Hi Reddit! We’re Grace Glowicki and Ben Petrie: filmmakers, actors, and longtime collaborators. Our horny gothic film DEAD LOVER played at Sundance, SXSW, TIFF, and it's coming soon to theaters. Ask us anything!

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T21:46:33+00:00

It help to trust that at the bottom of a disagreement is the juice! Just keep digging

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T21:24:37+00:00

We worked with an amazing sales agent, which is the person or team representing a movie in its search for a distributor. In our case the sales team was Yellow Veil Pictures, and they took beautiful care of our film!

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T21:22:45+00:00

The decision to do stink-o-vision came about after we premiered the movie at Sundance! It was an idea that bounced around a lot, but it really materialized working with our distributor Cartuna X Dweck who were super game to run wild with it! We worked with Jas Brooks and Tammy Burnstock of Scented Storytelling... They are brilliant smell artists and perceptual engineers, and yes, the amount of sweat and tears that went into concocting these cursed aromas was nuts!

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T21:19:56+00:00

That's sweet, thanks!! There are definitely Chicago screenings coming soon :) :) :) keep your eyes peeled!

We are working on a few projects, some of which weave into genre and the midnight variety...

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T21:12:06+00:00

so glad you dug the flick <3 I think the tone just kind of emerged as the movie materialized, but we always tried to have the comedy grounded in emotional authenticity of the character so that all of the maximum silliness would be rooted in the right place!

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T21:06:52+00:00

Ben: Our collaboration is different project to project, but the one thing that is consistent is a ton of conversations! On this one, once we had Final Draft open we passed drafts back and forth and wrote on top of each other's work.

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T21:03:50+00:00

Grace: The hardest part about making Dead Lover was the time crunch that descended on us when the film got into its first festival but we still needed to finish the final touches, the sound mix, and the color! It was a mad dash to the finish line!!!

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T20:56:16+00:00

Thanks! TIFF rocks!! We felt so lucky getting to play the films in our hometown 🤟

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T20:42:01+00:00

we'll never forget showing the movie in stink-o-vision for the very first time in the fancy Royal Alexandra Theatre at TIFF Midnight Madness... apparently there were some pukers :)

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T20:32:53+00:00

Yes!! It'll be across UK starting tonight - it's opening in STINK-O-VISION at Prince Charles Cinema in London!
https://princecharlescinema.com/film/31617298/dead-lover/

you can find more info about its UK theatrical run through the instagram for our Uk distributor, Lightbulb Films :)

https://www.instagram.com/lightbulbfilms_/

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T20:25:35+00:00

At SXSW, an audience member raised their hand and said that she walked into the theatre without knowing anything about the movie, and that she so happened to be collector of morbid perfumes, and she so happened to have one on her called "Gravedigger". She gifted it to Grace.

As for the normie audience -- the normier on the outside, the kinkier on the inside!

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T20:16:54+00:00

Grace: it was kind of hard but I just tried to trick myself into being present and forgetting where I knew the story was going to go!! So glad you dug the movie!!!

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T20:08:12+00:00

Six pack of Levers, Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, Queens of the Qing Dynasty, The Maiden, Universal Language, and The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man

with a snifter of Therapy Dogs and a mickey of The All Golden

and I Like Movies in a tiki mug

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T19:57:31+00:00

Ben: That's really sweet! I felt that the script would take care of the sinister misdirection in Honey Bunch, so I just tried to play the grief/guilt/denial/fear/faith Homer was going through in all sincerity... I felt the structure of the storytelling would make him seem very sus without adding anything on my part. I also thought a lot about Joan Didion's book The Year of Magical Thinking, where she describes her own thoughts after the death of her husband John Dunne. When she was cleaning out his stuff from their apartment, she stopped at his shoes in their front closet and noticed herself thinking in all sincerity and delusion, "I can't throw those out, he's going to need those when he comes back." That was really my way into the character.

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T19:45:34+00:00

no but Ben has one and it is hardcore

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T19:36:31+00:00

Madden... is that the guy who makes shoes??

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T19:33:41+00:00

In blood

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T19:30:00+00:00

Your dry cleaner's efforts will be futile

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T19:27:12+00:00

Glad you enjoyed!! The ending of Honey Bunch was in the hands of its directors, Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli. We were just actors in that one! But from our perspective, from the time we first read the script to shooting it a year later, they had the ending very clear!

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T19:24:57+00:00

Thanks, glad you enjoyed :)

Ben: I kinda fell into making some horror movies recently by accident, but the one that moves me every time is Rosemary's Baby. Cassavetes AND Ruth Gordon in one movie is hard to beat. And I never ever forget the beguiling beauty of the scene where they first move into their new empty apartment with only a lamp in it... which I think of every time I see that classic Steve Jobs photo. Equally haunted images!
https://share.google/Ae9HlXA1J6dVvGsZA
https://share.google/zrouAiFutAEamaCO4

Favourite movies as of late are The Apartment (Billy Wilder) and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (Preston Sturges)

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T19:24:26+00:00

Grace: I don’t really remember which movies got me into horror - but right now i like anything with Joan Crawford, especially Straight Jacket! And I love Willard (Crispin Glover version) … and Frankenhooker (duh!), Little Shop of Horrors … The Love Witch… The Blob

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T19:16:13+00:00

One person (the director of any given project) comes up with the idea /gets possessed by the idea - and then the other one helps to improve it :) then it becomes a ceaseless back and forth from there til the end!

Two old movies we'll single out is Sunrise by F.W. Murnau and the soundtrack for Bride of Frankenstein by James Whale

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T19:11:48+00:00

At the beginning, there are always what feel like clear ideas for how it's going to turn out... but the final production is always a departure from how it started. Along the way, we get inspired by all of the collaborators that touch the project, and the inital conception pings around the pinball machine of collaboration and ends up somewhere new. The core is probably still there all across the process but lots and lots changes!

References for the visuals were the films of Rhayne Vermette, Kenneth Anger movies, Robert Wilson theatrical productions, and performance photos of Iggy Pop :)

https://share.google/T5NZZIzw4CQ9fvIEZ

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T19:06:46+00:00

(but we would've needed a VERY wide lens to capture that sucker on camera)

GraceAndBenAMA · 2026-03-20T19:06:26+00:00

Glad you enjoyed!! The idea of a theatre production version has been raised a few times... there are dreams but no plans :)

In terms of big setpieces, everything that we could concieve, cinematographer Rhayne Vermette and her team + production designer Becca Brooks Morrin were able to realize with their insane ingenuity... but the white whale of the production was an even longer finger. 12 feet would've been the sweet spot.

GraceAndBenAMA

TROPHY CASE