Hellarious

We had the great fortune to have Clarissa Jacobson who wrote the short film "Lunch Ladies" reach out to us about a new horror anthology premiering today!

Hellarious contains seven short films including "Lunch Ladies" which we've mentioned before on our podcast. We enjoyed every story and we recommend you get this DVD as soon as you can!
We also had the opportunity to ask Producer Jason Tostevin a few questions about this project:

What was your inspiration for Hellarious?
It was in a conversation with Chris Ethridge of HorrorPack, which ended up distributing Hellarious. I was talking about how horror comedy shorts are so beloved on the genre festival circuit. People have such a good time together, and they’re always the talk afterward. But there hadn’t been a serious attempt to bring them directly to the public I know loves them. And there it was: let’s put together a great lineup of horror comedy tales and give people a chance to see them outside fests!


What made you want to put this collection together?
Part of my passion is building bridges between filmmakers and audiences. It’s one of the reasons I started Nightmares Film Festival, and a major guide in how I run it with my partner Chris Hamel.

There are some truly extraordinary films that get lost once they’re off the circuit. That’s such a tragedy for the teams that made them and the audiences who would love them. I’ve long thought that, if we brought short films directly to audiences and presented them in the sophisticated way they expect, we could help more films get seen and more people have a great time.


How did you reach out to the other short film makers?
I’m lucky in that I’ve been on the circuit with my own work, and run Nightmares, and in general am a big fan of indie genre work. So I’d met all of them already and seen their films play. When it came time to track them down, I emailed and messaged, talked about what I was hoping to do and how I thought it would be received, and we started hammering out details.

How did you choose the films for your collection?
There are some natural parameters like, has it already been sold exclusively? Is it still on its fest run? But the biggest filter for us was, is this a short that killed it on the festival circuit, that people talked about afterward and that the audience deserves to see?

I was also committed to including movies made by women, and am thrilled that Sarah K. Reimers brought Bitten on board, and Clarissa Jacobson brought Lunch Ladies – two absolutely killer shorts.


What has the reception been like?
We’re really bowled over and humbled by the response. Bloody Disgusting said “it’s so funny, it’ll literally bust your guts,” and iHorror called it “bloody brilliant.” And our network is really cheering us on.

Our biggest hope, and the most important thing for the mission of the movie is, we need people to click “purchase.” I want to be able to do this again, with other shorts. I want them to get to the audience, and I want the audience to be able to see these movies we know they’re going to love. This is a business, of course, and for any of that to happen really depends on the numbers: do enough people buy Hellarious to make another collection worthwhile? I really hope they do!


What's next?
Nightmares Film Festival is still accepting submissions through September 13, so the team and I need to really focus there and plan the fest, which is the weekend before Halloween.

After the fest, I’ll be finishing another couple scripts, and I’ll start planning to shoot one of them I’m really excited about. I can’t reveal the premise, but I can say it takes place in a very popular horror universe, and explores a mystery many people have wondered about there.


If you want to click "purchase" (and we recommend that you do!) Here's how you can find it: Hellarious

Go ahead and listen to our Special Episode on this fantastic DVD!