HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hello ladies and gentlemen of the Last Podcast on the Left Patreon. God, it's good to see you. I mean I can't see you. I can't really see anything, I have a blindfold on, I'm in an undisclosed location. This is Henry Zebrowski. But you know who's not is my esteemed guest. Someone that is out here because he can't be in hiding because he is on a promotional tour and he has to be out there. And I'm certain he'd rather be asleep. But no, but he's excited about the movie. No, I see the eagerness in his face, he's excited about the film.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're gonna get into the meat of it. This is William Brent Bell, the director of some of our favorite movies on Side Stories and Last Podcast, we've talked about The Boy, sometimes Wer also has come up quite a bit which also is a great movie. But most importantly your newest film Orphan 2: First Kill which I'm very excited for, I'm excited for the world to see. Thank you so much for being here, William Brent Bell.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Thank you so much for having me and obviously you can call me Brent.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I will. It's for googles.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Absolutely. No, it's great to be here. You know I don't really want to be asleep but being out in front in a publicity way is not necessarily where I usually am, I'm always behind the camera. So watching the girls, watching Julia and Isabelle doing press this week I'm just like ugh, they make me look so bad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's their job. And you have to be like remember, remember who made you Orphan? Always say that to the actors.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah, yeah. But it's been fun, it's already been fun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Can you ask you, right, so number one, we'll get into the film, I'm excited about this because it's a prequel. Because at first I was just like how are we doing the sequel to Orphan because again spoilers, let's just say Orphan doesn't fare very well at the end of the first movie.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Her neck takes a turn for the worse.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah. She gets what she deserves.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah. Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. But my question is, man, what do you have against children?
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
I guess I just think that they're kind of up to no good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I agree.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
A lot of kids remain really quiet, you know?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Kids are wild but those ones are too obvious. It's the quiet ones who I know hear everything and I mean I knew when I was a kid our strongest memories of things like movies are well before 10.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
And yet adults look at a kid 6-10 and they don't realize how smart kids are.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
And I still remember how conniving we were as kids.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I was a kid, I was very much so into everything that was spooky and dark but it also used to terrify me.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So essentially I would torture my parents because all I wanted to see was whatever is the creepiest thing and I'd read it too because I started reading Stephen King when I was like 10 years old.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it was probably far too young.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Oh yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I'm reading it and my mom did the thing, 'Well at least he's reading.' But she doesn't know that I'm up all night terrified by my own imagination.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah. I've been thinking about this a lot lately and I was terrified too and I saw movies way too young and it's what my parents did. As a product of divorce they sat me in front of the television and I ended up watching scary stuff. My sister made sure I did, she was like 4.5 years older, that perfect age where she hated me but also kind of was torturing me by having me watched Halloween and stuff as a kid.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
But it's great. And so while I have stronger memories about horror films before the age of 10 than I do about my regular life-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Me too, House. I was obsessed with the movie House as a little boy.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And now I rewatched it as an adult and I was like it's a very weird toned film.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
I mean there's a lot that we were allowed to watch that had very weird tones and books that were written back then, like you said Stephen King. But bestsellers back in the late 60s and early 70s when it was such a heyday for horror, also people were buying Jaws or The Other or these amazing books that turned into horror films. It's not like that really necessarily anymore except for kind of the more straightforward or Stephen King or Peter Straub.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Is that how you found yourself into directing? Because you've directed a lot of horror. Do you feel that you are... Because then I feel like some guys get a little bit like, 'Well I'm a director, I'm not a horror director.' But do you feel that you're a horror guy?
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Well yeah, I mean I'm from Lexington, Kentucky, I'm always gonna be from Lexington. I'm a horror guy, it's just part of my DNA.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because some guys get umbrage. Because I've had this talk with directors about this and sometimes they're like, 'Well I'm a director.' And you're like no I know but you've done only horror films.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And they're all like, 'But you wait until I do my final...' Rob Zombie, I love him. He wanted to do the hockey comedy, you know what I mean? That he can't seem to get going.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah, yeah. I mean inbetween movies, sometimes more than others, it'll always be like well what's next? And then there'll be never rom coms or straight dramas but there'll be science fiction ideas or things that are in the realm but not straight horror. And then I just find myself gravitating right back towards horror. And because to me of course it's such a wide spectrum of story styles that a lot of people who aren't as familiar with horror, they have a preconceived notion in their mind of what they think it is and it could be any number of things. Usually it's either ghost stories or slashers and that's about all they kind of connected it to.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
But it's so much more.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, the genre especially in the last couple of years has really shown just how beautiful and varied the horror genre is.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because it can be drama at its highest order. I just recently rewatched The Witch too and then you like watch something like that and you're like that's a historical drama. Because we're on Last Podcast we're doing the Salem Witch Trials and you see just how much work he put into that movie to make it like a real piece of history, like a chapter out of history.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Listening to them talk in that old English style, at first it's like what is this, like I don't get it, and then you just okay, I'm immersed in a world where people all talk this way. And you have to perk up and pay attention to enjoy that movie. And I know I've seen stuff where he's kind of ashamed of that movie or something.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whatever! He's crazy. Well he said the same thing about The Northman too. He also was trying to walk back The Northman because he was like, 'Oh, you know, it's an action movie.' And I was like yes, it is! Yes, it is! It's so wonderful!
