An Interview with Filmmaker Tom Costabile
Tom Costabile is the writer/director of VooDoo, a controversial supernatural horror movie that’s currently playing theaters and available on VOD. We were lucky enough to interview him and got to talk to him about his latest movie – VooDoo, as well as crowdfunding, test screenings and much, much more.
Hi Tom, It is excellent that you have made the time to speak to us.
Congrats on the release of the film! Looks like the film is getting some good attention from the media – is that a relief, knowing people not only like it but outlets are covering it?
Thank you so much! Yeah, when you make these things you never think it’ll even get released one day. It’s just a hope and a prayer to get distribution alone. So to go on that ride from writing, to shooting, to release, to here with a lot of the press it’s pretty intense. To say the least.
It’s a long journey but you have done extremely well!
Why do you think people are enjoying the film as much as they are?
I think it’s a good deviation from the norm. We’ve been seeing essentially the same type of horror movies for a long time now. This is more fantasy horror with shocking imagery. Babies getting eaten, past relatives being mutilated in front of you, it’s pretty crazy stuff. Once the word got out about what happens in the movie it just started spreading. Which is great because with a film like this you kind of rely on word of mouth.
It definitely sounds like it has a lot of shock value!
Just how difficult is it to get an indie film up these days?
Extremely. I self-funded VooDoo because it’s just too hard to find money. Studios are fixated on super heroes and have been for quite a while so unless you have a previously successfully branded title you have almost a zero chance to get a studio behind you. The smaller production companies are bombarded with pictures from professionals that don’t have super heroes so what used to be the smaller companies like Lionsgate and Dimension and New Line are now power houses in the industry producing Oscar contending titles casting the biggest stars in the US. How could you possibly compete? I advise any up and coming filmmaker to really try to self-fund.
It’s a tough market out there at the moment.
Have advances in technology opened more doors for filmmakers? Easier to get a film released now with VOD and all these other new platforms?
Yes. It’s easier to get your film on VOD but to draw traffic to it and get people to actually buy it is still very difficult and expensive. I think you still need to have all the qualities of a good movie to make it work, even if self-distributing.
What would your ideal release have been for the film?
Honestly this was pretty ideal! We were an AMC Theatrical release in 16 cities (US) and we’re on all major VOD platforms today. For an indie filmmaker that’s incredible. Having a full wide release in thousands of theaters just was never going to happen with this type of film and I knew that so it never was something I was trying to accomplish. Having AMC pick it up floored me. I was so excited!
That was amazing getting picked up by AMC, that completely widens your reach.
Did you have a screening for cast and crew? How was the feedback?
Yes! We had a cast and crew screening in April 2016. The film still wasn’t completed but it was close enough to finally show it to them. It was an overly positive reaction. In a lot of ways, the fact that we even finished it was a feat and to get it to the point of being on a big screen for everyone was just so exciting for everybody. The cast and crew screening was a couple years after we wrapped and I think everyone was happy to see each other again after all that time. It was fun!
It will have been great for the cast and crew to get to see the finished article.
What about test screenings? Do you believe in those?
Yes, we had 2 and they both were very positive. In the end, the numbers came out to about a 70% approval rating between about 400 people. That was another thing that happened that made me think ‘maybe we have something here’ and that was before facilitating distribution, even way earlier than AMC picking it up. Every level to release just got better and better, and more positive, to the point where it was just too good to be true!
Anything you’d do different on the next film?
You learn as you go for sure. If there’s one thing I would do differently is I wouldn’t be under the impression that “it probably won’t get out there anyway” because that can sway your decision making. It can get out there, it can be seen by a mass amount of people, it can and will create an emotional reaction, and to understand and appreciate that is a delicate matter that I didn’t even take into consideration with VooDoo. But that might be why it’s working. You never know.
Thanks for taking the time to talk to us Tom, we have thoroughly enjoyed speaking to you. We hope VooDoo continues to make waves and good luck on your upcoming projects
