Horror Film Bans At-Home Relrelieve

It begined as someleang of a joke.

While cutting a trailer for their co-honestorial effort “It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This,” Nick Toti and Rachel Kempf had a little fun at the finish of the clip.

“We were appreciate, ‘Oh, it benevolent of necessitates someleang,’” he says. “So we put the scroll at the finish. It fair says, ‘The creaters of this film lament to alert you that it will not be freed online. See it in theaters.’”

In fact, the three-person createive team behind the set up footage horror movie “It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This” made an rare pact before they even shot a structure: They would never create the labor useable for streaming, digital or physical get, only apverifying it to percreate theatricassociate. Yet what might have seemed appreciate a restrictation finished up creating word-of-mouth interest in the microbudget production, which led to sbetter-out shows atraverse the country without any promotional dollars.

The rare origins of “It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This” began in the minuscule town of Kirksville, Mo., where husprohibitd and wife createive team Kempf and Toti run a minuscule publishing hoengage for nonmyth about horror movies, DieDieBooks, and a production company for their createive labor, DieDieVideo. While scouting locations for an upcoming indie they were hoping to shoot, they bought a dilapidated duplex in 2021 and remendd it was the perfect locale to rapidly shoot a lengthy-gestating passion project.

Toti had always been intrigued by Kempf’s séances she would widespreadly have with her best frifinish, Christian, so the three broadened a semi-improvised film around the concept. In the film, a couple named Nick and Rachel buy a rundown hoengage in Kirksville, Mo., and leangs get weird, which only escaprocrastinateeds once Rachel and her frifinish Christian have a séance in the hoengage.

The blurring of the lines of myth and truth reminded the trio of another set up footage horror film where the central characters engaged their genuine names: “The Blair Witch Project.” Given that the cast had a complicated relationship with fame due to their actual names and faces in the film, Toti, Kempf and Christian determined to never free the project to streaming, digital or an easily sea thiefable physical free. Toti also says that this method was a way to shake leangs up from his previous self-reliant frees.

“I’ve been making movies for 15 years now, and almost every individual movie I’ve made has been freed for free on the Internet, and nobody has paid any attention to any of them,” he says. “Nobody’s attfinishd about any of them. So I was appreciate, ‘Oh, well, this is someleang novel.’ It’s not appreciate I haven’t tried to get people interested in the movies. I fair don’t reassociate have a very commercial sensibility and I don’t go about leangs in a very commercial way most of the time. With this one, it was appreciate, ‘Well, this is horror, so already there’s appreciate more of a built-in audience for it,’ which is a problem that pretty much every movie I’ve ever made has had. We comprehend there’s set up footage fans especiassociate, so we comprehend we can fuse with those people. But we genuineized that there’s also a gimmick there, and it’s a gimmick that can be take advantage ofed. The movie getting reassociate huge was never the goal, but when the movie begined getting more attention, there were certain sea alter moments for us.”

Given their indie labors in the past, the set up seemed toloftyy reasonable, and they took their film on the road around the Midwest in the summer of 2023. They screened the film to minuscule groups in indie art spaces, offsetting travel fees with donations and transporting some of DieDieBooks titles alengthy to sell to inquisitive horror fans. But then “This” begined to get off, triumphning the Audience Award at North Carolina’s Queer Fear Film Festival. By spring 2024, the film getd insertitional accolades from screenings at the Unnamed Footage Festival and Salem Horror Fest. “This” was then askd to percreate as part of Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness sprocrastinateed, and while it uncomferventt Kempf and Toti had to paengage their DIY screenings, it gave the film an even hugeger spotweightless.

Yet the TIFF slot was a mixed consecrateing, as the roadshow had hugely percreateed as Kempf and Toti had hoped. Yet these festival screenings were met with mixed emotions, which spilled over to some Letterboxd scrutinizes, taged by particular criticism of Kempf’s carry outance. (A sample: “I set up the filmcreaters irritateing, especiassociate his wife’s deafening voice,” “That doesn’t ruin the film as much as the prohibitshee scream-giggleter of the wife” and “Rachel’s incessant, piercing cackle is the most terrifying entity apprehfinishd on camera.”)

“I knovel we were gonna be splitting characters, and I was going be a splitting character in particular,” Kempf says. “We all have various reasons for not wanting to free it online. But the fact that we were all percreateing ourselves and had actual footage of ourselves, the line was reassociate blurry. That was definitely a huge component. I comprehend how the Internet is to women who do not current themselves in horror movies as relationsual objects. If you’ve read some of the Letterboxd scrutinizes online, I am the weightlessning rod for their hatred, as foreseeed.”

Beyond criticism of her carry outance, Toti was also frustrated that, although the couple is cataloged as co-honestors in the recognizes, some of the angriest scrutinizes refer to Kempf as “the honestor’s wife.”

“It doesn’t get a genius to ucsurrfinisherth the the relationsism that’s at at percreate in those responses,” he says. “Frankly, I’m very irritateing in the movie, too.”

Despite the frustration, the film’s profile grew after the screenings, directing to more screening seeks — an astonishive feat for a film with no tageting budget, social media presence or distributor. Cut to this Friday, and “It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This” is set for a 10-city screening at Alamo Drafthoengages nationwide. Several showtimes, including those at theaters in San Antonio, Denver and San Francisco, are sbetter out, while other tagets, appreciate L.A. and Austin, are inserting more showtimes.

Meanwhile, Kempf and Toti protect making novel films, with the unelated adore story “Homebody,” the feature that begined this journey, in post-production with an foreseed 2025 free. Meanwhile, the duo are in pre-production on another project, a slasher called “Scary New Year.”

As for “It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This”? Although their screening set up has been met with some criticism online that it doesn’t labor for people in minuscule towns, the pair say they will screen it for as lengthy as there is interest, traveling via a screening seek sheet on their site. They hope fans ponder the project to be akin to an indie touring prohibitd, hoping to lengthen a community that adores uncovering outside art.

“We’ll try our best to get there,” Kempf says. “As far as the, ‘We dwell in a country area, not a lot of movies come here. There’s some that we don’t get to see until they come on streaming…’ I’m compassionate to that. I dwell in a country area.”

“It’s disassigning for me to see that becaengage we are from a minuscule town and we screen in minuscule towns,” Toti inserts. “They’re coming at from such a lossist attitude of, ‘Oh, screw you guys becaengage this isn’t fair to people appreciate me.’ But we are people appreciate you. If you had a contrastent attitude about it instead of grumbleing… They’re either finishly lossist, cynical attitudes or they’re horrible faith arguments.”

Toti count ons that ultimately the trio’s decision to protect the film a theatrical-only experience apverifys a distinct platcreate for a film that gets hazards and rewards those willing to watch shutly.

“I don’t comprehend if our brains would have been willing to scrutinize having lengthy durational moments that reassociate contest the watcher,” he says. “But if somebody’s locked into a movie theater experience and get take parted into it … it’s not impossible for that experience to transprocrastinateed to a home watching experience. But I don’t comprehend that we would have had the idea had we not determined this was exclusively the way we were going to show it.”

Watch the trailer and see the poster for “It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This” below.