Good morrow. The explosion of folk horror has helped us realize just how fertile history has been for the genre. After watching THE WITCH or THE NIGHTINGALE, I could never read a textbook the same way again. It stands to reason, though. Go back to Colonial Times and you have the perfect ingredients for a gnarly horror flick: Satanic worship, witchcraft, and pantaloons. What more could one ask for?
Thankfully genre filmmaker Andrew Rakich agrees, which is why he wrote, directed, and produced THE SUDBURY DEVIL, which he refers to as a “Satanic faith-based film.” In that case, it certainly gives GOD’S NOT DEAD a run for its money. THE SUDBURY DEVIL is a folk horror-thriller which follows a duo of Puritan witch hunters from 1800s New England (Benton Guinness and Josh Popa) who are joined by a spooked villager (Matthew Van Gessel) to investigate sightings of the supernatural and encounter a mysterious woman who appears to be stark raving mad (Kendra Unique).
What follows is a fury of Satanic horror and a wicked repudiation of America’s colonial history that weds the sensibilities of Ken Russell and Robert Eggers. Oh, and plenty of sexual deviancy.
A former living historian at Gettysburg National Military Park, Rakich produced THE SUDBURY DEVIL while also running the popular YouTube Channel, Atun-Shei Films, which as of now has over 380,000 subscribers. Rakich’s background in history and film are on full display as he theatrically debunks Lost Cause talking points with the mini-series “Checkmate, Lincolnites.” He also provides analysis of other historical films, such as an analysis where he debunks the Civil War drama GODS AND GENERALS.
Having directed projects such as the ‘50s B-Movie tribute ALIEN, BABY!, Rakich produced THE SUDBURY DEVIL on a micro-budget as a co-op production with his central cast and crew, who took back-end percentages in lieu of upfront fees for their work. Despite being approached by several distribution companies to release the film, Rakich decided to release it, and hours of special features, onto his website in September 2023 after premiering it at The Satanic Temple World Headquarters in Salem, Massachusetts.
In an age where streaming services and corporate consolidation have undermined creatives, THE SUDBURY DEVlL could potentially serve as a production and distribution model.
To find out more about Rakich’s unique experiences as a genre filmmaker, we sat down with him to chat about independent production, the film’s historical nods, and balancing a film career with a popular YouTube channel.
DG: First, a broad overview question: how did you come to love both history and horror? Have they always been interests that have intertwined for you?
Andrew Rakich: Yeah, I’ve always loved history. Connected with it, been interested in it since watching Stephen Sommers’ THE MUMMY. Wearing out the DVD, getting into Ancient Egypt as a 5th Grader, and buying “The Book of The Dead.” In fact, I’ve still got it. I thought it was going to be The Book of The Dead from the movie but instead it’s this academic text written by a British guy 150 years ago.
So I’ve always been interested in history, and I’ve always been a horror guy too. When I was in college, I went on a huge Gothic horror kick of literature. Tearing through all the classics. It’s interesting, because I’m mostly known on YouTube for comedic web series.
I’ve noticed a lot of people are confused. “He’s a comedy guy, why would he do horror?” Most of the shorts that I’ve made have been horror, so it’s always been a genre that I loved. It’s pretty similar to comedy – it’s all about eliciting involuntary emotional reactions from your audience. Both genres have that in common in a huge way.
DG: How would you say that your fanbase reacted when you announced your latest feature? Were they immediately interested, or was there that confusion you alluded to?
Andrew Rakich: For the most part, the audience reaction has been amazing and overwhelmingly positive which has been super gratifying to see. It’s been a long process – I had a slightly disastrous crowdfunding campaign back in March 2020 which ran right into the [Covid-19] Pandemic. So I entered pre-production almost four years before the movie finally came out in September 2023. A lot of my audience was with me through the whole process as we went through our Covid delays and raised more money, stuff like that.
They were very patient with me, and I hope that it was worth the wait for them. But they’ve been amazing, and their feedback has been super positive.
