Cinema Scholars interviews Tyler Savage, writer/director of the horror film Oddities, which celebrated its Texas Premiere at the Austin Film Festival. Oddities stars Lilimar, Lovie Simone, Adrienne Barbeau, and Xander Berkeley.
Introduction
The Austin Film Festival and Writers Conference isn’t exactly known for its horror selections. Yet the Halloween-time fest does feature a small contingent of genre films. Old-schoolers like me will recall that the original Saw screened at the festival back in 2004. In the 22 years since, it’s fair to say that horror and “genre” films in general have experienced quite the renaissance. Now, instead of being relegated to the few months leading up to Halloween, spooky films have become a ubiquitous part of the cinematic landscape year-round.
Among this year’s horror offerings at the Austin Film Festival, Tyler Savage’s Oddities stands out, merging several well-worn tropes in a unique way that will surprise audiences right up until the credits roll.
Synopsis
Rose (Lilimar) and Makenna (Lovie Simone) are party girls who support their self-destructive lifestyles with odd jobs and OnlyFans. When the duo’s latest misadventures at a house party result in the death of their current drug hookup, the young women flee the scene and hit the highway.
Seemingly safe on the backroads, the pair take a detour to a quaint antique shop housed in a friendly-looking big red barn. Little do they know that their problems in the city are about to pale in comparison to the evil lurking beneath the idyllic countryside.
Discussion
Oddities is a fun amalgam of different cinematic concepts. Part crime thriller, part “accidental captive” horror, and part high-concept existential threat, the film brings a lot to the table. Thankfully, Savage manages to rein in these multiple tropes and combine them into a cohesive story that continually surprises. Just when you think the movie is heading in one direction, the narrative unexpectedly shifts, upping the ante with increasingly diabolical results.
In addition to its deft thematic mashup, Oddities benefits from incredible locations that are as crucial to the story as they are fascinating to behold. Mine shafts, quarries, and a historic homestead all add to the visual intrigue and overall sense of dread. And then there are the “oddities” and antiques that seem to fill the big red barn from end to end. From taxidermy and unusual artwork to rustic farm implements and an old 45 jukebox (responsible for more than one epic needle drop), the antique shop is wholesome and unnerving in equal measure.
The cherry on top of this layered cinematic confection is the inspired casting of screen veteran Adrienne Barbeau as the leery shop owner, Betty. It’s exciting to see actors of a certain age getting juicy, offbeat roles. Thankfully, genre filmmakers continue to create fantastic opportunities for performers who are often overlooked. Barbeau’s performance is uncomfortably intense (in the best way) throughout the film. As more of Betty’s mystery is revealed, Barbeau also manages to embody the anguish her character conceals behind a veneer of self-righteousness.
Conclusion
Oddities takes some big swings that result in some solid hits. Savage weaves multiple themes into a clever, cohesive narrative that delightfully shifts direction with each act. Cool, creepy locations and impressive production design set the tone for a harrowing series of unfortunate events. And casting a familiar face in a pivotal role gives the film some valuable (and fun!) gravitas.
Cinema Scholars’ Rebecca Elliott sat down with Savage at the Austin Film Festival to discuss Oddities, shooting at the coolest location ever, and working with a screen legend.
Interview
Rebecca Elliott:
Are you having a good festival? The Austin Film Festival isn’t exactly known for its genre films. How has the reception been so far?
Tyler Savage:
It’s been great! We got some love on Letterboxd last night, and a bunch of people came out. I lived here for about four years, from 2010 to 2014, so a lot of old friends have come out to see the film. Over the next couple of days, I’m looking forward to catching up with everyone.
Rebecca Elliott:
That’s great. Welcome back! You also wrote Oddities, and the film opens in this cityscape of parties, drugs, and a pretty seedy world populated by party girls and scumbags. Then it makes a quick about-face into the countryside, where an entirely different set of sinister circumstances unfolds. Tell me about that juxtaposition and the eventual crossover between those two worlds.
Tyler Savage:
The whole thing was really a celebration of some of the genre elements I love. It’s so difficult to put a movie together, and when I had the opportunity to make this one, I thought, “Okay, the short film did well, I have an investor, and we can start putting this together. Maybe I can play with all sorts of genre elements.” It takes so long to get a film made, so I thought, why not try to do it all? I wanted to incorporate my love of crime thrillers into the same storyline where I could explore horror, dark comedy, and other elements.
I like genre mashups. I’m not necessarily a horror-comedy person. But I enjoy movies that can contain multiple tones and make them feel harmonious, even when the shifts are a little jarring. You might find yourself wondering, “Wait a minute, am I laughing at this, or am I supposed to be scared?” I also like the sense of unpredictability. Something is exciting about not knowing where a movie is going next. It felt like a natural progression for the story. You can’t start with the craziest part and then de-escalate into a crime thriller. So it became this rollicking journey, jumping from one genre to the next and playing with different tropes along the way.
Rebecca Elliott:
I have to ask right out of the gate: I’ve seen plenty of films featuring basement dungeons, but I’ve never seen one where so much of the movie takes place in a mine shaft and quarry. Are those real locations, or is it all smoke and mirrors? You had access to some seriously cool places! That creepy staircase in the background of that one shot with Adrienne Barbeau made me wonder where you found these locations.
