#i will act upon my constant urge to chime in but you’ll still love me right?

[luuney]

being an extrovert is so pathetic because what do you mean you’d rather stay at the front of the shop than sit in the break room alone during your lunch break and that everything you do is actually to curb this perpetual underlying sense of loneliness and isolation from others (it’s me i’m pathetic)

[valwentinefics]

I loved your Edward Cullen piece! I feel that that he would have a constant sexual urge brimming underneath and you accurately portrayed it boiling over. May i request another piece on how the MC and Esward met?

A/N: Sorry this took a bit, writers block + still being in school was tough but I managed, even If i’m not all that happy with the result! Prob will do a part 2 sorry the dialogue is awkward. I imagined like a scenario like the cannon universe where edward is into her but also scared of harming her but hes also just a teen boy with his first crush, both Y/n and edward arent sure how to act with it.

Tw: Being scared to walk alone at night?? Idk just put that just in case!! 

The midnight wind blew through Y/n’s hair, a chill running up her spine not just from the cold, but with every set of glowing headlights that passed her by. Y/n was never one to walk around at night, the fear of what may lurk had been pushed upon her since she was a child, and now as she wandered the dim streets her chest felt so tight with fear she wasn’t sure if she could breathe.  Y/n wished she had accepted Dr. Cullens offer of a ride home, but she didn’t want to inconvenience the man and instead lied about taking a taxi. Her and Dr. Cullen had become close over the past few weeks that she had been volunteering at the hospital, hoping to gain experience when she applied to universities to be a doctor. The two were inseparable there, Y/n watching with wide eyes and bated breath whatever the doctor did, and Carlisle carefully walking her through step by step the process of what he was doing. 

She pulled her sweater tighter around her body as she rounded the corner into an alleyway her e/c coloured eyes darting around. She could see her breath as she tried to calm her breathing, but that was proved futile when she stepped on a can, the loud crunch startling a scream out of her. “Get it together Y/n.” She muttered, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, trying to regain composure as she heard distant voices approaching. Her hand, stiff from cold, dug into her pocket, grabbing her keys and sticking them through the paces between her fingers. Feeling a little better, Y/n continued her walk.

Y/n had to admit, despite her terror, the night time in forks was beautiful. The way the streets were illuminated by the passing headlights of cars, and the occasional coloured lights of stores reflected through the puddles that seemed to forever be there in the rainy city had the ability to take her breath away despite how small they were. The awe of the neon painted town distracted her from the silent footsteps coming behind her.

“Y/n?” Spoke a familiar voice. She spun around at the sound of her name, her grip on her keys tightened, only to loosen a bit when she recognized the man in front of her. Edward Cullen. “It’s late, why are you out here alone? You must be cold.” Y/n hadn't talked to the Cullen boy before, or really any Cullen other than Carlisle. At school the Cullen kids seemed like an untouchable group, but seeing him now, soaking wet, she felt as if he wasn't so high above the rest as everyone thought.

“I-I’m fine. Just a little chilly.” She lied, feeling the chill seep past the wet sweater she wore and into her body. The Cullen boy seemed to notice it was a lie, taking off his jacket and placing it over her shoulders in a fluid movement. “But won’t you get--”

“I don’t get cold easily.” Edward cut off her question, “Besides, my car is nearby. It’ll be warm in there.”

“No no it’s fine I’ll just take a cab.” Y/n said quickly, though the feeling of being in a warm car filled her thoughts she didn’t want to inconvenience anyone and much preferred to do things on her own despite her empty wallet disagreeing.

“It’ll be no inconvenience, besides It’ll save you money.” He replied as if he read her mind. Y/n opened her mouth to come up with a reason to not go with him but all that came out was a sneeze.

“See, you’re already catching a cold. Lets go.” Edward put his hand on the small of her back and began to lead Y/n to a Volvo parked on the side of the road. Y/n felt bad for bothering him but she could feel herself getting sicker with every sniffle, and her body was ice cold. She really wished she had initially accepted Dr. Cullen’s offer for a ride, fear dawning on her as she realized she would have to call in sick. If Edward noticed how she was feeling, he didn’t show it, staying silent as he ushered her into the car and passed her a blanket he had stored inside.

