CFF24: Director Jake Barcus discusses Type A, Crafting a Horror-Comedy, and The Slashstreet Boys

I first met Jake Barcus while covering the Boston Underground Film Festival back in March. I had made my way to an after-party in the Cambridge basement of Tasty Burger after viewing Sébastien Vaniček’s Infested. It was one o’clock in the morning, and all I really wanted was a Rise N’ Shine burger before heading home for a nap, knowing I would be up in a few hours to post about the fantastic day of programming at the event. Amidst the colorful reds on the walls and the karaoke coming from the far corner, I stood solemnly at the counter in a hypnagogic state, hoping my bacon and egg-covered burger would be ready quickly. Spotting the press pin on whatever Vinegar Syndrome hoodie I was wearing that day, Barcus strolled over and struck up a conversation.

The place was loud, so we found ourselves raising our voices over the music of Journey and Bon Jovi. Barcus told me about his film, Type A, which had made it into the Friendship Is Magic block and played earlier in the day. Reluctantly, I had to tell him I hadn’t been able to see it since I snuck away for food and to work on reviews. Barcus didn’t skip a beat, though. He offered me a link to Type A and wanted to know my thoughts. After watching and holding my sides from laughter through its three-minute runtime, Barcus and I got to talking over Instagram, where I genuinely got a sense of him, his wit, and his charm. Now that Type A has made it into The Chattanooga Film Festival, it allows me to introduce this fantastic up-and-coming director to all of you as well.

Though we tried our best, at first, to limit the spoilers of Type A, the interview does give away a lot of Jake Barcus’ short. If you’re attending the Chattanooga Film Festival, I encourage you to see Type A first (you can find it in the WTF block) and then watch or read the interview.

CFF24: Interview with TYPE A director Jake Barcus [SPOILERS]

Over the last few months I’ve been speaking with Jake Barcus about his hilarious new short film Type A, An unexpected and ridiculous horror comedy. Type A is rich in atmosphere and supremely relatable, and in three short minutes, Barcus has you holding your sides laughing with a bite-sized short that you’ll probably be talking about with friends and coworkers for weeks to come, especially if you’re in the tech field.

WARNING: spoilers for TYPE A

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Intro: Over the last few months, I’ve been speaking with Jake Barcus about his hilarious new short film Type A. An unexpected and ridiculous horror comedy, Type A is rich in atmosphere and supremely relatable and in three short minutes, Barcus has you holding your sides laughing with a bite-sized short that you’ll probably be talking about with friends and coworkers for weeks to come, especially if you’re in the tech field. If you’re attending the Chattanooga Film Festival in person or virtually this weekend, you’re definitely going to want to give this one a watch.

Sean Parker: Hey. So, thank you for sitting down with me tonight. I know [with] the time change and everything –it’s late there, so I’ll try to be quick, like your short.

Jake Barcus: My body still thinks it’s 6:00 PM, so we’re good.

SP: That’s good. Chattanooga’s coming up. We met at Boston Underground Film Festival. You were awesome. You gave me your short. And, when I did sit down to watch the thing. Man, I just died through it. I just thought it was absolutely fantastic. So yeah. I think a lot of people are about to see it and think the same thing. What I want to ask you is how did the idea come about? Because it’s—let me put it to you this way. Whenever I meet creatives, they’re not really thinking in a sort of technical space like that. And your movie involves a technical object of some sort, and it’s pretty good. So, what brought about the idea?

JB: It was something that has happened so many times that I think one day I went to plug in a USB cord or USB plug, and I got it wrong, and I just thought, if there was a gun to my head. If someone was pointing a gun to my head and my life depended on this, would I be able to plug this in on the first try? And the answer was no, I wouldn’t. And sometimes you have a thought like that, and then you’re just like, boom, there’s an idea right there. Then that just kind of sat in my brain for a little while. I always have a few ideas just sitting around that I pull from when I feel motivated to make something, and that one felt pretty scalable in terms of one location and two actors. So, of all the ideas that I had, that one was like, you know, I could turn that one around the quickest and the cheapest, I guess. And there was another idea I was working on, a bigger project. I was making like an ’80s action parody, like a short ’80s action parody, and I was working out getting all buff for it, and I injured myself. And I was sitting around, I still felt inspired and motivated to do something, so I kind of pulled that idea down from the board and made. It.

SP: So I think one of the things that you said to me while we were talking over these last couple of months is if I’d ever seen The IT Crowd. And, to which I just said no, but were there any little digs in there? Because I’ve never seen the show, but were there any things in there that [were] inspired by or referenced to?