Tyler Savage:
The main location was the Louisville Mega Cavern, which is this unbelievable underground space. Have you ever been there?
Rebecca Elliott:
No, but I love caverns!
Tyler Savage:
It’s so cool. It’s one of the largest in North America. Warner Bros. actually has its temperature-controlled film vault down there, and the city stores all of its salt for winter because the temperature is regulated. It’s about 150 feet underground and something like 20 acres in size. You could get completely lost down there. It was genuinely scary. They were incredibly kind and gave us access to the space. They also let us use it essentially as a soundstage. This was a very modestly budgeted film, so we asked if we could set up some flats and build a little dungeon set.
A lot of the prison-set material is actually a set we built inside the cavern. For the final set piece and climax, we were using only a small section of the cavern, probably about two percent of the overall space. At one point, we were asking if it was really okay to bring in all these trucks and take over part of the space. They told us we were using maybe five percent of the entire facility and that they barely noticed we were there. It’s so expansive that we could go days without even seeing anyone who worked there. It was really fun.
Rebecca Elliott:
I wish I could do an entire interview just about that location and the logistics of getting everyone in and out. There’s also the inherent creepiness of being in such an enormous underground space.
Tyler Savage:
You’d start your day at 8 a.m. by going underground, and then you’d spend the entire day down there. You completely lost track of your circadian rhythm because you hadn’t seen the sky.
Rebecca Elliott:
Another production-related question: Did the antique store actually exist, or did your production designer get to go completely bananas creating it? Tell me about all the oddities and antiques, finding those incredible set pieces, and putting that entire location together.
Tyler Savage:
We shot at a place called the Kennedy-Hunsinger property in Louisville. They have a house on the property that dates back to the 1840s, possibly even earlier. That’s the actual house we filmed in. They also have this big barn that’s much more modern, maybe 30 or 40 years old. It’s an operational farm where they grow soybeans, and the building was filled with three gigantic tractors. It wasn’t red, either, so we had to paint the entire thing. Again, we were working with a very modest budget.
Our production designer, Amber Unkle, really brought that whole world to life. What she accomplished with our budget was incredible. She pulled out all the stops, finding things through Facebook Marketplace, purchasing items, going to garage sales, and basically getting her hands on anything she could find. At the end of production, we even put out a notice on social media and held a sale for many of the props.
Rebecca Elliott:
That’s awesome. What else are you going to do with all that stuff?
![[L-R] Lovie Simone as Makenna and Lilimar as Rose in Oddities. Image courtesy of Fryman Films.](https://i0.wp.com/cinemascholars.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/Oddities-Mak-and-Rose-2-.webp?resize=690%2C388&ssl=1)
Tyler Savage:
There were things I wanted so badly, but I couldn’t justify spending $5,000 on a single item. A lot of it came down to borrowing things for a while. I also collect antiques, so my house is pretty cluttered with little shadow boxes and funky things. Actually, I was just in Eureka Springs for Nightmare on the Ozarks, and I bought this amazing hand-painted circus poster from the 1930s.
I can’t help myself when I find something like that. So I even brought some of my own stuff in my pickup truck from California and drove it to the location to use in the shop. By the time I came back, the truck was twice as full because I kept finding things I wanted to take home. I’d see a propeller or a circus sign and think, “Well, I’ve got to have that!” It was a lot of fun.
Rebecca Elliott:
That’s so exciting that you were able to put all of that together! One of the many things I love about genre films is that they give veteran actors opportunities to get in on the fun. There is so much incredible talent that can sometimes be overlooked, particularly as performers get older. Genre filmmaking gives them these fantastic roles to sink their teeth into. You have Adrienne Barbeau and Xander Berkeley in Oddities. What did their experience bring to the set? And, of course, what was it like working with Adrienne?
Tyler Savage:
Adrienne has become a dear, dear friend. We’ve traveled to four countries together over the last few months, and it’s just been an amazing experience. Her support and enthusiasm were a big part of what helped us get from the short film to the feature. She also set the tone for a lot of people. When you have someone with her background, stature, and experience on a set like that, and she’s happy to be there, has a great attitude, and is willing to be spontaneous, improvisational, and have fun with the material, it sets a wonderful example. For the younger performers and even the crew, that kind of energy makes a difference.
I think she brings a certain gravitas, as does Xander. When you talk to young filmmakers about how much of a performance comes from the role of the director versus the performer, so much of it really comes down to who you’re working with. Sometimes people show up, and there’s something you can’t quite put your finger on. You wonder why there’s so much weight behind the way they deliver a particular line. You can tweak things and try different approaches, and because this film was such a tonal mashup, I had to make sure everything was working together. Having people like Adrienne and Xander involved is such a benefit. They bring decades of experience to the film, and everyone is inspired by that.
Rebecca Elliott:
Absolutely. The film is also pretty gory. Without giving away any spoilers, there are some fantastic practical effects, including blood spurting and chopped-off appendages. Do you have any good stories about working with your effects crew and the performers who had to pull off those gags?
