On this episode we talk to horror filmmaker and immersive storyteller Wi-Moto Nyoka about her new film Affordable Housing and the value of face-to-face communications.

Her latest event, Black Girls Are Scary Live!, is happening October 16th, 2025.

Listen to “The White Meat Podcast” on Spreaker.

Here’s the transcript of the podcast:

David Dylan Thomas: Hey everybody. Welcome to the White Meat Podcast I’m your host, David Dylan Thomas and today we are gonna be talking to Wi-Moto who is a local filmmaker here in Philly has been doing some amazing work with horror, both film and immersive projects. We’ll get all into that including an event on October, I believe it’s the 15^th? 16^th? Anyway, we’ll link to it from the the show notes, but you should definitely check that out.

Progress on the film. We are basically done with the short. We are figuring out release plans now, sending it to festivals and all that good stuff. We’ll keep you posted, but if you really want the most up to date information, you’re gonna wanna subscribe to our newsletter at WhiteMeatMovie.com.

You can get hooked up there, but yeah, it looks great. We’ve already done test screenings where people asked to see it twice, so that’s been cool. One other thing I wanna note, I don’t know if I’ve talked about this before, but the government is trying to de-woke all of the national monuments and sort of historic sites around the country.

As you may or may not know, one of those is the President’s House here in Philadelphia, which has the names of enslaved people, literally etched in stone. The ones that George Washington kept you know, prisoner at, at his house when he lived in Philadelphia. And those names are there and I don’t think if they do attempt to de-woke the President’s house, those names will survive.

So as soon as we heard this news I called my editor and we agreed we have to do something. And as a small gesture we are, those names are now in the credits. Along with some other fun facts, like which presidents owned human beings, so they’re kind of snuck in there the way you might see in a, a ZAZ movie credits, those are the guys who did Naked Gun and Airplane and all that good stuff.

So taking inspiration from them and in an attempt to preserve history, we’ve done that. So our small little way of fighting back, but just. All of which to say that we hope that horror in its own way can help preserve history in a time when it’s under attack. So anyway and some of those themes I think make their way into our conversation today with Wi-Moto, which we will get to right now.

[musical interlude]

David Dylan Thomas: So welcome, welcome to the show Wi-Moto. I would love for you to tell the good folks here what it is that you get up to.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Hi, I am Wi-Moto Nyoka. I’m the founder of Dusky Projects where I make horror and sci-fi immersive works.

David Dylan Thomas: So, yeah. So unpack that a little for me. You say immersive works ’cause I’ve seen your film. I, I, I, I’ve seen you express horror that way, but tell me a little bit more about what you mean when you say immersive works.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah, so I also work in immersive theater. I have some horror plays that were about to go in production and then COVID happened, so I have to kind of circle back to those.

And then I also have the podcast, Black Women Are Scary, where I produced horror, short horror stories by BIPOC authors, and that’s audio storytelling, and we’re gonna be moving that into a live space coming this October.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh, that’s excellent. Where’s that gonna be?

Wi-Moto Nyoka: That’s gonna be at the Awbury Arboretum.

So that’s a place of trees. It’s on the regional line, like five stops out. It’s really nice. The train stops right in front of it, but they’ve got great grounds. And we’re just gonna be telling a story with live sound design around a campfire. There’s gonna be hot chocolate and s’mores and cider and all that.

So that’s October 16th and

David Dylan Thomas: Okay. We’ll definitely get this episode out before then so people have a chance to go.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah, yeah. Come check it out. Bring your own blanket. There’s gonna be lots of like cozy nooks for little like mobile libraries and a spot to journal. And then, you know, as night falls we gather around the fire pit and tell some spooky stories.

David Dylan Thomas: That sounds so cool and so primal. How did you get the idea to do this?

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Well, Black Women Are Scary was intended to be a live event. I wanted to tell new stories or, and sometimes, you know, they’re not new. A lot of authors especially people of color in genre spaces, they really don’t get their flowers, right.

So they’ve been out here doing a lot of things. They’re award-winning and people still aren’t as familiar with the work as they should be. So I, you know, the podcast was really to, excuse me, was really to be a platform of like, hey, if you like the genre and you wanna know what’s new, come check it out. And it was meant to be a dinner party where we would get together like maybe like 10 people tops and tell the story around a dinner table and like talk shit, basically.