The car ride was quiet, the air between the two thick and awkward as they both figured out what to say. Y/n wished she could read minds, know what he was thinking. She hoped he wouldn’t tell Dr.Cullen about the meeting between the two, not wanting to appear like she rejected his car ride for any reason other than her own stupid independence. Y/n was about to say something, a question about how he found the weather, anything to make the ride less awkward, when he pulled up to her house. Quick pleasantries were exchanged between the two and Y/n headed inside, only realizing she had Edwards' coat once he had pulled away.

For the next few days the Cullen's were no shows at school. Y/n had the coat stashed in her locker to give to him, and yet she couldn’t find him. It drove Y/n insane. Every day she would walk into the cafeteria ready to finally get rid of this coat whose presence was weighing heavy on her subconscious, only to face disappointment when he wasn’t there. She knew a jacket wasn’t all that important in the long term, but it smelled so much like Edward’s car and reminded her of him and his stupidly attractive face, Y/n wanted to rid herself of it before her budding crush blossomed into a full blown one. It took a few days for Y/n to muster up the courage to talk to Dr.Cullen about it. Worries filled the back of her mind that he would think her to be stupid or weird, but as the were cleaning up for the night Y/n decided to bite the bullet.

Y/n sprayed the sharp smelling sanitizer on the table, wiping it down with a cloth and repeating on the next, her lips pursed as she thought of how to bring up the situation to the doctor across the room from her, who was busy looking over papers. Luckily the blonde seemed to notice first, standing up from his seat and walking over.

“Y/n, what’s on your mind?” He asked casually yet looking at her with the look of concern only a father could give.

“Well a while ago, when you offered me a ride home because my car was in the shop and I said no and I would take a taxi, I actually decided to walk home because I didn’t want to bother you and then I ran into your son Edward and he gave me a ride home, but then I forgot to give it back to him, so could you?” Y/n asked, her words spilling out of her mouth quickly, glad she could finally get the situation off her chest.

Carlisle chuckled, grabbing a sticky note and writing on it, handing it to Y/n. “I have got to stay late but here’s my address. You can go give him it now or later.” 

Y/n nodded, giddy with the excitement of finally getting away from the burden of having to return the coat. “You’ll be fine here without me?” she asked cautiously before she got too excited.

Carlisle nodded. “Yes, go give my son his coat. And tell him he needs to wear it more often.”

The Cullen’s house was beautiful at night. A mansion buried in the woods, it seemed so serene. Y/n wished she lived there so she could gaze out of the many lit up windows and into the forest. But there was no time for daydreaming about the lush scenery, Y/n was on a mission. She held the grey fabric tightly as she stepped out of the car, nervously approaching the door. She hadn’t heard of anyone going to the Cullen’s house, was she the first from her school? She was nervous as she approached the door, about to knock when the door opened, revealing a small teen with a dark pixie cut. Was it Alexa Cullen? Y/n wasn’t too sure on their names.

“Edward, a cute girl is here for you!” The girl, possibly named Alexa, shouted into the house. “You are here for Edward right?”

“Uh, yeah…” Y/n said awkwardly, looking to the ground and tightening her grasp on the jacket, looking at the pavement that was illuminated by the open door. After a few moments of silence the light disappeared and she looked up, her eyes meeting Edward’s piercing amber ones that seemed to know her deepest secrets.

“I’ll leave you two lovebirds at it” the girl chimed, closing the door and locking Edward outside.

“Sorry about my sister Alice, she’s a little…odd” Edward trailed off, looking to the side. Y/n was glad to know the name of the girl before, but also happy to just look at Edward, as creepy as it sounded. He looked perfect as always, hardly a strawberry blonde hair out of place, and those that were just made him look more perfect. Y/n could feel herself falling hard. Ever since the night he helped her out he seemed irresistible.

“It’s fine…” Y/n replied, the two sitting in silence for a while before Y/n remembered her task. “Oh here, I came to bring you your coat. So, uh, yeah..” She pressed the balled up grey coat into his hands. “Carlisle said you need to wear it more.”

Edward let out a chuckle. “I guess I’ll have to…” he stared at the grey fabric as if it would tell him what to say next.

“So I’ll go then?” Y/n said, though it sounded like a question. She didn’t want to bother him more than needed and began so walk away, pausing only when she heard his voice.

“Wait, before you go. Dinner, Friday, at eight? To make up for the effort you put in giving me my jacket back.” Y/n felt butterflies fly through her stomach, wondering if he possibly liked her back.

