For fans of the horror genre, it just doesn’t get better than the combination of young nubile people in a house or cabin with a masked killer stalking and killing them one by one. From Friday the 13th to The Strangers to The Blackening, and now#AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead, it’s a formula that just works. That’s partly because it can be so easily adapted to current times and explore contemporary anxieties.
In the case of #AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead, the cabin in the woods becomes the Airbnb near the musical festival, and camp counselors are now social media influencers. And let’s be honest, there’s a little bit of a thrill at the idea of seeing them get picked off in ironic ways — befitting the deadly sin they’re most guilty of — by a mysterious masked killer.
Courtesy of Cineverse
No one is more in on the joke than director Marcus Dunstan (Saw V, The Collection, Piranha 3DD) who infuses the proceedings with equal parts tongue in cheek gruesomeness, frenetic neon light-bathed action, and heart. For Dunstan, centering a horror film around social media influencers just made sense. “I think it all started with voyeurism,” he tells PRIDE. “Whenever we went to our first...horror movie, we spent time behind the shoulders of the killer [who’s] behind the threat. With the advent of social media, it’s like, we’ve invited a voyeur into our pocket, into our lives, into our midst. Then in the real world, we’re staring at this 3x4 little glass window and our back is exposed to any voyeur who can sneak up and grab us.”
But like any good horror film, there’s something important needed along with victims we can’t wait to see die in unique and grisly fashion, and a killer who’s both menacing and mysterious. We also need the final girl to pull us through the action and unravel the unknowable motive of the person hunting them. In #AMFAD, that final girl comes in the form of Sarah (Jade Pettyjohn). She’s new to the group and somewhat reluctant to fully embrace all that it takes to be an influencer. Sarah’s preference to sit back and observe serves her well with a homicidal maniac on the prowl.
“Sarah is a final girl in a way that no one’s ever seen before,” Pettyjohn tells PRIDE “She is a final girl, but she takes whatever preconceived notions you have about what that means, and flips it on its head. And you can’t really predict or expect where she’s going to take that.”
Courtesy of Cineverse
While both Pettyjohn and Dunstan are careful not to tip their hands too far on what lengths Sarah is willing to go, or where the night takes her character, they’re clear on the point that she’s tougher than she first appears. “If I was in trouble, I’d want to call Sarah,” jokes Dunstan.
“Yeah, she could get you out of it. That’s definitely for sure,” Pettyjohn agrees.
The film also served as a reunion for Pettyjohn and co-star JoJo Siwa, who appears in a small but pivotal role of Sarah’s deceased best friend. “It was so fun to reconnect with JoJo again,” recalls Pettyjohn. The two had previously worked together when Pettyjohn was starring on School of Rock and Siwa guested on the show. “We had known each other at a very specific point in each other’s lives and to reconnect now as adults, telling a completely different story than School of Rock, was so much fun.”
Pettyjohn recalled a moment from filming that she says really describes what it’s like to work alongside Siwa. “I had been shooting a lot of a third act before we were filming with her. So there’s lots of screaming, fake blood, stunts, and all of these things that occurred before I was shooting with her. And I was starting to get a little bit fatigued. My voice started sounding a little more like Tom Waits,” she recalls with a laugh. “We’re filming this in Topanga Canyon, and it’s the middle of the night and I’m just starting to sound worse and worse. [JoJo] disappears for a little bit. And I’m like, ‘Where did JoJo go? We’re shooting in this tiny little forest area of Topanga Canyon. Where could she have run off to?’ She comes back and she had [ordered delivery of this] super fancy Erewhon chicken soup. Because she had noticed that my voice was sounding a little more brutal. That’s just like a testament to who she is. She didn’t complain once she saw that and was so kind and nurturing and and she really gave it her all in every sense of the word.”
Courtesy of Cineverse
Dunstan also gushed about working with Siwa. “What is an absolute warm triumph of the human being,” he says, praising both her performance and her professionalism on set. “From time to time you... when certain folks whose reputation or popularity or 11 million followers stomps into the room before you meet them. Well, you can have some guard up because like, ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen.’ But when this person showed up, a wonderful actor showed up to deliver. I was like ‘Okay, comrade let’s go win a war. We’re gonna scare some folks!’ That was a true joy.”
While queer audiences may be drawn to the film because of Siwa’s name on the marquee, they will be rewarded by the queerness that runs throughout — and the love story that’s revealed over the course of the movie’s runtime, which we won’t spoil here.
Courtesy of Cineverse
“There’s so much that happens in this film and it’s so colorful and loud and extreme,” says Pettyjohn. “But the heart and soul of this film [is rooted in] this beautiful, queer love story. It’s actually very, very sincere. To have that with you as you go along this crazy ride of unpredictability and chaos, blood and guts, shock, and all of those things. You have the sincerity of just real queer love. And that was something that was a beautiful thing to explore.”
#AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead arrives on VOD today. Watch the trailer below.
