Frank Palangi – An Xperience Interview

By Joshua Scarselli.

Over the summer, I went to the world premiere of the independent TV series “Riding With Pride.” Besides “Riding With Pride,” some other independent film projects were shown. One film, “Killer Music,” caught my eye. With a unique premise and a realistic tone, “Killer Music” is a must-see. I caught up with director Frank Palangi to discuss his scary talents and all things horror. 

 

RRX: Actor, director, musician. You wear a whole lot of hats. How did you end up so multifaceted in the entertainment industry?

FP: Well, ever since I was a kid … I started making movies when I was like 9 years old on the old VHS cameras. It was kind of my mom’s doing. She’s like, “Oh, you know, I know you love movies, but we have a camera and you could set it up and reenact the scenes.” I was like, “Really? You could do that?” So, you know, I started off just grabbing my friends and relatives and whoever … cousins and stuff. Then I would actually do some film stuff for book reports. So instead of reading books, I would make a mini movie trying to get out of things.

I started music at the age of 12 or 13. That’s the other side of the coin. I’ve been doing that full-time forever, almost. I just got to learn to play every instrument, then recording, and then mixing and mastering. Working with people from the music industry, from bands like Day of Fire, Daughtry, Pillar, and Saving Abel, and some of these rock band dudes. Working with different producers over the years. So I learned a lot of music stuff, but the film is always a part of the music. There are music videos behind the scenes. So I would always utilize what I knew at the time to do all that.

Then, I have done fan films for a long time. I’m one of the YouTube Godfathers, I would say, of the YouTube fan film days. There were only a handful of us, maybe 16-20 of us, making fan films on YouTube. It wasn’t like what it is today. Even though they were just small films by high schoolers. They weren’t great, but they were a starting point. So I just basically continued with that. 

I did a couple of original ideas, but it wasn’t until about 2022 that a guy found me. He was from Cinema Epoch. He told me, “If you make a movie … I really like your fan film stuff, but if you make a movie, we can distribute it.” So that’s only recently started the rabbit hole of doing original films, and I have been so busy with those lately. It’s crazy.

RRX: What kind of fan films did you make?

FP: “Ace Ventura,”  “Batman,” “Superman,” “Halloween,” “Texas Chainsaw,” “Scream,” “Zombies,” and “Nightmare on Elm Street.”

RRX: What was the biggest adjustment creatively switching from a fan film to making original films?

FP: Working with an outline or script. With fan films, I may have written some things down, but I never did a script. Originals, I have to take way more time and plan, and get a sense of that style with it. The fan films, if you’re doing a “Halloween,” you know the style already. With originals, you have to make your own.

RRX: Your style of horror allows the viewer to picture themselves in the situation of the characters, which is where the sense of dread comes from. What process do you use to achieve this aesthetic?

FP: Yeah, that sense of dread. I mean, I love classic horror movies like “Halloween” and “Friday the 13th.” They deal with a lot of characters, but I’m on a smaller budget where it’s like, well, maybe I can only have one or two characters in a short story or a movie or something and how do I do that? So I kind of drew a lot from the movies like “The Grudge,” “The Ring,” and even “Amityville Horror,” where there are only a couple of characters, but there are things going on around them.

Some of it is just the style of scenes and stuff that you want to shoot: the camera, the editing, everything, since I direct and edit in my own DP. I can kind of plan out like, oh, okay, if I shoot this shot this way, I know exactly how I’m going to edit this. I think that really helps to achieve your vision, basically. 

But you know, I’m still learning too. So it’s trial and error. You can’t get things perfect, but you learn a lot and you just keep growing. My notion is, it’s like I always try to make an eerie sense in the movie, like you said, dread. It stems from “Night of the Living Dead;” George Romero, and that movie. “Night of the Living Dead” and “Dawn of the Dead” have that feel. Even “Day of the Dead.” I’d like to incorporate that into almost everything I do. I love it when all the characters die. So it’s like this sense of something’s coming, and you just don’t know it.

RRX: Who are your biggest influences in horror, and who would you put in your personal Mt. Rushmore of horror icons (characters or actors/directors)?

FP: Michael Myers, Freddy, Leatherface, Jason, Scream

RRX: I met you at the premiere of “Riding With Pride,” where one of your projects, “Killer Music,” was shown. Can you tell us a little more about that and any other upcoming projects?

FP: Yeah, “Killer Music” stars Andy Scullin, who is a local podcaster. He’s a musician, and he’s got his band. He loves horror movies. He played the dad and the clown in “Shadows the Clown,” which I did. I got this idea for a producer who kills his talent. He’s trying to find the perfect sound, and it doesn’t exist. So obviously he’s gonna kill everybody.

But he’s like, “Yeah, I’ll give it a try.” So this is his first, you know, killer moment.

Everyone in that “Killer Music” episode are all real DJs, musicians, singers, and guitarists. There really aren’t any actors in it. That’s another side of it. It’s that this has gotta be real. Everyone’s gotta be musicians, and we have to try to pull this off. So that’s part of “Warren County,” the movie which is coming out soon. You can watch the trailer on YouTube. It’s part of a series called “Suburban Serial Killers.” That will be out probably next year.

As of right now, I have “At Death’s Door” premiere at the Strand, October 16th at 6.30 p.m. That’s gonna be the premiere of that movie. I have another movie in production over the next couple of weeks called “Farm House.” Andy Scullin actually co-wrote that. He came to me and he’s like, “You think we could make a movie? You think I could maybe write an idea and we could get something going?” I was like, “Sure, make me even busier!”

RRX: Where can people keep track of your projects?

FP: Everybody can go to Tubi, Fawesome TV. Some are on Troma TV. They’re all on YouTube, and you can go to my websites, frankpalangi.com and palangifilms.com.

Some of the work’s been featured in Screen Magazine and Rue Morgue. I have been talking with Fangoria, so things are going well.

I’m on all the social media and things. I appreciate the support. Everything is just growing and heading in the right direction. I keep working on these stories and things. Some people ask me, “Do you just do horror?”  I’m like, “No, but that’s just what I love.” You might see another type of movie from me (hint, hint) in the future.  Right now, I’m trying to make my mark or my way into the horror genre and then see where that goes.

All these movies, they’re low-budget. I call them no-budget movies. You know, we don’t really have budgets. It’s me doing a lot of the work, but the cast and the two or three people that we have on the crew, you know, I can’t thank them enough.

Facebook:  Frank Palangi, Frank Palangi Lounge, Frank Palangi Music

Instagram: frankpalangimusic, palangifilms, palangistudios