This week Jason chats with Jacob Johnston, writer/director of Dreamcatcher, which comes out March 5 in theaters, on Digital, and On Demand. Say the producers of the film:
Dylan, known to his fans as DJ Dreamcatcher, is on the brink of global stardom. Everything changes the night of Cataclysm, an underground music festival, where two estranged sisters and their friends meet Dylan. After a drug fueled gruesome event, things begin to spiral into a 48-hour whirlwind of violence and mayhem.
L-R: Dreamcatcher poster and Castle Talk Logo. Used With Permission.
The director talked about his basic model for creating the characters to be found in a slasher– his model was The Breakfast Club, with each of the young people delineated and represented different social groups– so that when they start to get picked off by the film's Spy-vs-Spy-nosed killer. Johnston writes, "I knew two specific things going into the writing process: 1) I didn't want throwaway, cannon-fodder characters and 2) thematically, I wanted to explore the effects of trauma and the various forms it can take."
There's a curious, unexpected strangeness to the setting that the director discussed: in the middle of a pandemic, when gathering in indoor spaces is heavily curtailed, the film's pulsing, EDM-fueled club scene may as well be aboard the Starship Enterprise. The director talked about the alienness of the world to some of the audience– an alienness that hopefully won't last.
Dreamcatcher stars Niki Koss ("Famous in Love," My Stepdaughter), Zachary Gordon (Diary of a Wimpy Kid franchise, "Good Trouble"), Lou Ferrigno Jr. ("S.W.A.T.," "9-1-1"), Travis Burns ("Neighbours," Sunrise in Heaven), Nazanin Mandi ("How to Make a Reality Star"), Adrienne Wilkinson ("Star Trek: Renegades," "Xena: Warrior Princess"), Blaine Kern III (The Perfect Date, Happy Death Day franchise) Olivia Sui ( "Smosh," "The Big What If"), Emrhys Cooper (Mamma Mia!, Person of Interest) and Elizabeth Posey ("Euphoria").The film was directed and written by Jacob Johnston ("The Look-See," "Sunny Family Cult"), making his feature directorial and screenwriting debut.
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Jason Henderson is the host of the Castle of Horror and Castle Talk Podcasts, the editor of the "Castle of Horror Anthology" series. He is the author of The Serpent's Nest: Young Captain Nemo from Macmillan Children's Books. His new horror series "Surf Mystic," under the pseudonym Peyton Douglas, debuted with the novel Night of the Book Man in 2020.
Jason Henderson, author of the Young Captain Nemo (Macmillan Children's) and Alex Van Helsing (HarperTeen) series, earned his BA from University of Dallas in 1993 and his JD from Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law in Washington, D.C., in 1996. His popular podcasts “Castle Talk” and “Castle of Horror” feature interviews and discussion panels made up of best-selling writers and artists from all genres. Henderson lives in Colorado with his wife and two daughters.
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