Like just talk about it, you know, interruptions were happening and all that. And I wanted to record that. But really it’s a live event and then there was a recording and yeah, you could listen to this party that you know you were at or not at or what have you.

And then we would do that all around and could like travel that around. And we were all set to go in March of 2020.

David Dylan Thomas: Of course

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Right? So then, so that happens. And it was like, all right, me and my producer at the time were like what are we gonna do? And I was like, well, if we’re gonna do this, it’s gotta be a podcast.

And if it’s gonna be a podcast, then we’re just gonna do full on audio design. We’re gonna really do it big. ‘Cause there wasn’t gonna be any of that if we’re just telling the story around the table. Right?

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: So we pivoted and, we don’t have to really sit down and say, well, like, why would we start a horror podcast in the middle of the apocalypse and or an apocalypse?

And you know, came down to like, why horror? And that’s why the intro to the podcast is what it is where I say like, this is what it is and why horror? Why are we doing this? I say it in the intro.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Because I felt like it needed to be said because we started it when everybody was at home.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: After that though, we would have these monthly virtual Macabre Mixers is what we called them. And people would come together, they’d get to meet the author. We’d, write games, we’d come up with games that were based on their work. And then be able to put people in a breakout room so you could meet new people and just be in community while you were, you know, while it was really scary.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: So it was always supposed to have this, this, being in community, talking about it, meeting new people aspect to it and it was like we were doing this virtually. Then things opened up. Then we were a podcast and it was like, all right, well I’m gonna talk to other podcasters and interview the author and we can do it that way.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: But this version, like, since we’ve since closed out, so we closed out fourth season and now I’m like, I really want to go back to the roots of this whole idea, which is

David Dylan Thomas: mm-hmm.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Telling scary stories, bringing people together, face the monsters with us, and

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Having guided conversation so you can meet new people in a place that feels safe and, I don’t know, make friends, maybe make new friends.

You know, it’s like really hard for people to get out there now. And I think a lot of mixers they just kind of throw people in the deep end and I think they expect folks to kind of human, but I think that a lot of us have forgotten how to do that. I think COVID has done a lot of things to us that we have not really had an opportunity to reflect on. And then with this past election, I just feel like people are really scared of one another. Really scared of meeting new people. They have social anxieties that they didn’t have before, myself included. Like the first, my first couple of social interactions or social functions that I went to once, it was like, okay, we’re not sheltering at home anymore. We get to go out and even with a mask on, we’re gonna do it. You know? I was really scared to just encounter a new person.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: That wasn’t in my pod and I am not somebody who is scared of, I like meeting new people. I like getting, you know, like, I like hearing people’s like weirdo stories. I love, I love like random conversations that would happen just out when you’re like catching the subway waiting for the bus or something like that.

So to go from feeling like that, to like, I’m afraid of people, it was like , it took a minute for me to be like, no, but let’s get back to who we are. But I think for a lot of people, I don’t know if that ever happened.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. You know, and, and there’s not a lot of opportunity, as you say, like, I think the worst thing from a psychological perspective, I’ll say, ’cause obviously the worst thing of COVID was the millions of deaths.

But the, the worst thing from a, or the thing I hated the most about COVID from a psychological perspective is we were trained and given a reason, and I was gonna say excuse, but it was a legit reason to be afraid of each other. To avoid each other. And on top of that, it coming at a time when the 2016 election drew this battle line where it’s like I’m walking around the city and I’m like, did you vote for Trump? Did you vote for Trump? Are you a secret Trumper? Right? So all of these reasons for us to be afraid of each other. It’s funny, I can think of so many horror movies that are based on this trope of like, I don’t know who I can trust.

That’s a very classic horror trope.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: I mean, the Walking Dead. Remember For the long, for forever. I, I mean that show’s been on for a hundred years. I don’t even know if it’s, I don’t know what’s happening with it, but like I remember in its inceptions and its, its first few seasons, you know, they would say, fear, kill the dead.

Fear the living. Like that was the catchphrase. And I was like, and they were right. Like, like it really, and I don’t know that that’s changed so much in the sense of like, we’re in Trump part two and you know, we are also still in the, did you vote? Did you vote? And what that means now is even more extreme than what it meant then.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah, and there are more reasons to be suspicious of each other. I remember I had this incident where I was driving my son home from some, I think it was like a swim lesson or something, and he got really sick and he had to throw up, so we had to pull the car over in the middle of suburbia and he literally just threw up on someone’s lawn.

