HomeFilmArrow Video FrightFest 2021 interview: Josh Stifter Discusses the inspiration for his...

Arrow Video FrightFest 2021 interview: Josh Stifter Discusses the inspiration for his quirky film “Greywood’s Plot”

One of the joys of Arrow Video FrightFest is that it gives horror fans the opportunity to discover hidden gems that they otherwise might not get to see.

At this year’s festival, one film that is sure to start plenty of conversation is “Greywood’s Plot”, which is directed, co-written and stars Josh Stifter. An ambitious homage to both the creature feature and found footage genres, the film is inventive and hugely entertaining.

I spoke to Josh recently about the inspiration behind the film, the challenges of making it into a reality, and the film’s impressive visual effects…

Your film ā€œGreywoodā€™s Plotā€ is having its International Premiere at Arrow Video
FrightFest. Whatā€™s the film all about?

“Greywood’s Plot” is about two wannabe cryptozoologists with a rocky friendship who have a tape of a supposed chupacabra sent to them. They venture onto a plot of land owned by an eccentric recluse in search of creating their next big documentary.

Where did the inspiration for the story come from?

I’ve always wanted to make a movie where Daniel Degnan played a sort of Dr. Frankenstein/Dr. Moreau-style mad scientist and I could play his monster. Body horror monster movies are some of my favorite and I thought Dan and I would have an original take on it. Originally the idea was that I would becomeĀ a spider-man (hence why that line at the beginning when Dom says, “What the hell does a spider have to do with anything” is in there) but as anyone who’s seen the movie knows, I went a different directionĀ with it. As I wrote it, I just started coming up with ideas that I thought would be fun to experiment with and film.

There are a lot of movies out there about friends who go on an adventure together, or horror movies about friends who go out into the woods and things go wrong… I wanted to make a movie that was about a divorcing relationship where we see two friends who are potentially at the end of that relationship being sent on that adventure.

Greywood's Plot
Credit: Flush Studios

You take on multiple roles in front and behind the camera. What was it like juggling all of those?

There were challenges but also a lot of benefits. For one, if I wanted to film, I didn’t have to pull a bunch of people together. A few of the scenes in the movie I literally filmed by myself. Just a camera set up and rollin’ on me in my basement. Others, it was just Keith Radichel and I or Daniel and I. Keeping it simple allowed me to just keeping filming and keep coming up with new ideas. If a scene wasn’t working, I could come up with something else and just go film it! Also being the visual effects artist on the movie afforded me the chance to write and film for what I knew I could do. I knew that I could animate flies through the film so we wrote that into the script (however you’d probably be surprised how many of those flies in the first scene are real… that cabin was filled with them one day that we filmed. Pretty nasty). I thought turning people into tree monsters would be fun so I wrote that in. There was a lot of just building it as we went which made for a very fluid experience in production and in post-production.Ā 

The visual effects for the film are really impressive. How did you develop those and what challenges did you face?

ThankĀ you! I’m glad to hear you enjoyed them. They were a lot of work. There are very few shots in the movie that don’t have some sort of visual effect, whether it’s removing a boom mic, adding dust into the air, or digitally rotoscoping the ring off my finger (smh) or the more obvious effects like the living forest or face removal stuff. Being able to slowly work on them while we filmed and writing scenes specifically for the effects I wanted to try to create made it less of a chore than it could’ve been… but that also leads to the biggest challenge which was just not getting completely drained and tired of working on them. It was A LOT and doing it myself made for agonizing weekends of working from rise to sleep. Having Daniel Degnan as my partner on it though and being able to show him what I was creating on any given day made it much more enjoyable.

Greywood's Plot
Credit: Flush Studios

ā€œGreywoodā€™s Plotā€ is filmed in black-and-white. Why did you decide to film it in that way?

When we first started filming, we had no intention of making it black and white, but as the story came together and we were looking at footage, Daniel and I realized how much of throwback to the B-movies and Universal Monster films we loved growing up that it truly was. We started to developĀ that concept and in that development realized how gorgeous some of the footage looked in black and white and how that style really allowed for us to immediately let the audience in on that idea that this was an homage to those types of films. We also filmed over a long period of time with seasons and weather changes. Making the movie black and white allowed us to hide some of that change in weather and time. Also, to be honest, I just love the look of black and white movies and had always wanted to make one. Making a no-budget, truly indie horror with my own money afforded me the opportunity to just make interesting stylisticĀ choices and no producers to tell me,Ā  ‘You can’t do that! It’ll make the movie harder to sell!’Ā 

The film is already doing the festival circuit. What has the feedback been like and how have audiences reacted?

The feedback has been surprisingly wonderful! It’s hard to know if a movie as odd as this one will be interesting to an audience or if they’ll naturally try to just compare it to movies with actual budgets, but so far we have had many people say they enjoyed it and that means a lot. It’s a bit of a polarizing concept (especially the extreme shift halfway through) but it been a bit remarkable hearing how many people seem to understand what we were going for and just went along for the ride!Ā 

Whatā€™s your favourite horror film and why?

Picking a “favorite” is tough because that changes for me in every moment. Recently I’ve been a bit obsessed with ‘The Lighthouse’, a movie I originally thought was pretentious and boring. But it was like an earworm for me. I couldn’t get it out of my head and just kept thinking aboutĀ it. It gave me nightmares. I naturally started to compare my little black and white movie with that one and found myself falling in love with it. It’s since become easilyĀ my most watched movie overĀ the past year and just talking about it makes me want to watch it again tonight.

But I also have to say that I think John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’ is possibly the only flawless movie out there. It’s just a masterpiece from frame one to the credits. The effects, the story, the acting, the style… I love everything about that movie.

What projects do you have coming up next?

I’m in the process of getting my first feature ‘The Good Exorcist’ out to distribution. We have everything worked out and there should be an amazing announcement about the physical release coming soon! I’m also working on what I call the “Bootleg VHS” which is a limited release of the film with edits like you would’ve seen if you had recorded the film on basic cable in 1991.

I’m also in post-production on my third movie ‘Scumbag’, a film I made entirely by myself during quarantine. It’s a weird one (shocking, right?) but I think it’ll be a lot of fun for people to check out later this year.Ā 

And of course, I’m looking for distribution and a hopeful release of “Greywood’s Plot” later this year as well. So, if any distributors are interested in putting out a black and white doggy monster movie, feel free to contact me!

“Greywood’s Plot” will receive its International Premiere at Arrow Video FrightFest 2021 on Monday 30th August at 3.45pm in Discovery Screen One. For more information and tickets, please visit https://www.frightfest.co.uk/holdingfolder2/GreywoodsPlot.html

Pip Ellwood-Hughes
Pip Ellwood-Hughes
Pip is the owner and Editor of Entertainment Focus, and the Managing Director of PiƱata Media. With over 19 years of journalism experience, Pip has interviewed some of the biggest stars in the entertainment world. He is also a qualified digital marketing expert with over 20 years of experience.

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