Throwback Thursday: I Met My Favorite Filmmakers

This is a writeup I’ve been wanting to do for about two months now, but seeing that Halloween falls on a Thursday, I found it fitting to wait to tell this Throwback Thursday story until today – similar to my experience of meeting Eddie Trunk ten years ago, I recently had the opportunity to meet the two people that inspired my interest in filmmaking and desire to pursue a career in the industry. 

Most, if not all, of this will most likely not be any new information to those that know me well, but for the sake of establishing context, I feel the need to talk about my experience as a fan of both Adam Green and Joe Lynch’s work. As I said about when I met Eddie Trunk, while I had an interest in music journalism and interviewing bands for several years, those aspirations eventually got put on hold when I was in high school after listening too much to authority figures and adults in my life at the time suggesting that it would be wiser to find a different career path because radio was dying. In my sophomore and junior years, my lifelong love of horror was entering an all-time high with the discoveries of various films and filmmakers – as someone with an expert-level of knowledge of the Universal Monsters from a very young age, I spent a lot of time in high school getting familiarized with the actors and directors from the 80s to the present, which led to the eventual discovery of the web-series Scary Sleepover, a fun interview series in which Adam Green invites popular horror celebrities to his house or studio for a sleepover (there’s much more to the series, but that’s the gist. Just watch it and thank me later). The first episode I saw was with Kane Hodder, most popularly known for his portrayal of Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th Parts VII-X, which was how I learned that Adam Green was a filmmaker himself. Needless to say, that eventually led me down the rabbit hole of researching Green’s career and learning about his work, with the sitcom Holliston and the Hatchet slasher franchise immediately at the top of my watchlist.

The first time I watched Holliston, it felt like I was watching something that was entirely in my wheelhouse and just meant for me – blending the world of horror and comedy, the show featured several horror references and cameos from some of the genre’s most familiar faces, along with fun characters that were easy to get invested in. One of my favorite things about Green’s writing and work in general was the way he was able to fit so many autobiographical allusions and stories that happened to him in his real life into his narrative work, which was also part of how Holliston was so great at breaking the fourth wall. It also made it easy to tell how much he genuinely loved the horror genre, which was super refreshing for me to see at the time. At my school, I was the only person amongst my friend group that was insanely interested in horror movies, and it was hard for me to talk with other people about them because I was more knowledgeable about them than the people in my circle, so to hear someone else with such a passion for the genre felt like a breath of fresh air.

At the time I discovered Adam Green’s work, I was at a place where I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life after high school. As a band kid that was in almost every performance ensemble the school offered, I was burned out with music performance and knew I wanted nothing to do with it in a collegiate setting. When the time came for actually figuring out what I wanted to do, I was so inspired by Green and the work I’ve seen from him, that I felt like independent filmmaking was something I wanted to do. In fact, it got to the point that my dream job was to work at his studio, ArieScope Pictures – I had no idea how I could actually achieve it, but working with Green and the people on his production team was all I wanted to do for a very long time.

Also at this time was when I discovered the work of Joe Lynch – my first impression of him came from his acting in Holliston, and his comedic personality and acting chops immediately had me curious about what else he worked on. Come to find out that he’s also a filmmaker, and a pretty prolific one at that. From Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (2007) to Everly (2014) to the music video for 311’s “Hey You,” I was quickly captivated by Lynch’s diverse resumé. His work and interviews reminded me of myself, in the sense that he’s able to be serious when needed and is no stranger to intellectual discussions, but he’s also very laid back and quick to crack jokes. Lynch and Green’s podcast, The Movie Crypt, was one of the first podcasts I ever listened to, and while it took me a long time to listen to a lot of their episodes, I would learn so much about filmmaking and the industry whenever I tuned in, regardless of who the guest would be.

I started attending horror conventions in 2017, with Green and Lynch being at the top of my bucketlist from the very beginning – however, living in North Carolina, seeing certain celebrities on certain convention lineups can be a rarity, so I never knew when or if I would have the chance to meet them. However, it was announced that the duo would be appearing at Spooky Empire’s inaugural show in Charleston, SC August 23-25, 2024, and I had never bought tickets to a convention so fast. 

Attending the convention on Saturday, August 24, it didn’t take long for me to find Green and Lynch’s tables, and they were easily the first lines that I stood in that day. While there’s probably nothing these guys haven’t heard or been told at events like these, I simply told both Green and Lynch that they were the ones that inspired me to go to film school and become an independent filmmaker like them, and they both couldn’t have been cooler. Like I said in regards to Eddie Trunk, everyone says not to meet your heroes, but I’ve been very lucky to have positive experiences with mine, Green and Lynch included. Having met them at the beginning of the day, I didn’t want to take up too much of their time while their lines were forming, but I had great conversations with Green about film school and my personal favorite film of his, Digging Up the Marrow (2014), and had fun talking with Joe Lynch about his most recent film Suitable Flesh (2023) and involvement in the Screambox series Tales From the Void, as well as horror-themed Hawaiian shirts, like the one I was wearing at the time. Before leaving their tables, I gave both of them my business card (which hilariously led to Lynch admitting that he recognized me/my social media handle from Twitter) and was simply on cloud nine for the remainder of my time at the convention.

Green and Lynch had a panel together that afternoon, and it was felt like listening to a Movie Crypt episode in the sense that they were poking fun at each other while seriously discussing their careers and talking about the craft of filmmaking. Green’s stand-up comedy roots were on full display at some moments, with certain one-liners and responses having the entire crowd wheezing.

After their panel, as the day was winding down and people were leaving, my dad and I made one last stop at their table before we left for the day. What we thought we be a quick goodbye turned into an hour-long conversation with Adam Green and a 30-minute chat with Joe Lynch, with both of them seeming happy to be talking with us. They could’ve easily told us to go away, but with the lines not as hectic as they were in the morning, it was a much more laid back atmosphere and there didn’t seem to be any pressure to keep things brief. If you would’ve told 16-year-old me that I’d not only get to meet these two men and thank them for the impact they’ve had on my life, but to have lengthy conversations with the both of them, I wouldn’t have believed you. In all honesty, it’s still wild to process two months later.

While my filmmaking aspirations have more or less subsided and I’m currently pursuing my journalistic interests that I had prior to wanting to get into the film industry, I feel like now was the best time to meet Adam Green and Joe Lynch – they’re interviewers in their own right on their podcast, and I had a great time talking with them both about their interviewing techniques and how they go about the production of their podcast. I’ve always wanted to interview people in both the music and film industries, and have been lucky to talk with people in horror like Heather Langenkamp, Alex Essoe, John Russo, and Heather Matarazzo, and it’s always funny to think of how there was a time I imagined being on set with these people when it now feels like I was always meant to be interviewing them. That’s how my interactions with Green and Lynch felt – it felt like a kind of full circle moment, considering there was a time I’d listen to filmmaking advice from them but now conversed with them about interviewing skills and behind-the-scenes stuff related to press work. When I started Dead Noise and began creating a bucketlist as far as interview guests go for both musicians and horror celebrities, Green and Lynch were easily at the top, so it was very amusing to be having those types of conversations with the both of them.

Long story short, this was another instance in which I’d recommend meeting your heroes, because you never know just how memorable of an experience it might be. I’m also happy this made for an appropriate Halloween Throwback Thursday story, and I hope to run into these two guys at another convention in the future. I can’t recommend their work enough if you haven’t checked them out already – keep up with Adam Green and Ariescope Pictures here. Follow Joe Lynch on Instagram and Twitter.

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