Tyler Savage:
Without giving anything away, almost all of the special effects makeup is practical. There is some digital augmentation afterward to paint things out or accentuate certain elements of the gore, but we really wanted to use practical effects. Like most genre filmmakers, I love playing with practical effects. Our SFX makeup team, Ashley [K. Thomas] and Alex [Solorzano], were so much fun to work with. Because of our modest budget and the limited timeframe, we sometimes had to pivot from what was originally on the page and figure out what we could realistically pull off.
I’m a big believer in not being delusional about your resources. If we can execute something at 100 percent and really nail it, even if it’s not exactly what I originally imagined, I’d rather do that than stretch ourselves too thin. You don’t want to end up with an idea that’s cool on paper but that you haven’t quite managed to pull off. Some of those effects took shape as we went along, allowing the locations and our budgetary realities to inform the process. I try to be flexible. Maybe I thought a character was going to move in one direction, but there’s a wall there. So how do we reblock the scene or reimagine it in a way that doesn’t feel like a compromise?
Rebecca Elliott:
You want to let the reality of the situation inform the filmmaking rather than force something that isn’t working.
Tyler Savage:
Right. Everybody had fun with the gore. That said, it’s a nightmare when you’re working on a tight schedule and a modest budget. Resetting a gore effect can take an hour. Our great AD, Travis LaSalle, was instrumental in making sure we had the process down. We’d rehearse something 14 times if necessary before actually shooting it.
Rebecca Elliott:
Right! Everyone has their timing and knows their cues.
![[L-R] Sarah Durn as Cyndi and Adrienne Barbeau as Betty in Oddities. Image courtesy of Fryman Films.](https://i0.wp.com/cinemascholars.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/Oddities-Barbeau-3.webp?resize=690%2C431&ssl=1)
Tyler Savage:
Exactly. On most of those effects, we got them in the first or second take. We didn’t have five hours to pull off one effect. You need to know all the potential pitfalls before you ever trigger the effect itself.
Rebecca Elliott:
Well, they were pretty effective. There was some great stuff in there! There’s also some impressive stunt work in the film. There are people getting thrown against walls, and Barbeau even gets in on the action. Can you talk about working with a stunt coordinator on a horror film and some of the ins and outs of that process?
Tyler Savage:
Our stunt coordinator was LJ [LaVecchia], and he had a great team. I think we had four stunt performers in total, plus a couple of doubles for Adrienne’s character. There’s one big stunt toward the end of the film that required some serious rigging. We had to bring in a condor and wires to make sure everything could be done safely. I haven’t really worked on a stunt of that level before. I’ve been a producer or assistant on sets where we’ve had stunts like that, but this was the first time I was in that position as the director, with that level of responsibility.
Again, I think something that doesn’t get enough attention is the work of assistant directors. Travis, our AD, helped make sure we maintained a safe environment. Similar to the special effects work, there were certain stunts the team rehearsed for hours before we even got to the shot. Then we’d come in, and I’d say, “Okay, show me how this works.” We’d talked through everything beforehand, but sometimes you need to see it in action. You have to let the professionals in their respective disciplines tell you the best way to sell something. If you’re doing hand-to-hand combat, for example, those performers have spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours learning what works on camera. So if I’m insistent about putting the camera somewhere, and they tell me it’s not going to read as well, I listen. They know better than I do.
Rebecca Elliott:
That’s teamwork! Teamwork makes the dream work!
Tyler Savage:
Exactly.
Rebecca Elliott:
I think we have time for one more quick question. I always ask genre filmmakers this broad question: Why do you think there’s such a loyal fan base for genre films? It’s also such a close-knit filmmaking community. What do you think accounts for that?
Tyler Savage:
That’s a great question. I love that question. I’ve thought about it a lot because we’ve been at several big genre festivals recently, including Sitges and FrightFest. You’re absolutely right. At festivals like BIFFF in Brussels, you see some of the most rabid fan bases I’ve ever encountered. They’ll get 1,500 people into a theater, and everyone is hooting and hollering. You find yourself wondering what it is about this community that makes it so tight-knit.
My only observation is that I’ve had exposure to certain subcultures and fringe cultures. Whether it’s the punk scene or bodybuilding, there’s something beautiful about the sense of community among people who are dedicated to those worlds. I recently produced a film called Iron Jane, which is set in the world of bodybuilding. I spent months immersed in that community, going to events like the Olympia [World Fitness Expo] in Las Vegas. Whenever you have people who are truly dedicated members of a subculture, there’s a wonderful sense of community and connection. I think that’s what happens with genre filmmaking. We’re all weirdos who like the same things.
Rebecca Elliott:
We don’t necessarily know why, but we like them!
Tyler Savage:
Exactly. I also think horror and genre films provide a way to process emotions. Some things are too frightening for us to experience ourselves, but seeing them represented in a narrative from a safe distance can provide a sense of catharsis. I think that really brings people together.
Rebecca Elliott:
You nailed it! Great answer. Well, that’s our time. Thank you again for taking time out of your busy fest schedule to talk with me.
Tyler Savage:
Thank you.
