We caught up with the brilliant and insightful P.J. Starks a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
P.J., thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
Up to this point I’ve always put quite a bit of me or something personal from my life into whatever I’ve written. New Fears Eve is the film that is the most personal. Towards the end of 2020 I lost my grandmother, who was the very person who got me into horror in the first place. She helped nurture my love for the genre as well as pursuing a career in a visual storytelling. At the beginning of 2021 I went through a messy divorce. Of course this was compounded by having kids and seeing the pain they were suffering through the ordeal. Then my mom was diagnosed with double lung cancer. She was my next big support factor, therefore, I was very involved in helping my dad Randy take care of her. This included doing research on treatment centers and going to some doctor’s appointments. She would inevitably pass away not long after we finished filming NFE. After my divorce was finalized I rekindled an old romance with a high school sweetheart, who I married this past September. An ex-boyfriend, also drug dealer and full-time sociopath, came into the picture and tried to destroy our relationship. That whole situation could be its own film. There were several other things that occurred along the way. Needless to say when it came time to write the script I had a lot to say.
Originally the film was supposed to be a straight forward horror film steeped in suspense and atmosphere. As I sat down to write and poured myself into the words it was evident early on this wouldn’t be as serious. I use humor to cope. Usually dark humor. As I relied on real life to create a fictional one I found more humorous ways for the characters to deal with their dire situation. What was intended to be a scary thrill ride turned into three best friends navigating the waters of change, loss, grief and gain shrouded in a veil of the macabre.
P.J., before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
In 2007 I began taking filmmaking seriously by writing and directing the horror film Hallows Eve: Slaughter on Second Street. Due to the local success of my first professional effort, I was asked to help David Breckman (Monk and SNL) with his directorial debut film Murder in Kentucky during the 2009 International Mystery Writers Festival where I received a Co-Producer credit as well as helping co-edit the short. In the summer of 2010 I wrote and directed a passion project, the short film A Mind Beside Itself, a psychological romance. I was also given the opportunity to work with Lee Goldberg (The Glades and Psych) on his short film Remaindered, of which I served as director of photography and co-editor. Working with Lee was great and we became friends. He would later writer me in as a victim in ‘Mr. Monk on the Road’, one of the entries in his New York Times Best Selling Monk based book series.
Between 2011 and 2013, I worked as an associate producer on the feature films Reality and Three Tears on Bloodstained Flesh for a couple of Indiana filmmakers as well as the popular KoldCast TV web-series The Book of Dallas.
In 2012 I created the popular event Unscripted at the Daviess County Public Library where I served as a coordinator until taking more of a consulting role in 2014. Due to its success Unscripted was featured on PBS. Twelve years later it’s still catering to the Owensboro community as an annual event, giving local and regional indie filmmakers an outlet to screen their short works. That same year I co-created the Unscripted Film School where community members were given the chance to become production assistants on two short films produced in the library. I served as producer on the espionage thriller Mistrust and the horror film Lucky that would go on to screen across the US. This lead to the conception of the feature horror anthology Volumes of Blood that I produced and co-wrote. I also directed a segment in the film.
In 2015, VOB would go on to garner acclaim from critics and win multiple awards at film festivals across the country. The film found distribution through LC Films and released on April 26th, 2016. That same year I was a lead producer on the critically acclaimed fan film The Confession of Fred Krueger directed by Scream Factory and HorrorHound artist Nathan Thomas Milliner, which has had over 1 million views globally. In December of that year I partnered with my good friend and fellow producer Eric Huskisson to start the production company Blood Moon Pictures, LLC.
In 2016 I conceived, produced and co-wrote the follow-up anthology Volumes of Blood: Horror Stories that landed on six ‘Best Film of 2016’ lists including Fangoria and would later be called a “Cult Hit Franchise” by Blumhouse. Both of these films opened the flood gate and allowed me to begin working with other filmmakers around the country as an executive producer. This included the supernatural found footage horror film E-Demon, the mumble-core drama Lattie and the creature feature Gnawbone.
VOBHS would go on to find distribution through the Los Angeles based production company Petri Entertainment’s genre arm Dark Cuts in August of 2017. That same year I produced a myriad of productions including the short romantic comedy The First Date, written by my late friend and colleague Brian Storm. He had written the short before passing away. When I found out he had written the screenplay I worked with some of his friends as well as his VOBHS family to bring the script to life as a way to honor him. I also served as producer on the horror anthology 10/31, the telephonic terror feature Close Calls, the horror comedy Butcher the Bakers and the demon based flick Deimosimine.