“Dinner… sounds good…” Y/n blushed with a smile to the ground, waiting for him to go back inside before giddily running back to her car. “I got a date with Edward Cullen!” She sang to herself as she pulled out of the driveway, oblivious to her crush smiling inside the house at her thoughts.

[aion-rsa]

Psycho Goreman: Steve Kostanski on Building a Better Monster

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It’s rare that a horror-comedy film gets the attention it deserves. At least, not around the time that it’s released. Even the great ones tend to be labeled a “cult classic” later on, but mastering the genre can regularly lead to bigger things. We see that happen as often as we do because horror and comedy are deceptively hard to balance, and it stands to reason that if you could pull off that balancing act once, you might be able do it again combining other genres.

Steve Kostanski has been in the movie business for the better part of two decades, mostly working behind the scenes in creature and makeup effects, but this very much feels like Kostanski’s “time” thanks to his latest movie, Psycho Goreman.

The director, who already had an established fanbase thanks to other low budget movies like Manborg and The Void, released his latest flick in the time of COVID, so it was denied what would have no doubt been a very long stretch in smaller theatres with sticky floors and worn seats – the kind that would embrace a film so “out there” that audiences might have left wondering what exactly they just witnessed. 

But all was not lost, because Psycho Goreman found a home on streaming and immediately started generating a buzz anyway.

The urge to conceal some of the joys of Psycho Goreman from other people is pretty strong. It’s definitely a movie that you’ll get more out of if you don’t know what to expect, so we’ll just sum up the plot a little for those who are uninitiated: a brother and sister accidentally dig up an alien overlord who the sister discovers she can control using a magical amulet.

We talked to Kostanski about how the movie got made, how working on The Void and Manborg taught him the lessons he needed to learn to get Psycho Goreman right, and whether there might be a sequel on the way…

Den of Geek: Last month I got a text from a friend I hadn’t spoken to for ages. It just said, “You need to watch Psycho Goreman.” Nothing else, but I could tell it was a pretty serious situation, so I checked the film out and immediately recommended it to somebody else who I knew would love it. Have you found there’s been a lot of this kind of word of mouth support?

Steve Kostanski: Yeah, I’ve had a lot of people reach out to me like, “My friend recommended this randomly and it was totally crazy. So thank you for making this movie”, which is a reaction I don’t usually get. 

I mean, I was expecting my usual fanbase to be into it. I thought I was making a pretty decent movie, but it seems to have spread a lot further into public consciousness than I was expecting it to, which is great. I guess that just means I made a really bonkers film that people like to talk about, so I’m pretty grateful for that.

We’ve been talking about the film quite a lot here; it comes up all the time. The attention to detail is incredible. How early on in life did the makeup and effects bug bite?

I’ve always loved movies. I was a video store kid. I was constantly renting VHS movies in the ‘90s and obsessing over them. My dad loaned me his Super 8 camera when I was 12 and I used that to do stop-motion animation because I was into special effects. I was a big fan of stuff like Star Wars, and I really wanted to emulate all my favorite movies. 

Eventually, I started shooting live-action movies and did the effects and animation for those, too. It’s been a constant through my whole life of wanting to make movies and monsters and effects and just tell crazy sci-fi fantasy adventure stories. It’s always been there. 

When I got out of high school, I decided I wanted to try pursuing creature effects and prosthetic effects for a living, and luckily, I was able to mentor under a prosthetic artist name Doug Morrow in my hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba, who showed me the ropes and taught me about the actual job of doing makeup effects. That’s how I was able to pursue it as a career, while also making movies on the side. I’ve kind of been jumping back and forth between the two ever since.

One of the benefits of growing up in the ‘80s was that there were these wild sci-fi and fantasy concept movies basically on tap. They made it to completion so regularly. The shelves would be stacked with intoxicating covers and unique monster designs. You’d see an image from something like Xtro in a magazine and think “I need to see this at all costs.” It’s fair to say you’ve made a “see it at all costs” movie here. I know you name-checked Prince of Darkness as being a big influence for The Void, but what were the influences for Psycho Goreman?

It was really just a combination of my experiences growing up watching R-rated movies when I was way too young to be watching them – movies like Terminator 2. One of my earliest memories as a kid was watching that movie and being enthralled by the sci-fi action component to it. 

As a kid, you’re into video games and comics and cartoons, so seeing these cool chrome robots shooting lasers is really thrilling, but then you’re also seeing people get their kneecaps shot out and get impaled through the eye. It’s that kind of unexpectedly violent and brutal realism that maybe a little kid isn’t prepared for. Psycho Goreman is me working through a bit of that trauma!

