James Kondelik — Pitfall, Evil Dead Summer Camp & The Bigfoot Pitch Trailer

Writer-director-editor James Kondelik sits down with James and BJ for a conversation spanning their shared history at The Asylum, the 14-year road to getting Pitfall into AMC theaters, and the pitches that keep him up at night — including a summer-camp Evil Dead reboot, a Cronenberg-style snake-hybrid body horror called The Slithering, and a Bigfoot movie built on Jack Links beef jerky commercials.

Key Topics

• Asylum origins: How James and his twin brother John reverse-engineered Airplane vs. Volcano from a title alone — same year Sharknado hit the schedule
• Pitfall's long road: 14 years of pitching, a fake pitch trailer cut from Wrong Turn footage, and a producer who called mid-May asking if he could shoot in August
• The spam folder deal: How checking his junk mail led to signing with a management company after they saw the Pitfall trailer
• Marketing muscle: 7–8 million trailer views across platforms, a publicist found at the grocery store, and James spotting the trailer at an actual AMC screening
• Help Me: His follow-up horror-comedy starring Virginia Gardner (Fall, Halloween 2018) and Adrian Grenier, produced with VMI
• Condemned: A $15M+ demon-action horror script James Bressack wrote that Kondelik has his eye on — probably needs to be shot in Bulgaria
• Evil Dead pitch: A summer-camp setting, a nerdy kid named Sam, Stranger Things vibes, boat propellers as weapons, and Bruce Campbell ideally involved in some capacity
• The Slithering: A Cronenberg-esque body horror about a man slowly turning into a snake — pitched relentlessly, reviewed with mixed results
• Found footage love: Raven Encounters, Hell House LLC, House of October Built, Sinister, and why Hardcore Henry made everyone dizzy
• Industry survival: Staying visible at The Asylum, the depression dip right before a dream release, and why the congratulations always come at the wrong moment
• Advice for filmmakers: Stay busy, stay in the mix, don't be too proud to take the job, and understand that endurance is the actual skill

Dani Abraham – Cops, Camels & a $7,300 Movie

Producer and co-director Dani Abraham sits down with James and BJ for a conversation that covers a police standoff on a Burbank set, a Birthright trip to Israel fueled by cheap tequila, and how a possessed board game shot in Dani's own apartment for $7,300 became Stupid Games — a PG-13 indie horror that landed on the CW, racked up Letterboxd reviews, and proved that $7,000 is basically the same as $0 when it gets your movie made.

Key Topics

• The 6:45 a.m. gun situation — four cop cars, a swapped license plate, and a first AD who still wrapped an hour early
• Birthright Israel origin story — how James and Dani met, camel rides, hangover hikes up Masada, and bottle service that cost less than the tip back home
• Making Stupid Games — a $7,300 budget, Dani's own apartment as the set, a Jumanji-meets-Game-of-Life concept with a demon, and co-director Nicholas Wendell's vision that got him a million-dollar budget next
• From Knowing Aaron to Meeting Marsha — Dani's unreleased 18-year-old Young Filmmakers Club feature found on an old hard drive, and her upcoming Meeting Marsha premiering at San Diego Out Festival
• Stupid Games one-year screening — still available on Tubi, CW app, and Amazon Prime
• Eric Roberts on everything — Jean-Claude Van Damme fanboying over him on the Darkness of Man set, Q-card mastery on Scissors, three movies in one day, and why he's the lifeblood of indie film
• Forget About It — James, BJ, and Dani in pre-production on Gordon Ressick's script, now reimagined as a puppet film
• Dani joins the slate — live on air, Dani agrees to help James pick next year's 12 filmmakers; DM @daniabe with your logline
• Advice for aspiring producers — make your movie; the stakes are only high in your head

Hana Mae Lee – MAGICK MTN. & Directing Her First Feature

Hana Mae Lee drops into the tracksuits to talk horror roots, her debut feature, and the scrappy, organic magic that happens when you give a powerhouse creative total freedom and a hard deadline. James is hearing most of this for the first time — he still hasn't watched a single frame.

Key Topics

• Horror origins: Nightmare on Elm Street at age six, graduating to The Tenant, The Evil Within, and Terrifier 2 — and why psychological horror still hits hardest
• Jump scares decoded: James breaks down the exact scoring formula that makes them work (and why it no longer works on him)
• MAGICK MTN. — Hana's debut directorial feature: a black-and-white, death-rock rock-and-roll fairy tale set in Laurel Canyon and Joshua Tree, with three interlacing stories, Aleister Crowley, Eva O, Super Heroines, Ross Williams, Lord Murk, and Cleopatra Records' deep catalog (17 tracks used)
• Making the film: crew of two (Hana + partner Hal Sutton), shot over 18 days, zero professional actors — architects, a fashion designer, a punk rocker — everyone a real friend with real IP
• Full creative control: James greenlit the project, was never shown a script, never recut a frame — and received the finished hard drive the day of this recording
• The Cleopatra Records deal: free access to the entire library, including six tracks from Anne Timyassui's band Voyeur, songs from Hana's brother's band Resistant Exists, and an original by actor Ben Price
• Hana's music in Boris Is Dead: her single "Weapon of Performance" (from debut album Atmospheric Paradigm) made it into the film — she found out it was staying at the premiere
• How James's micro-budget greenlight program works: pre-sold to distributors, director gets full creative control and the lion's share of the back end
• James's first film: My Pure Joy — $7,000, camera in one hand, boom in the other, two and a half hours long
• BJ and James's production companies: Robotic Donut (horror/action) and Bent Rest (LGBT-focused), with projects like Bears vs. Karen / Bears vs. Zombies and Forget About It (BJ's first voice-acting gay role)
• Hana's path into the industry: Elite Model Management rejection, Dragon Models and Talent, a Honda national commercial, Mr. Brightside and Hilary Duff music videos, then Mike and Molly, Pitch Perfect, and Workaholics all in the same month
• Playing villains: why it never feels like work — from The Babysitter to Sean Whalen's Swipe to A Company of Thieves (Onur Tukel)
• MAGICK MTN. premiere: World Premieres this September the 22nd at Fantastic Fest
• Advice for breaking in: slide into the DMs of filmmakers whose work you love — that's how Hana met Onur Tukel and how she and James connected