And I was like, oh my God. And this is around the time when people were pulling into strange driveways and getting shot.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah.

David Dylan Thomas: I don’t if remember that little plague?

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah, I do remember that.

David Dylan Thomas: And I’m, so, I’m like sitting there like, okay, I guess this is, this is how I’m going out. Right? Because literally throwing up on a stranger’s lawn and me, me, this Black guy and his little brown kid.

And this woman comes out of her home where we’re throwing up this little white lady. I’m like, here we go. And she brings us water and a coke and it’s like, can I get you anything? And I’m like. Oh my God, why did I expect you to kill us? You know? But like, that’s where, but that’s where we, we were

Wi-Moto Nyoka: That’s what you expected.

David Dylan Thomas: That is where the baseline was then. So it is surprising when we aren’t killing each other. And it’s funny because I look around, I was at a a Longwood Gardens last night at this big event. And it’s hundreds of people watching these fireworks and like reasonably, I’m sitting there and looking around.

It’s like, we’re not killing each other. We’re just sitting here watching fireworks. Like that is, that’s the real default position. But we’ve been trained to be so afraid of each other. It’s like, I don’t know you, man.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah, yeah. You know, there’s a lot of you know, algorithmic bias, I’ll call it, like, where they’ve really streamlined their bias and they’re really doing, you know nefarious people leadership right now is just nefarious, right? Like it just inherently, they have no values or virtue. They don’t care about any of that, and so any way to divide and misinform, they’re using all and every tool at their disposal to do that, and it’s working. And so I feel the, that the antidote is, let me talk to you in person.

It’s like, yeah, the antidote is analog at this point. And really understanding that this, these softwares and this media, this 24 hour media cycle, these are tools. You can use them as you want to, you know, it’s a hammer. You can build a house or you can use it as a weapon. But it is a choice. And I just, I really wanna, that’s what this, like, bringing it back to a live space, it just, it ha it, it happened.

It was the timing of it where it’s just like, well, with the short film and the screening tour that we’re doing there, I really don’t have the capacity to continue doing episodes.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: And also, I’d really like to do this live. The venue that I’m at, that I’m collaborating with, they are a fan of the podcast and have heard from their own community of like, well we really wanna something, you know, for the grownups. ’cause they have a lot of things for, for kids. But not necessarily for adults. And so it’s kind of a match made in heaven and you know, we’ll see this is gonna be our maiden voyage, but I think they think that like, oh this is gonna be it.

People are gonna love this and we’ll be able to do this on, you know, with some sort of frequency. And I would love like a regular we come together around a fire. They also have a fireplace, like in their big house. So it’s like when it gets cold, we can come in and just like snuggle up and tell a good story and it’ll still be, you know, new authors, new scary stories.

Still gonna do the same thing that the podcast did. But now you’ll get to meet new people. You’ll be able to have somebody who’s like throwing out icebreakers so you don’t have to like, do it all. It’s not such a heavy lift, you know?

David Dylan Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: But I, I really wanted to move away from a, like doing something at a bar. You know, there’s a lot of mixers that happen.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh yeah. I get so tired of that.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah. There’s a lot of mixers that happen at a bar and around a movie, and I think that that’s, you know, I just did this, The Black Girl Lives, and it’s like.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah, that can be fun too. But you are still sitting in the dark, like looking at a screen and it doesn’t really allow you to have a whole lot of conversations with somebody you don’t know.

You’re gonna have conversations with the people you went out with. And I think that there’s a time and a place for that, but I was really like, how can I be, you know, the change that I wanna see where I’m, I’m going out to things. I mean, I’ll go out alone and just strike up conversations with people, but like.

I dunno. I was just going out to a lot of things and noticing like, oh, people come out with their clique. They talk to their clique, they leave with their clique.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: They don’t really interact with other people. The alcohol isn’t enough. Like I think people are like once upon a time, if you threw alcohol on it and some music, eventually everybody would start like screaming in each other’s faces. Right? And talking and dancing. That’s not even happening anymore.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: And so I’m like, now we need to take it all the way back. We need to take it all the way back.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah, and what’s what’s been interesting to me as I reflect on my kind of exposure to Black girl horror, right? Like, so I’ve, and I wanna talk to you about this, like I’ve over the past few months become more and more exposed to, oh my God, there are so many great Black women horror creators out there.

