OCHO: Arachnid From Hell

OCHO: Arachnid From Hell started shooting in early 2007. It's a parody/homage to 1950s/60s era monster b-movies. Daniel wanted to make a feature length film as a project to learn on. He loved b-movies and figured if he made an intentionally bad movie, most of the errors, oversights, and mistakes that would occur as a natural process of learning would actually help the movie instead of hurtng it.

He pitched the idea to his friends and they were all more than happy to play 2-dimensional characters.

The resulting film has spread virally through people passing around the many dvd copies that are floating around, and it's slowly growing a cult following.

The film ended up being 47 minutes - which barely meets the definition of "feature length" by IMDB (internet movie database) standards.



The film had a public premiere at Malco Theater in Tupelo which drew a very large crowd who were very enthusiastic and excited about a locally-produced movie.

"I think - in fact i've been told - that the abundant joy we have for movie-making shows up in my work. I believe people are responding both to the fact that we made a movie for no other reason than the sheer fun of it - and also I think they really respond to just the audacity of a bunch of people slapping a silly b-movie together in their backyards with no money, no production values to speak of and putting it on display for all to see. I think people love OCHO not despite its shoddy backyard-production values - but BECAUSE of them. It's something they can really relate to. Of course, the movie IS kinda funny too."
"We froze to death at various points making this thing. When shooting the garage/hangout scenes, it was a cold and windy february afternoon. We got done with them, and I was thinking aloud how I would love to have a Frankie & Annette style 'beach' scene if only it wasn't february. The cast INSISTED that we should go shoot that beach scene RIGHT NOW at Lake Lamar Bruce and immediately started digging out swimwear. I tried to protest that going to shoot in cold windy weather was madness, but they were hell-bent on doing it because of how funny they thought it would be.
"When we got a bunch of footage, it suddenly broke out into some very cold rain! Instead of immediately running for cover, the actors looked at me and first asked 'What do we do?' WE RUN FOR IT!!! I knew right then and there that a bunch of people freezing and acting for free that would actually ask first instead of making a break for it was probably the best cast I would ever work with in my entire life. So far, that's been the case.

"The period of time where I made The Picture, then went to my first film festival while also trying making OCHO was the best time of my life."