In 2018 I was a producer on the mystery slasher Angel, the slasher throwback Maniac Farmer, the short horror comedy Dracula’s Coffin as well as the documentary For the Love of the Boogeyman: 40 Years of Halloween which also featured me as a filmmaker. That same yea I participated in Scott Tepperman’s documentary Magnetic Highway – Exit 2: More of the Rise, Fall, and Resurgence of the Independent. Volumes of Blood would also find a new home at Scream Team Releasing, getting a Special KILLector’s Edition blu ray release.
From 2018 until late 2019, Eric and I spent the better part of our time attempting to obtain financing for Devil’s Knight, the third and final installment of the VOB franchise. Unfortunately, this project would inevitably be shelved due to lack of funding.
February 12, 2019, I would once again become a novel based character in ‘Killer Thriller’, the second installment of Lee Goldberg’s popular Ian Ludlow book series. In August of that same year we began pre-production on 13 Slays Till X-Mas, a Christmas themed horror anthology I originally conceptualized in 2017.
In March of 2020 our anthology films would be featured in Keith Hopkins compendium ‘The Horror Anthology Handbook’. 13 Slays would begin filming that same month, however, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, production would become halted until June of that year where the film was safely produced throughout Kentucky as well as seven other states. In the Fall of 2020 our team was featured in Fangoria for being one of only a handful of genre movies safely filmed during the shutdown. 13 Slays premiered to critical acclaim in November of 2020 and eventually released in March of 2021 by Scream Team Releasing.
In recent years I’ve served as a producer and writer on 10/31: Part 3 where I also had a brief cameo. I co-directed and produced the holiday comedy Slasher New Fears Eve, as well as wrote the screenplay. NFE has screened all over including Houston, Chicago, New Jersey, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, New York City and soon it will premiere overseas in the UK. NFE has garnered a slew of awards including three Best Horror Comedy wins and was nominated for a 2024 Fangoria Chainsaw Award.
I currently have several films in post-production I’ve producer on including the slashers The Boy from Below and The Art of Killing, the creature feature Project: Mothman, the musical horror comedy from Troma titled Sweet Meats, and the final installment of a popular indie horror franchise with The Barn Part III.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
Despite the successes of Volumes of Blood and it’s sequel, we struggled hard to obtain the proper financing for the third installment. You’d think, based on the previous entries, getting support for the last film would be a breeze. But after years of toiling away we discovered this was not the case. As 2020 crept up I was determined to get a project going and getting tired of trying to make a film versus actually doing it. At a meeting with Eric I suggested we take the financing we had and use it towards making a film that was possible with the budget at our fingertips. He didn’t want to throw in the towel on Devil’s Knight and so we made the decision that I would spearhead the process on getting 13 Slays Till X-Mas going while I continued the focus on DK. Whoever had made the most progress by Christmas is the direction we would take. Four months later I had filmmakers interested, concepts for the anthology, the crew was on board and most importantly, almost everyone who had invested in the other project was willing to transfer their contributions over to the new film. By the end of 2020 we had shot 13 Slays and overcame a global pandemic to create a new project.
I’ve been saying for years that you cannot be afraid of failure. It’s part of the journey. If something doesn’t work you have to change course and figure out what does. We failed at raising the money we needed for one project. Instead of giving up I encouraged us to look at another option. This lead to the most successful project we’ve made to date and ultimately the creation of our most recent production New Fears Eve.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
It’s a cliché to say anything takes a village, but things tend to be that way because they’re often true. In the beginning I not only struggled immensely with finding the help I needed but with trusting those who did offer to help. This led me to doing most all the important jobs. Trusting myself was easy and I knew my skill set. Filmmaking is a creative artform, which means there’s many varied operations that come into play to make a film successful and no matter how creative one person may be, you cannot do everything on your own. After I worked myself to death on Hallows Eve, I knew that whatever my next project was, I had to find the help I needed because growth comes in the form of expanded resources through other likeminded artists. The first time I let go of the reigns and entrusted others to truly help me was on A Mind Beside Myself. It was the first time I feel that I actually directed something unencumbered by the responsibility of other jobs on set. Those jobs were filled. It was an amazing feeling and I’ve never looked back. Now we typically have between 20 and 30 people on set all doing different duties to make sure the vision is realized. I look back and honestly I’m not sure how I ever did this without production assistants, grips, a DP or anyone really. Networking is key. Trusting others is key.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.bloodmoonpictures.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bloodmoonpictures15/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/starks.pj/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@bloodmoonpictures3299
- Other: https://www.teepublic.com/user/bloodmoonpictureshttps://www.imdb.com/name/nm3402067/?ref_=fn_all_nme_1
Image Credits
Brandon Scott Hanks of Blackbird Images