I’ve been following Demon Squad director Thomas Smith on Twitter for a few months now, as well as his wife Erin Lilley Smith, who played Daisy in the film as well as co-wrote it with her husband. Recently Erin started tweeting photos of the production as the episode featuring their film nears release. I thought I’d share them here, since it’s fun to see looks behind the camera of the films from our show. Demon Squad in particular is one that interests me, because I took quite a liking to the film when I watched it, with it’s “can do” spirit in the face of limited resources.
(I have no idea if we can do Twitter embeds here, so I’m going to try that first. If that doesn’t work, I’ll cut and paste)
I’ll edit this with more if she posts them. I think they’re neat.
Demon Squad is the one I’m really looking forward to. As well as having the look of a community theater adaptation of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series (which I mean in the best way possible), it being the product of some scrappy misfits from Alabama has me thinking this could be the Time Chasers of Nu-MST3K.
That’s exactly how it came off to me when I watched it. These people had a high concept movie they wanted to make, no money, but dammit, they went out and made it.
I have mad respect for that. The same with Final Sacrifice. Those guys had access to film equipment and just went out and made something. It wasn’t very good, but that gung ho attitude is more heart than a lot of movies have.
I agree with the Time Chasers comments here. While that movie was both riffed most excellently by both MST and Rifftrax, the movie itself was actually very good, despite low budget. The intracacies of time travel were actually very cool and i felt done in a fresh and intellectually satisfying way. I’m looking forward to seeing Demon Squad and will watch in the same mindset.
Between the enthusiasm from the good sport filmmakers, the “homebrew” aesthetic of the movie and the strong implication it will be a Joel episode: I am already very excited for Demon Squad!
I remember during the Turkey Day reveals, Demon Squad kind of stuck out, I just had this impression like, “Oh god, this looks like a bunch of cosplayers making a movie on their iPhone in their apartment.”
But on further reflection, if I actually saw someone cosplaying like that, I’d be asking if I could get my picture with them, like those are some awesome costumes.
Twitter MST3K just tweeted that the livestream premier post-show will feature not only Joel Hodgson and J. Elvis Weinstein, but also special guests Thomas Smith (“Demon Squad Director”) and Erin Lilley Smith (“Demon Squad screenwriter/star”). (!!!)
(Edit: The update also mentions Emily Marsh joining the discussion.)
I dig that so many of the creators of these movies are participating in the episode premieres. I feel like MST3K has reached the same status of Weird Al, where the artist feels like it’s an honor to be targeted.