DG: A lot of filmmakers who are starting out have a day job, and of course your “day job” is running a YouTube channel with hundreds of thousands of subscribers. What was the work life balance of maintaining that channel and producing a feature film?
Andrew Rakich: Being a working filmmaker and also my own boss in my “day job” helped immensely. I really do have to express gratitude to my Patreon supporters. Because of their month-to-month support, I could take several weeks off YouTube as I needed to do frequently, especially in post-production. Managing the sound edit, managing the score. We were in post for a year and a half on this film.
It was definitely challenging because, especially for bigger and more elaborate videos that I’ve made – I have a narrative website called “Frozen ‘50s Man” in classic TV show style – at certain points it got pretty hectic. “Oh man, I’ve got this Frozen ‘50s Man episode, or I’ve got this Checkmate Lincolnites thing coming up that’s gonna require a lot of filmmaking gumption, money, and a lot of time.” At the same time, I’ve got stuff for [THE SUDBURY DEVIL] happening.
It was a very busy time, but that’s one of the many perks of the job that I have – I make my own schedule, and my Patreon supporters are very generous and patient with me. They trust me enough to know that I’m hard at work on something.
But being a YouTuber only takes you so far. [laughs] There were some walls that we came up against in terms of the budget, in terms of scheduling, in terms of all the problems that micro-budget filmmakers have. At the same time, we did have a leg up in a lot of ways. Just because I had that audience, and because I was a working filmmaker. I had stuff out there in the world that proved my mettle.
DG: As you announced in your video, “I’m Self-Distributing My Movie Because Cinema is Dead,” you revealed that the production was a co-op. Your key cast and crew worked for percentages of the revenue. That’s a model that’s probably unheard of to people in legacy media spaces, but there are some people like Blumhouse who are experimenting with that.
Andrew Rakich: Oh really? I didn’t know that, that’s cool.
DG: Yeah, they do percentages especially for smaller projects. But unlike you, they’re not as transparent about the process or the numbers. Very few people in Hollywood are. For any independent filmmakers in the audience, what would you like to say about that process now that THE SUDBURY DEVIL has been released?
Andrew Rakich: The co-op thing came out because of necessity. I was 30 years old when we shot this movie, the cast and crew were a similar age. A lot of us went to film school together. Frankly, we’re too fucking old to work for free. The core cast and crew really believed in this project, and most of them would have worked for free if I asked them. But that’s shit, frankly. If you can pay, even if it’s deferred, do so.
I strongly believe that artists should be compensated for their work because I was on the other end of that for most of my 20s. Working for very little or nothing at all. In a lot of the Atun-Shei Films YouTube stuff, like “Frozen ‘50s Man,” we’d just gotten into the habit of paying cast and crew.
It’s certainly not very much in terms of what people are expecting when they’re working on a set, I can’t afford to pay people those rates. But at the same time, it’s an acknowledgment – thanks for coming out, your work matters. Here’s some money. That’s what it entails. Especially for YouTube, these were for-profit endeavors. This is my job, I’m making money from it. Why should I hoard wealth? That would be ridiculous and unfair.
With THE SUDBURY DEVIL, which was a two-week on-location shoot, with all the other expenses of the production was going through: flying everybody up to Massachusetts, putting them up in hotels. All the food, Dear God. There was just no way I could afford to pay them, even a little bit. So it was a matter of necessity. “Come make this movie, most of you won’t get money up front but you’ll get very generous percentages.” I’m talking 5-10% of the backend.
Part of the reason we went with self-distribution was that by releasing through Vimeo’s VHX service, we could basically get a much larger slice of the pie than by going through a traditional distributor. The cast and crew got the money that we made right away. A week after the movie came out, they had money in their bank accounts.
I’m very concerned about the ethics of filmmaking. I sort of experienced it first-hand in a lot of ways and frankly it’s why, even just in my early 20s, I said “you know, working on-set 6 days a week, 12 hours a day is not for me.” It’s a pretty exploitative industry. Of course, we’re lucky in that we have such strong unions and there’s a general attitude of “work smart not hard.”