JB: Definitely just the concept of tech people, IT people, dealing with people that don’t know how to use devices or have no idea how to use the technology in front of them. So, no it wasn’t so inspired by IT Crowd. You know, you and I were talking and –I forget what we were talking about, but there was just that hilarious thing in that show. Every time they answer the phone, they don’t even say hello, they just say, “Have you tried turning it on again and off again,” and you know, nine times out of ten that does solve the problem. But I think I just wanted to take something that was really relatable and sort of put it in a[n] unrelatable situation. I don’t know, it’s kind of hard to talk about without giving it away.

SP: It is three minutes long.

JB: Yeah, but it involves a guy whose life depends on plugging in a USB Type-A plug. I won’t spoil what happens, but that’s essentially the setup.

SP: I think the setup, too, is also heavily derived from Saw in a lot of ways. One of the things that really took me was the mask that you had made. Where did the idea for the mask come from? Because it’s perfect for this.

JB: I know a makeup artist and she had made a mold for a mask—she just had a blank mask—and I actually hired her husband to take that mask and make it what it turned into. And, you know, [I] asked if he could include some like wires and things in the mask that sort of alluded to technology and USB cords and stuff like that. I actually tried to make a mask myself. I tried to do like a paper mâché mask, and I had all these wires, I was weaving them in the mask, and it just didn’t end up looking cool at all. And I was like, I’m gonna have to pull out the checkbook for this one and pay a professional to make me something dope. And yeah, the mask, I was really happy with how the mask came out, I think it definitely helped sell the horror aspect of the short.

SP: So, going into horror a little bit, what is your affinity for it? What are your favorite movies?

JB: I do like horror. As a creator, I’m more of like a comedy creator. But I think horror and comedy definitely play well together. In terms of horror films that have inspired me over the years. Like Red State, directed by Kevin Smith, that’s one of my favorites. Cabin in the Woods, I really like. Have you ever seen Stir of Echoes?

SP: Yes, Kevin Bacon.

JB: Yeah. I really like that one. I just… I do more comedy, but I do love horror, and like I said, I do think they work really well together. And you can kind of take something silly and just let it spiral in in the genre, I guess.

SP: Ok, so I was looking you up online, or I was trying to anyway, and I came across a Jake Barcus that had done a bunch of slasher Backstreet Boys comedies. Is that you?

JB: Yes, that is me.

SP: Oh my God. I’ve watched all of those.

JB: Really?

SP: I had no idea.

JB: Really? Wow.

SP: Yeah, I have a friend that sends, that sends them to me, I think anytime one of them comes out and it ends up on Instagram or TikTok, it comes my way. But, yeah, who are you in that?

JB: Well, which one? Because I kind of switched. I started out as Leatherface and then ended as Michael Myers.

SP: This is great! I’m going to have to tell him that you’re the guy. Because we send those back and forth to each other quite a bit.

JB: Yeah, so I used to have a YouTube channel where we would do comedy sketches, music video parodies, stuff like that. And then there was another channel not too far away that made a couple of horror music video parodies that did really well. And then I had another buddy who was doing Michael Myers content, and I was just kind of like, “let’s think of a collaboration, like a boy band of horror characters, and the Slashstreet Boys was born.

SP: It’s wonderful, man. I can’t even tell you how many times we’ve laughed. I swear to God, I’m probably due him to send me one again over Instagram because that’s kind of our schtick. So, thank you. Thank you for those.

JB: Yeah, I haven’t been involved in a few years, but if you’ve seen any of the original Slashstreet Boys music videos, I was definitely involved in those.

SP: I think the ones that I know that I’ve seen are the “Backstreets Back” one and the “I Want It That Way” one. I think are the ones that I’ve seen, but those are lovely.

JB: Yeah, ask me a few more questions. I feel like I was a little stiff in the beginning. I’m loosening up a little bit.

(Sean laughs)

SP: Let’s see. I don’t…I don’t have any. Let’s think about it. You know, my first question was going to be, and it was really just going to be a joke, rhetorical question. What do you have against eating butt?

JB: (Chuckling) No, Nothing! I have nothing against eating butt.

(Both laughing)

SP: So, I was gonna come in hot with it, but I was like, “Nah, I don’t know him that well.”

JB: No. I have no qualms with butt-eating.

SP: OK, that’s good. That’s good. Those are the questions that people need to know.