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
But saying that he had trouble like, 'I didn't know how to tell a story when I did The Witch.' I was like you just need to calm down and look at it again because you've told a brilliant story on every level.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A beautiful story! It's great.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Beautiful story, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Do you do the same as a director? Is that the thing? Do you watch your own work, do you watch it afterwards, do you like it still or you're like I never wanna see The Boy II again?
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
That's good, that's a specific one.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I love Brahms too. Don't worry, you're about to get a series of The Boy questions I'm about to come at you with.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Every movie... Ron Howard I saw something where he said being a director, every movie is gonna break your heart at some point.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
And it's really true but it's also kind of like I guess I don't have kids, not that I won't, but movies are kind of like your kids, you can't really choose necessarily. And I always know what the intentions were or I know the behind the scenes or the politics. So I look at a movie that I've done sometimes with rose-colored glasses because I might not see it just the way a normal public viewing audience would see it, you know?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
I've got all the other scenes on my Avid.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. You see all the movies that could have been.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Sure, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You see all the different movies, yeah.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah. And something like Brahms in particular was one that I've never had a situation where at the last second the studio came in and completely changed the movie sort of.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Really?
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Oh yeah. But that wasn't the only kind of problem with that movie but it was definitely the biggest problem.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I bet.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
And it happens.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
How does that process happen? Because I do want to just talk about love of The Boy, I want to ask this. But in terms of that, because I've made independent films, I've always been on the talent side of it vs the creating part of it and the editing. So when you submit your film, so that idea like when the studio comes and changes everything, did you hand them like, 'All right, we're done. Guys, we did all of our work.' Is it like that where you'd get a picture lock and you'd do all of your own sounds in post? Is all the post done to by the time you send it to the network and then they just do whatever they want with it?
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
It's slightly different depending on the movie and where it is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Like the film I just did in London, Lord of Misrule with Ralph Ineson from The Witch-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Man, he's on fire, dude. He's on fire. What a fantastic actor.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Wait til you see him in this movie because it's the most complete character since The Witch, it's a full character in the movie. But anyway that movie I'm locking picture this next week or two and finishing the sound mix and stuff like that. But we haven't sold it to a distributor. So when the distributor comes on board, they may crack the movie back open and you never know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh seriously? They can do that? Like the distributor does that?
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Well they do it with me.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh okay, okay.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
With every movie it's like well now let's spend some more money on this or let's try this or have you thought about this? And it usually is a good thing and I go through the whole process, it's not just my cut, it's every cut I oversee and the sound mix and every aspect. But in the case of that movie, Brahms in particular, the company that was producing the film went bankrupt after 30 years of making tons of movies. You know Lakeshore, they made Underworld, they made a Million Dollar Baby, a million things.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
And it's just they were too big and they went under. So all of a sudden you had no producers and then the studio just kind of cracked it open and they're like we want to make some changes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh my god. And you're like basically your production company daddy is gone.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Exactly.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The person that was supposed to be cradling this through, the person whose project it was. Yes.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Protecting it, yeah. And so then after I watched it I was like have you guys seen what they did? 'No, actually we've not seen it.' They're not involved anymore. So literally you never know when a movie can get tweaked in this huge long process and that's why I'm so paranoid all the time, paying attention. The Devil Inside was that way, there was a tweak. After a year of beating up that movie and testing it so many times, at the last second the president of the studio made a change that went down in kind of movie history. Putting up that card at the end of The Devil Inside was a last second idea, the only thing we never tested in that movie. And he even told me later that he made a mistake, he meant for that card to happen after the credits. But it was like you didn't say that and it was one of the last directives that the studio asked us to do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Jeez.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
And then it just changes, it can affect the whole...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh the entire movie! Because the ending is one of the most important parts of the movie cause it's what the audience, it's the last thing they see.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And so that's the last memory they have of what they saw.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
It's difficult. I mean I'm not complaining, it's just tricky.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a lot.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah. And especially if you're trying to do movies that are gonna be seen by a lot of people, then you've got a lot more money involved and a lot more politics because people are very worried about that money and the marketing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh very much so. And then you can have your whole $90 million dollar movie thrown in the trash for no reason that you worked on for a year and now it can just go away even if it was like already done. I mean that's a shock. I've been texting with every person I know in the film industry that were all like...
