Adam Chandonnet on Crafting Indie Horror Films
The writer and director of Memento Mortis walks us through the process of bringing the film to life
In a world in which summer blockbusters are made with budgets of hundreds of millions of dollars, one genre of film that has continued to thrive on much smaller budgets without the backing of major studios has been horror. Production and distribution companies willing to take chances on independent horror films in recent years include A24, Blumhouse, NEON, Shudder, and Welcome Villain Films just to name a few.
One of the oldest independent production and distribution companies is Troma. Founded in 1974 by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz, the studio has produced and distributed over one thousand short and feature films and launched the careers of many major players in Hollywood (James Gunn, Samuel L. Jackson, Todd Field, J.J. Abrams, and Carmen Electra have all done work for the studio). Some of the more well known films Troma has produced and distributed include Blood Sucking Freaks (1976), Mother’s Day (1980), The Toxic Avenger (1984), Cannibal! The Musical (1993), and Tromeo and Juliet (1996). Troma films tend to push the envelope with excessive gore, nudity, and dark humor while maintaining a tight budget.
A movie that definitely falls into that category is Memento Mortis (2015) which was written, directed, and edited by Adam Chandonnet. I recently watched the film on Troma NOW (Troma’s exclusive streaming service that was launched the same year Memento Mortis debuted). The synopsis from Troma NOW is as follows:
A photographer uses dead bodies as props in her erotic photos. Everything was going well until she fell in love.
This is the part where I issue the obligatory content warning. If that description didn’t make it obvious, this film deals with some pretty taboo subject matter in a very tongue-in-cheek way.
Following my viewing, I had the pleasure to speak with Adam about the process of making the film and getting it distributed. Without further ado, here is our conversation.
How did you get into making films in the first place?
I was writing stories as far back as I can remember. I've always been into movies, too. I would write stories and short books, but I never felt good at writing all of the prose stuff so I tried writing one as a film script because that is just bare bones describing what happens and dialogue. I never had any intention of actually making it, though. But then in high school a friend and I were really into Kevin Smith and Sam Raimi, so we actually wrote something to film ourselves. It never got finished because trusting other high school friends to show up and act consistently is a terrible idea. But that got me started on actually making films myself.
When did you first write the script for Memento Mortis?
That was late 2014. I specifically remember sitting outside of a movie theater writing the first notes for it while I was waiting to see that Brad Pitt tank movie, Fury. Then when I was in the theater about an hour into the movie the notebook fell out of my coat pocket and down into the row in front of me, so I quickly went to get it because I can't have a notebook describing necrophilia found by strangers.
If I had a nickel for every time I heard that! That’s also funny considering it is also part of the plot of the movie.
I never thought of that. So many of my notebooks are, "Oh a stranger better not find this out of context."
How did you get involved with Troma?
That was a few months after I had completed the film and didn't really know what to do with it. I shot and edited the whole thing on my own with no solid plans for distribution. I had been in contact with some low level distributors who had seen my shorts and web series, but I didn't care for their pitches saying I could get it put on some of those low tier Roku channels like Midnight Pulp or whatever with ads randomly placed in it. But with the feature film I wanted to at least try to get it out there beyond just my Vimeo page. But I also know what I had made was the lowest of production value, and that is a hard sell. I was familiar with Troma, and I figured they were the highest profile company that would even consider me, so I sent them a DVD not expecting anything. They were the only people I sent it to. I think I sent it in November 2015, and they reached out to me a few months later. I had pretty much forgotten about sending it to them. I also had a very nice phone call with whomever was doing their acquisitions at the time who called me a leading voice in the necrophilia genre which I choose to take as a compliment.Â
It just dawned on me that you had a character make a Toxic Avenger joke in your film before you even contacted Troma.
Haha, yeah, I realized that, too.
Considering you did all of this on your own before even having distribution lined up, what kind of budget were you working with? Was it all out of pocket?Â
Yeah, it was all just what I had on me which was not a lot. I already had the camera. I bought the lighting set up more because I also needed lights as props in the film. And the photo camera used in the film was just the cheapest camera that looked like a "real" camera that I could find. It actually took horrible photos. I think I have a folder on a hard drive somewhere full of all the blurry pictures taken while Aurora (Aurora Grabill who stars as Shay in the film) was acting. I sold that camera on eBay after we were done with it for like 40 dollars, but I was very sure to take out the memory card. They photos were blurry, but you could still see what was going on.
How did you go about casting for this film?
I wrote it for Aurora. We had worked together a bunch before. I love working with her. She is the greatest and unafraid to do any of the crazy things I write. The whole thing was inspired by me trying to write something she would say no to, actually. But she said yes.
I was really impressed by her performance.
It's what makes the movie, really. We had worked with Bart (Bart Grieb who plays Roger in the film) on a previous short film. I had an older actor cast for Roger initially, but the guy just ghosted us when we were setting up a reading so I reached out to Bart, who made it his own in a much better way. Most of the other casting was from Craigslist except for the two male corpses. Because of what Aurora would be doing with them, I wanted to make sure they were people I could trust and not strangers.
Where did you shoot the film?
The majority of it is in Framingham, MA. We shot it in Aurora's actual home. A lot of my early work is set in that place. The second dead baby photo shoot was shot in my dad's house while he was on vacation, and he got mad at me. But who cares?
Again, if I had a nickel! What are some lessons you took from this project?
It's a lot of work but it's worth it in the end. I learned that it is possible if you keep your limitations in mind. I wrote it with only a few characters and locations so that I could actually get it done. I also learned that I need to figure out how to light shots better, so everything I've made since looks a lot nicer. I bought a few colored bulbs and got a little too into lighting everything like I'm Dario Argento, but it's pretty to look at.
There are worse filmmakers to emulate! Anything you’d like to plug before I let you go?
Everything else I've done is here. I'm particularly proud of The Delicious Blood That You Keep in Your Veins, which had a couple of little festival showings. LovelyDeadAdam is my name on any of the social media sites I use.
Well Adam, it has been an absolute pleasure talking with you about this. Thank you again for your time!
I would like to sincerely thank Adam again for taking time out of his schedule to chat with me. As previously mentioned, you can watch Memento Mortis on Troma NOW and his other films on his Vimeo page.