JB: There was many different things. That was sort of like an improved line. There was a lot of different takes, different things that he said there. And the actor Joe Briggs, who plays the victim in the film, he’s a stand-up comic and a sketch comedy actor and really good with improv, and that was something we sort of just played with and found a couple extra jokes to include in the dialogue.

SP: Oh, it plays great. It is just one of those [jokes], like just out in left field. Was there anything that was on cutting room floor, like comedy-wise? Because I gotta figure that there’s a couple of outtakes with that. Was there anything that you were like? I kind of don’t know where to put this, but I would love to have it in there?

JB: Yeah. There was a couple funny moments that just didn’t really have a place. Just for example, the eating butt thing kind of went a step further, where Joe started to turn it around on me as if I was the one who suggested that. And even the last line of the film was something different before and since we found that joke on set and we took him back in the studio and ADR-ed his—not ADR because you don’t see him saying it—but we had him like re-record his final line to be, you know, more butt themed. And, so, that was something that sort of evolved, I guess. Like it just kind of started as like a silly improv thing and then, you know, we just doubled down on it. I think it plays.

SP: Yeah! No, it does great. I’ve watched it again twice today just so that I could get another sense of it cause it’s been a couple months.

JB: I saw you liked it! I appreciate that.

SP: Yeah, I had to, man! It’s great, I think Chattanooga’s gonna love it. I think it’s gonna take off. Out of curiosity, how are you expecting the audience to react? Is it just sheer laughter? Or, what do you want from them?

JB: Definitely want at least one big laugh. You know, I tried to set it up so the comedy was kind of unexpected. I really wanted the first several seconds to kind of play as a horror. I would like the audience to think that they’re watching a horror film for the first minute and get at least one big laugh. Every time I’ve shown it to people, there’s like those little moments that I love and I’m waiting, hoping that they that they appreciate them as much as I do. But it’s just, it’s the reveal. It’s me telling him what he has to do to survive. That’s what gets the laugh, and that wasn’t even, in my opinion, what I thought would get the biggest laugh. but it’s what gets the biggest laugh every time. It’s just—it’s the rules of the game.

SP: It’s just amazingly relatable. I think. I think it’s something that everybody does every single day. It’s just this silly, mundane thing that’s absolutely frustrating.

JB: I mean, there’s definitely a way to look at the plug and know exactly which way is up, but you know, we just try to roll the dice every time.

SP: I’m going to tell you, even when you know which way it’s supposed to go, it still takes at least three tries.

(Laughter)

JB: There was someone on set who was like, “Yeah, I just, I just don’t get the joke. You know, I just don’t. I don’t get it. That’s ok, I don’t have to get it. It’s your thing.” And then he was sitting there playing with the prop and trying to plug in the cord to the prop, and he couldn’t get it. He didn’t get it on his first try, and I was like, “Do you get the joke now?”

SP: That’s great. And I guess my last question for you is really. You know I think Type A is fantastic, and I know it’s going to do really well this weekend, but is there anything that we should be looking forward to? [Are] there places that we can find you online? Where should we go for more Jake Barcus stuff?

JB: Oh, I have a YouTube channel, just Jake Barcus, that I have a couple of short films that I’ve made over the last few years. Well, I’ll definitely have some very exciting news coming up in the next couple of weeks. I’m not allowed to talk about it right now, but. Got some exciting news, and we’ve still got probably like twenty film festivals we’re waiting to hear back from between now and September, I think. And [Type A] is going to be at the Chattanooga Film Fest, are you going to that, by the way? Are you going to be there?

SP: I’m not. I’m remote for this festival. I would love to be there every year. It just looks like they have such a great time. But I bought my bottle of Chattanooga Whiskey, and I bought a T-shirt, and I’m going to do it from home. If it’s a nice night out, too, I might take the projector outside and watch some stuff on the big screen. But thank you so much for hanging out and talking to me. That short is fantastic. Everybody at Chattanooga, please see type A playing as part of Watch These Films? Or is it a different one?

JB: I have to double-check on that. I know we play on Saturday. *(The WTF block is on Sunday)*

SP: All right, very cool. Thank you so much. Again, it’s been a pleasure. It’s been a pleasure talking to you over these past few months. And yeah, just send me stuff whenever.

JB: Absolutely. And I hope to see you at more film festivals, and I hope to see you at Boston Underground again next year. Hopefully, I have something to submit, but I definitely had a great time there, and we’ll submit there anytime I have something that I feel would align.