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
There's no way that's gonna stick. I feel like we've seen lately especially, and I don't think this
is what they're doing, but where they'll send out kind of negative, like oh we're going to be low in cherries this year for the food season. And then everybody goes out and wants to buy cherries. It was like they were never going to be low on cherries.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
So all of a sudden we're talking about Batgirl like it's the must see movie of the year.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It does work. No, it does work. It's true cause then everyone's like, 'Now I gotta see this movie.'
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then we're all gonna sit there for the 95 minutes of essentially a CW show and just be like well how I feel is I'm just glad that everybody gets paid and everybody's work get seen. To me it's like I just know that the most talented artisans in the world get paid all of this money just to have the work shelves. I really do feel for the people making the costumes and all of that shit.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Like I said, I really believe, knock on wood, in the system or whatever that that movie can't be gone.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nah.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
And you're gonna see all this groundswell. And I don't understand about it now, like why you don't release it on HBO Max.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah it makes no sense. It seems like it's already done.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
It's fascinating.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So I wanted to ask, so actually it was kind of funny because you were out here promoting the film but we actually just had this conversation on our show about the difference between literally Orphan and The Boy. It was a jokey conversation but the breakdown of like no, one's an evil child turned adult movie, one is an object treated as child movie. And that you can't know the ending of The Boy because you don't want to do it. But my question is what do you see as the difference between these things? In the sub genres of horror, how do you break them apart?
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
You know what's interesting is I would probably say that the comparisons more Brahms, the guy in the walls, to Esther, you know?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well in the show we didn't want to spoil the ending of The Boy who hadn't seen it. But now this is Patreon, so you're gonna have to know that the boy is not the boy.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah. And so the sociopath or the psychopath, the human, it's really just about what sliver of their life story we see.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
So in The Boy we see the story which is mostly about these parents, their coping mechanism, right? And then we reveal it wasn't just a coping mechanism, there's more to it. Same thing with Orphan. It's like she's a little girl but she's not, she's actually this adult sociopath. We've just never delved as much into Brahms' story as we've seen her do now two full movies and seen a couple sides to her. So there's a lot of similarities to me certainly on the things that get me excited about horror.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well the innocent on its head is a part of horror forever. But when you went to go to design the boy-
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah, the doll.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, the doll the boy. How many options did you go through and how did you choose what the optics were? Because it was another kind of conversation we've had ongoing on Last Podcast about Annabelle, right? How I actually prefer sort of the actual Annabelle which was a Raggedy Ann doll and it's super plain.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then the movie when they make it a little bit more elaborate. Where I think The Boy is a really good down the middle, it's just a good old fashioned creepy porcelain boy.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Well that to me is scarier than if that boy was making an evil face.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
And forget the fact that obviously Annabelle was was in the zeitgeist around then as well. So whenever the studio wanted me to make him look scarier-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Is that a note that they give you?