At the same time, it’s a lot of work and it’s hard on your body. I have friends who have back problems, who are my age, because they spent their early 20s slaving away on film sets doing really hard work. Yeah, there’s unions, it’s well paid for what it is, but at the same time there’s this idea of “you’re expendable. If you’re not willing to do this work, there’s a million people just like you who want to get into Hollywood.”
I don’t want to come down too hard on the film industry because most industries have this problem. Profits over people. But I didn’t want to do that. Believe it or not, I didn’t get into independent filmmaking for the money. [laughs]
DG: Getting into the film itself. True to what Atun-Shei fans might expect, there’s a historical richness to it, and a commitment to accuracy. In some of the special features, you went into some of the materials you used for research such as “A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados.” Is it true that this is one of the only recorded films to use Original Pronunciation?
Andrew Rakich: Yeah. As far as I know, it’s the first film ever made to feature the Original Pronunciation of the 17th Century.
DG: Considering that there will be people who discover this film not through your YouTube channel but as genre fans, do you see this film more as an opportunity to educate or as a film that adheres to the historical truth of the setting?
Andrew Rakich: The historical backdrop is really drapery. It’s there to fill in the world and make it feel real. It adds texture. This is primarily a good ol’ folk horror madhouse, designed to spook and scare.
More central to the heart of our story is our political satire. Our Creation Myth that we’re weaving about the founding of America and the skeletons in the closet of the American Colonial Project.
DG: This was premiered at the Satanic Temple in Salem, correct?
Andrew Rakich: It sure fuckin’ was. [laughs]
DG: Do they premiere films often?
Andrew Rakich: No, this was a special occasion. It was very nice of them to accommodate us. There couldn’t have been a better place to premiere the film. We often joked on set that this was a “Satanic Faith-Based film.” The folks at TST are great.
DG: So, now that you’ve seen the release of this production, would you be interested in working with “legacy media?” Or would you rather choose to operate in this independent space?
Andrew Rakich: In my ideal world, I would get to ask a genie for 1000 wishes. I will go for the third alternative. Films that I would like to make, ideally, would have a marriage between new media and legacy media.
I would like to have the resources, infrastructure, and accountability of legacy media but with the flexibility, creativity, and direct audience connection of new media.
I think we’re in a transitional period in filmmaking, and I’m definitely comfortable in the low budget space, for sure. Being a weirdo, making my weird little movies for not a lot of money but are according to my vision.
I’m not sure what form this would necessarily take, but I would love to see people like myself, creators in new media, teaming up with each other or some production company that’s adventurous, to make higher-end low budget material with more structure and accountability. Whoever does that first, they might strike gold.
But yeah, I’d like to make more freaky, disgusting sex pervert horror films, that’s for sure. I can crank one of those out every year.
DG: As a historian, is there a specific period or event in American history that’s ripe for a horror film of this ilk?
Andrew Rakich: Good question. Yeah, the 18th Century needs more love from horror. EYES OF FIRE is a classic, but that’s really the only American folk-horror set in that period that I can think of.
The Old West has been done. RAVENOUS is my favorite film, that’s kind of a Western/War, but that’s been done to death.
Yeah, the 18th Century. Maybe the so-called French-Indian War. That would be pretty phenomenal. There’s lots of demons and fairies and sprites lurking in those woods that could come out in the Age of Supposed Reason and Enlightenment that could put the arrogant Colonists in their place.
THE SUDBURY DEVIL is available for Rent & Purchase at atunsheifilms.com, where most profits go to the filmmakers. You can support Atun-Shei Films by subscribing to their YouTube or pledging to the Patreon.
Tags: Alien Baby!, Andrew Rakich, Atun-Shei Films, Benton Guiness, Eyes of Fire, Folk Horror, Gods and Generals, Josh Popa, Ken Russell, Kendra Unique, Matthew Van Gessel, Ravenous, Robert Eggers, The Mummy, The Nightingale, The Satanic Temple, The Sudbury Devil, The Witch
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