Did you learn any valuable lessons from making Manborg and The Void that ended up paying off during Psycho Goreman?

I think Manborg taught me that I have to be realistic with my ambitions on making a movie. I went into that project thinking I could feasibly make a sci-fi action epic with no money, and it ended up consuming three years of my life. So going into PG, I tried to be a little more realistic about what I could accomplish on a low budget.

The Void was a punishing experience. It hardened me a little bit and gave me more experience in working within the system, in the traditional sense of working with a crew and producers. It gave me a “worst case scenario” in every possible filmmaking situation to then carry over.

I’m a very introverted person, so The Void was a real “trial by fire” for me and forced me out of my shell. It helped me as a director – keeping everyone motivated, answering questions and just being involved and present. Not thinking like an effects artist sitting in the corner sculpting monsters all day. 

Watching Psycho Goreman has become a kind of moral imperative for genre fans. Honestly, it looked like so much work went into it. How did it go from concept to final cut, and did you hit any roadblocks along the way from people who just didn’t get it?

This film was a once in a lifetime opportunity where a friend of a friend was looking to finance a feature film, and he really just bought into the “Steve Kostanski brand,” and loved my previous work and wanted me to have free reign to make the thing I wanted to make. That’s not to say that the producers didn’t chime in and have opinions on things, but they very much put their trust in me to make a movie that would be entertaining and that audiences would like.

I think I’ve always been a pop filmmaker. I love cliches and conventions and I like making things that are crowd-pleasing. I think the producers knew that. They knew that if the movie didn’t hit the mark in some way, that it would at least deliver on effects and spectacle and be crowd-pleasing. So I was very lucky to have their confidence.

It is crowd-pleasing, but still subverts your expectations. Did that happen organically while you were making it or was it always planned that way?

I always want to make a movie that would have sat on the video store shelf amongst the other movies that I loved as a kid. I wanted to make a thing that was satisfying, that delivered on its promises in a way that I felt like a lot of low-budget genre films of the past didn’t. 

I wanted to make something that delivered on the epic poster art, but at the same time make something that had a familiar emotional arc, subverting it as much as possible without taking away from the satisfying kind of build up and climaxes that those types of stories have.

I feel like in this day and age, telling a conventional story is almost taboo. The idea of having a traditional story arc is frowned upon. So I liked the idea of committing to that, but then also just using it as a through-line to hang all kinds of weirdness, and go on all sorts of bizarre digressions. I also liked the idea of shocking people a little bit and lulling them into a sense of familiarity, but then doing something totally off the wall just to throw them off.

Mimi is such an interesting twist on the wholesome little girl in the creature feature. Was casting the role hard? Did you audition a lot of actors for that part?

We did a lot of auditions. It was definitely a big concern going into the movie. On the page it all read great and everybody was excited about the idea of this crazy little girl being our protagonist, but finding somebody that could pull that off definitely had the producers nervous.

Nita [Hanna] was one of our first auditions. Even though her audition performance wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, I could tell that there was a level of professionalism there that I wasn’t getting from the other auditions. So, we had her come back for subsequent auditions, and every time I talked through the role, she just got better and better. 

Big question now, brace yourself: what was it like working with Rich Evans?

[Laughs] It’s such a small cameo from him! I reached out and asked if he’d be interested, and he agreed. I sent him a rough version of the scene that he’s in, and he recorded me a good like 15, 20 minutes of audio that I could just pull from. It was great. It was basically the barest minimum of interaction, but what he gave me was fantastic and I’m very thankful that he agreed to be a part of the movie because it’s a very weird choice of cameo.

You were into RedLetterMedia before you contacted him, I assume. 

I’m a big RedLetterMedia fan. I watch all of their stuff and love their reviews. I’m a fan of anything that brings me back to the days of watching movies with my friends, because I feel like that’s informed who I am as a filmmaker. Watching other people shoot the shit about films and have that kind of casual discourse is very comforting and entertaining to me. 

I’ve heard you’d be up for doing a Psycho Goreman sequel or a spinoff. Have there been any recent developments on that?

Nothing concrete, but there is definitely interest and people are asking about it. I think there will be more PG adventures in the future. I’d love to do more of it, I just want to figure out the smartest way forward is before actually diving into another project.

Thank you, Steve.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Psycho Goreman is now available on DVD and Blu-ray.

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