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Oh yeah, yeah. Make him scarier. But I'm like no, it's like Damien from The Omen or the two twin brothers from The Other. These characters are terrific sweet kids but they're holding a knife behind their back and if you get close enough they'll slit your throat. And so I tried really hard to make him look as those dolls did in that time, kind of beautiful and and innocent. But we used real fake eyeballs.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
I mean the amount of the changes and the variations in developing him, it was super intense.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh I bet.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
And I think it was when we did the camera test three days before shooting his hair was terrible, he looked like a male figure skater, he had this long hair, it had these wings. And that wasn't like what the design was but it's what the wig looked like. And so the night before we're in there having them cut his hair a certain way going oh, this is a nightmare. If he shows up like that, it changes everything.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
But then it turned out good. On the shooting day it was like ah, that's the hair we wanted.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Do you treat the boy like he's a little cast member? Do you set the tone when you're doing something scary like that? How do you make everybody kind of feel the weight of it? Or do people goof around? Because I feel like there's kind of different ways people run horror sets where it's on one side if its super extreme, it tends to be a lighter set
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah. I mean he was kind of treated like a cast member for sure. Here's what's funny about him on set. He has different looks based on what's happening in the story, especially in the second when he was in the dirt. But he's over there and we put him in a chair and I've got great behind the scenes photos of him but not only is he just sitting there waiting to go on camera and of course you get used to it, you feel like he's a cast member, but based on how his hair was we needed it to be styled a certain way. So he would have little clips in his hair so that his hair would curve a certain way when he let the clips down. So it would be like he would be waiting with rollers inbetween takes. So it wasn't heavy or anything but it wasn't goofy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's serious.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
And we were every careful with him because he's somewhat fragile depending on which version of him he is. But yeah, he's just sitting there getting lit for a scene, the other actors are across from him and it's really no different, it's kind of like a stand-in except there is no person to fill the space, it's just him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because as an actor technically you've been given the directive of well I love the interplay, that's what's so good about The Boy is the 'is he real?' Like that feeling of you could watch them kind of play that process of as he became real.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which is pretty great. How did Brahms, the second one, prepare you to do this new movie? So Orphan: First Kill, so you've done a sequel... Like how does this prep you? Obviously they are different structures but is there something about, because you didn't make the first Orphan, how do you continue that story?
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Well one thing that's great is the first movie holds up so well.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
And there's a quality to it that's dated that we kind of wanted to partly lean into, both in the look and sound of it. And it had such an exceptional level of casting for a horror film, for a movie then. So you're like okay, we have to some degree the answers to the test, especially when Isabelle was officially on board. And I knew other than the technical aspects of making her believable in the story, we have the actress who knows better than anybody how to bring to life this character. But as far as the look and feel, part of it is when in doubt look at the original film.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Oh yeah.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
It was like that with casting. Bringing on Julia to me was the same kind of level as Vera Farmiga. And when it was just normal creative conversations and people are like oh what about this casting choice? And it's like that doesn't really live up to what the original film was. So always going back and pointing to the original movie because it was so good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
And being able to lean on it on every level to make sure that we're doing things in a unique way from the original film but at the same time it still needs to be that DNA. And The Boy movies definitely prepared me for that for many reasons because it's similar. There's a lot of similarities in the look and style.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I feel like in the tone, there is similarity in tone which I feel like it actually does allow you to move pretty much directly from The Boy to Orphan.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Do you feel like now that there has been, we talked about this a little bit before and you said that people have brought this to your attention, the story of Natalia Grace.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That was this story that we covered on Side Stories quite a bit but a real tiny person pretending to be a child.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah. Like I said, you know Inventing Anna, right now it's so popular to watch movies and series in particular about these charlatans, whether they're creating WeWork or something like The Inventor.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. I think the love of the conman is a slightly American aspirational idea because I think it kind of brings up the idea like it's the very core of the make money from nothing American ideal.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah, fake it til you make it. And then what always fascinates me about those stories and a story like Natalia Grace and a story like Esther or Leena is these sociopaths on different levels, and they all are, like what are you thinking? Like what do you think is the endgame here? Because you can't sustain this, eventually like Natalia Grace, you're not going to grow up and then they're gonna be like what's going on?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What's your deal? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cut to her hanging out, playing dominoes and smoking like she's the character from The Simpsons which I love.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah. So to me I'm just like yeah, I get it as a means to an end maybe. With Esther getting to America, it's a great way to get to America and to slip through whatever people are looking for an adult. And so she slips through the cracks as a child. But how long do you think that can last and how many times are you gonna continue to do that same thing? And I feel like with characters like this, their lives are probably very painful as normal adults.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
And so they slip into these lies. But like I said, those lives aren't sustainable. So when are you gonna learn the lesson?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A lot of times when you see these guys, especially pathological liars, it's like some version of an antisocial personality disorder, whatever is in under that umbrella.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A lot of times it's the only way that they feel anything. They legitimately have a block, they feel nothing, nothing registers. And the only thing that does register is upping the stakes of your current life. You do things where you try to fuck with the system because it gives you a reaction finally.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah. And it's kind of the reverse of something like, is it Munchausen's Syndrome? Is that where you poison your own child?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, they've got the two different versions. Yes, it is Munchausen by proxy I believe.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's the mom keeping the kids sick, kid kind of leaning into this sort of inner world of... How do I put it? It's just mental illness.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Oh yeah, yeah. And so someone like Natalia Grace, it's like as an adult is she ridiculed in some way that is just really her but as a child she gets to be the smartest kid in room?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah< she gets to crush it.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
And that feels great. Yeah, she's brilliant. And it's the same way with Esther. And we talked about Esther's past, I mean she's 31 in this movie, 33 in the other. So she's got 20 years back until the age she's supposed to be.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
But like if you go to college, and she tried to go to college, was she 28 and fell in love with her TA, her teacher's assistant but got laughed out of that or something and then decided okay I'm gonna go back to acting like I'm a kid again. Who knows how many times she tried to become a normal person and it just didn't work out. And being a kid was the way to do it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Exactly. People positioned her already as a little kid, I think that there is a little bit of that too where she looks like a child and so people kind of treat you as such.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah, absolutely. And like we said, like a really brilliant child.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, so you get nothing but positive validation.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Again.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Have you ever thought about this, maybe this is kind of out of the box but have you thought about maybe doing a tie-in to Orphan: First Kill where you go to orphanages and try to find and sus out these fake children? And then you do it yourself. You and Isabelle go from orphanage to orphanage and you get three of them with the pair of parents, right, and you try to find out which is the secret adult.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Right, it's like a dating show. Who is the fake child?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Who is the fake child?
