Joe Badon is an American writer, director, and producer known for the feature-length films The God Inside My Ear (2017) and Sister Tempest (2020) as well as the short horror Blood of the Dinosaurs (2022). Starting out working in the art department of the documentary My Name Is Jonah (2014) and crime thriller The Chemist (2014), Joe moved to work on his own creative projects with his first film, the horror comedy The God Inside My Ear.
After watching his latest release Blood of the Dinosaurs at this year’s Toronto After Dark Film Festival, we decided to reach out to Joe and find out more about this one-of-a-kind horror short “Akin to an Adult Swim short, only on the negative end of a three-day bender”.
Please tell us a bit about how you first got interested in film, what were some of your earliest influences?
Star Wars and George Lucas in general (when I was a child), Evil Dead and all things Sam Raimi (when I was a teenager), and David Lynch, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Ken Russell, Adult Swim (now as an adult). Evil Dead 2 REALLY influenced me in High School and then watching all of Sam Raimi’s early short films and home movies really inspired me.
Working as a writer, director, and producer, which aspect of the process do you enjoy the most? Which do you find most challenging and why?
I think preproduction is the most fun (ie: concept art, storyboards, look books, etc…) – That’s my favorite because it’s just a sandbox where everything is possible. The most challenging is production itself (because there are so many moving parts and things are constantly changing and going wrong). It’s a tornado that you have to control.
How did a concept such as The Blood of the Dinosaurs come to be? What was the idea’s starting point?
Well I wrote a script entitled The Wheel of Heaven and then I wrote Dinosaurs as a sort of prologue to Wheel. And I’ve always wanted to do a fake children’s show.
Did you experience any difficulties during The Blood of the Dinosaurs’ production?
We did have another actor cast for the main role and then that fell through and then we opened auditions (at kind of the last minute). Vincent Stalba auditioned and just blew us away.
Having worked on both feature-length and short films, what is your personal preference as a director?
I LOVE features and that is what I really want to do (but they are exhausting).
Could you tell us a little about your upcoming short The Wheel of Heaven? How is it connected to its prelude?
Actually Wheel of Heaven is going to be a 4 part mini-series! It’s all shot and we’re currently editing it! We actually follow the little girl (Purity) from The Blood of the Dinosaurs into adulthood. She purchases a choose your own adventure style book entitled The Wheel of Heaven to escape her mundane life as a mechanic.
What have you been watching as of late? What other filmmakers have you excited right now?
I’ve been watching some amazing indie films! Such as Masking Threshold, Samurai Rauni, Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway, Country Gold and After Blue: Dirty Paradise, Neptune Frost! Also, I’ve been really digging Federico Fellini and Bergman lately!
Indie Filmmakers to look out for: Mickey Reece, Johannes Grenzfurthner, Miguel Llansó, Bertrand Mandico, Amanda Kramer, Charles Pieper, Tiffany Kimmel (I could keep going)
As a fan of horror, what scares you the most?
Dying! My family dying! That’s scary as fuck. That existential stuff. Normal boogie man stuff is just not scary (it’s fun but not scary)
What is the best way for people to keep up to date with what you are working on? Are there any upcoming projects you would like to shout out?
I’ve got websites!
CosmicFamilyFilms.com
JoeBadon.com
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Hey there, I’m Jim and I’m located in London, UK. I am a Writer and Managing Director here at Grimoire of Horror. A lifelong love of horror and writing has led me down this rabbit hole, allowing me to meet many amazing people and experience some truly original artwork. I specialise in world cinema, manga/graphic novels, and video games but will sometime traverse into the unknown in search of adventure.