he’s even in it, but I know those guys are buddies. There was definitely a Dr. God connection.”

Particular results are tremendously tough to tug off with a restricted price range. Right here, to attain the blood explosions seen all through the movie, manufacturing assistants tossed buckets of crimson liquid instantly onto the performers. Kranz mentioned he was impressed that one thing so easy labored for essentially the most half. He mentioned, “I remember there was one when Sean Cowhig blows up and that effect didn’t quite get there, but they definitely did what they could to make the most of it.”

Kranz continued, “The funny thing is that big budget sets will also have effects that don’t work. On ‘The Cabin in the Woods,’ they had an alien that they just gave up on during the middle of the shoot. It just wasn’t working. I also did a show on HBO called ‘Ballers’ that needed projectile vomit and then the aerosol or whatever just didn’t projectile. Instead it sort of… dribbled. It doesn’t matter what the budget is, effects just sometimes don’t work and there’s no time to fix it. ‘Bloodsucking Bastards’ did pretty well when it comes to that.”

Over time, Kranz has grow to be much less inclined to take roles that contain getting drenched in pretend blood and gore. He recollects relishing the expertise with “The Cabin in the Woods” (“I was a kid in a candy store,” he mentioned), however now the actor pays extra consideration to the extent of discomfort required for sure tasks. He recommends utilizing shaving cream to take away stains on your pores and skin, however warned, “Sometimes you’re just pink and you’re going to stay pink for a month and you have to roll with it.”

Trying again on his first time seeing “The Cabin in the Woods,” Kranz mentioned, “We got a private screening at Lionsgate and it was just Bradley Whitford and I in a screening room together. It was just the two of us. And halfway through it, he turned to me and he was like, ‘We’re in the greatest movie ever made.’”

IndieWire After Darkish publishes midnight film suggestions each Friday night time at 9:30 p.m. ET. Learn extra of our deranged options…