Interview: Spider One and Krsy Fox on ‘Big Baby’

By the time Big Baby reaches Tubi FrightFest this August, Spider One and Krsy Fox will already have had the chance to watch the film with several American festival audiences. What they haven’t yet seen is how a UK crowd reacts to its blend of slasher horror, dark humour and self-aware filmmaking satire.

That changes on Thursday 27 August, when Big Baby receives its UK Premiere on FrightFest’s main screen, at 11pm on its opening night.

“We’ve always heard about FrightFest,” Spider One says. “We’ve heard how amazing it is and how great the audiences are. And we’re so honoured to be part of the opening night and just incredibly excited.”

The film follows successful horror screenwriter Adam Lewis, played by Brandon Scott, whose creative block is broken by a nightmare involving a masked killer. Unfortunately, the inspiration refuses to stay on the page, and Adam finds his writing, reality and sanity beginning to collapse into one another.

For Spider One, part of the attraction is the way Big Baby plays with the realities of being a filmmaker in an era where everybody has an opinion. Adam finds himself subjected to some especially unpleasant podcast commentary in the film, something Spider One initially considered a relatively minor detail.

“That is a reality of modern filmmaking,” he says. “You are getting thousands of unsolicited voices thrown at you about either you’re a genius or you’re a worthless piece of shit.”

The fictional podcasters apparently could have been even worse.

“We actually pared down some of the podcaster dialogue in the movie,” he laughs. “We had them saying some even much meaner things.”

Fortunately, Spider One has developed a fairly effective method for dealing with the real-life equivalent.

“I look and I say, well, only four people have watched this and one of them is me, so I probably shouldn’t worry too much about it.”

At the emotional centre of the film is Adam’s relationship with Kate, played by Krsy Fox. Fox describes her connection with Brandon Scott as one of those rare occasions where very little work was required to create convincing chemistry.

“Immediately, just such a likeable, talented person,” she says of Scott. “I felt immediately from the first time I met him very connected to him.”

That ease carried straight into their first scenes together.

“I remember that feeling. I was like, wow, this is so easy,” Fox recalls. “I came into this so prepared and I was able just to let go and fall into these people.”

As the story becomes more intense, that connection made the material unexpectedly affecting.

“We just really loved these people that we were playing,” she says. “I felt immediately safe.”

Fox also brought some particularly useful recent experience to the production after appearing in Terrifier 3. Watching Damien Leone work at close quarters left an impression, particularly when it came to practical gore.

“I think Damien’s an absolute genius when it comes to practical effects and just creating a character and creating mood and scaring people,” she says. “He set the bar very high for anyone who wants to attempt to make a slasher movie.”

Big Baby certainly attempts it. Fox reveals that the production tackled its major effects work almost immediately, shooting the kills during the first three days so the team could then concentrate on the character-driven material. Those days were not exactly relaxed.

“Effects days are always the hardest,” she says. “Maybe the blood doesn’t come out when it’s supposed to be, resetting.”

One sequence created an especially memorable problem. A major poolside kill was filmed at the renowned actress Barbara Crampton’s home.

“She has this beautiful backyard and pool area,” Fox explains. “And then I just didn’t consider how much blood we would need to use and that we were going to destroy it.”

The result was a considerable amount of anxiety for Fox, although apparently far less for Crampton herself.

“She told me the other day, ‘I found blood in my pool for a really long time,’” Fox laughs. “I’m like, I’m sorry.”

The production also benefited directly from Fox’s Terrifier 3 experience when effects artist Ryan Ward joined the team.

“I was like, hey, we’re about to do this slasher movie. You might need to come work on this with us,” she recalls.

That commitment to practical carnage should make Big Baby an especially lively proposition for a late-night FrightFest crowd, something both Fox and Spider One are looking forward to.

Fox says previous festival screenings have already become noisy, communal experiences.

“The crowd is loud and having fun and cheering and laughing,” she says. “So I’m excited that hopefully that’s going to be the experience.”

Spider One agrees that watching a horror film with an audience changes the movie itself.

“There is no better way to watch a movie than in a theatre with other people,” he says. “The lights go down and you’re having this shared experience with strangers.”

For a filmmaker, there is another side to it too. Spider One admits he finds watching different crowds fascinating, particularly as reactions can shift from screening to screening.

“One particular moment will get a laugh that didn’t get a laugh before,” he says. “I just found it endlessly fascinating to sit with a group of people and just sort of see what moves them and what doesn’t.”

“It’ll be interesting to see if there’s a different perspective potentially from a different audience,” Spider One says, noting that Big Baby has so far primarily played to American crowds.

Fox, who is Canadian, suspects British viewers may prove particularly receptive to the film’s humour.

“I find that the UK humour is a lot closer to Canadian humour,” she says. “A lot of sarcasm and dryness.”

Whether that extends to enthusiasm for future Big Baby films remains to be seen, although audiences have apparently already been supplying sequel titles.

Fox’s preference is simple: Big Toddler. Spider One has heard plenty of alternatives, including the tagline “Nap time is over”, while “Bigger Baby” also earns immediate approval.

“I think that’s a good sign that conceptually it’s super fun,” Spider One says. “It definitely gets people thinking about where you could take it.”

And would they actually like to take it further?

“We’d like to make more,” he says. “So let’s see.”

Big Baby receives its UK Premiere at Tubi FrightFest on Thursday 27 August at 11pm on the main screen. For tickets, visit: Frightfest.co.uk/

Watch the full interview below:

Big Baby interview

Big Baby trailer