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Who is the fake orphan? That's something we haven't thought about and it is one of those great outside the box ideas in a publicity scenario.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think that we should try it. No, I'm gonna put money into this.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Well what's interesting to me, because there's more than Natalia Grace.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
It's like how many especially adopted orphans from another country who are coming in even at 12 but they're actually 18, how much of that is actually happening? And how many of those girls, bless their hearts, are hoping maybe I will sleep with the dad and get a greencard and those types of things?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's rough. Oh yeah. I'll tell you what man, I actually think that it's up to 75% of orphans are fake.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. I'm that close, I think 75-90% of orphans are adults pretending to be children. And I wish we could stop it, I wish we could stop it.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
And you mean they still could grow up, not necessarily they have a condition that will keep them a child forever.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh no, that's why they have to wipe out the parents.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They have to wipe out their own parents then they just get in there and then restructure it and then become somebody else's orphan.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah. I mean it's not that far from other scenarios that we know are very real.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think so. Do you think that between The Boy and Orphan is the reason why you don't have children? Because you just can't trust them?
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah, that's part of it in a way.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. You know what did it for me and my wife was We Need To Talk About Kevin.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That stopped it because we were like we're good, we're relatively normal and you can still make a crazy one.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Oh yeah. It's a cross between either them being crazy or I could have easily been very depressed and just sad. I joke like I tried to kill my stepmother once, now this is not really but she was kind of a step monster to me and so I put hairspray on her toothbrush when I was like six years old.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Unbelievable. You can't trust these kids. You cannot trust a child! I think that's what we know for certain. I'm very scared of them.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Well it's certainly what these stories are leading into, that fear that you can't trust a child or you can't even trust that a doll's not maybe real or that it doesn't have a life when the lights go out. I mean there's there's a lot of aspects of that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It creeps me out, man. Because I have this Chucky mask right on the side of me and it sits in a way that it's right above my chair. And so when I come, if I have to go to the bathroom at night or whatever it freaks me out two or three times a week. Like I see it and I'm like 'Ah!'
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Well and that's part of the fun too with horror of creating scenarios that feel grounded in a fairly normal life to where when you leave the movie you're not off the hook.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Or when you finish watching the movie, you still in the middle of the night and you go to the bathroom see the Chucky mask and it scares you three times a week, that's amazing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a goddamn orphan! Dude, so Orphan: First Kill comes out August 19th.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Very excited to see it. I can't wait. I know our people are gonna love it because we're all, I'm gonna say we're orphan heads.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
I mean it's a movie made very much, it's kind of a love letter to her and to fans of her. It wasn't just a movie made just to make a movie. It was a movie very much made with... And I'm a fantastic. You'll see.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'll always spend more time with an orphan. I can't wait. Thank you so much Brent, thank you so much for talking to me today.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Thank you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And we'll put up a link, I'll let you know when it goes up.
WILLIAM BRENT BELL
Great man, thank you so much.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank you again to all you Patreon listeners for every single thing that you've done. Have all of the delicious ducats that you have given from your hot, wet little pockets to our big, wide, cold, dry pockets. And I want to say thank you, thank you so much. Hail Satan. Go watch Orphan: First Kill. I know I'm going to, you know I like this shit. It's gonna be great, get high as hell, drink a bunch of beers. And hopefully that orphan does a little bit more mayhem because god, I need it.