Especially like, even just in Philly, not much less the rest of the world. And where I am encountering it is in these very communal spaces like Blackstar or the Black Girl Black Girl Lives that I think there is this intersection. And I think this is in horror in general, but there’s intersection in like Black horror of it being a communal experience.

Even down to the like, hey, we’re, we’re gonna do this. We’re gonna do this like Black style, we’re gonna do call and response. Right? We’re not just gonna be this passive audience. Like that there’s certain elements of it that are inherently communal that I think horror in particular is good at.

I don’t know if that’s something you’ve noticed that way. There’s a really good, yeah.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah, I do. Yes. And it’s funny that you, ’cause I went to see Weapons just like a week ago. And lemme tell you, and I went to like the AMC and in the mall, you know what I mean? Like, just, it wasn’t like a, it wasn’t like an art house place, it was like, you know, for, for the regular folk. I say that because typically when you go to these things, people talk, people answer their phones, like they take it all the way. I was, happened to be in an audience of people that were such good students. They were so quiet.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: And a, in a film like Weapons, I don’t know if you’ve seen it.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh, I have. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: I’m sorry. The last 20 minutes of that film is hilarious.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh yeah. You should be losing your shit.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: You should be, you should be screaming and laughing and there’s some good jump scares. Like they do some good like creepy things and some solid jump scares and like my friend and I was with two of my friends and the one where the jump scare where I was so sure it was gonna be from the side and she was on the ceiling instead.

And I yell, I actually yelled like they got me. I like sat. I was just blah screamed. We both screamed and it was so fun and it was so funny. And we were the only ones. Like everyone else was all like, [whispers]. You know, like, and then they were all like, oh my God, they screamed.

And I was like, what? Why are you guys so uptight? So who, I think sometimes people don’t know that like, no, the horror makers, they want you to like. In the same way a standup comedian is, does the punchline for the laugh. We do the punchline for you to be like, ew. Or aaaaah or something. Like, we actually want it to be a theatrical experience. I think, I think everyone has forgotten how to do that.

David Dylan Thomas: It’s, it’s funny ’cause it reminds me sometimes I’ll go to concerts. I’m not even talking like, you know, I went to see Nine Inch Nails and like, okay, not everybody’s gonna be moving.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Oh yeah, I heard that that was really good a friend of mine went to see it.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh, it was fantastic.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah, they were singing the praises about Trent Reznor

David Dylan Thomas: And, and some people are gonna be like me and like jumping and losing their shit. It was like, some people know I get that, but if you’re going to like fricking Wu-Tang Clan, which I also saw, and I’m like, how are you not? How are you not moving your body right now? Like, I just, I don’t get, it’s like, or Childish Gambino it’s like, how are you not moving your body right now? But but it’s the same thing, right? You’re watching this thing. It’s like, how are you not losing your shit right now? Like, this is a. I think my favorite though is I went to go see Sinners. And this is at like the IMAX in King of Prussia.

So for listeners, this is like a giant IMAX theater in the middle of like, suburbia, like not even houses around like big giant mall.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah. Yeah.

David Dylan Thomas: And so you’re not expecting like a super Black audience, right? This is, this is gonna be kind of a little, you know, milquetoast, whatever. But I’m sitting there and you get to the scene.

This is not really spoiling anything, but you get to the scene where Remmick. This one dude just showed up at this house and they’ve taken him in, and then the wife goes to like, you know, talk to the Native Americans and like shoo them off. And she goes, and she’s calling for her husband, his name is Bud or something, I don’t know.

It’s like, Hey bud, bud. And then this one Black lady in the audience yell, yells, “Bud gone!” And I’m like, yes, this is the audience. This is what Ryan Coogler wanted.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah. Yeah. Like you know, when I, when I put together the Black Girl Lives and I, you know, not just to screen. Not just to do a sneak peek of my own film, but also to be like, look at all the other people that I know that I just know this is just the tip of off the dome, these people. Right? And just have a night of like celebrating Black women in horror. I really did myself and I was working with actually a team of Black women. So Jasmine Hawkins over at

David Dylan Thomas: Oh, can you tell people what that is? Like, what, what was Black Girl Lives?

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Oh yeah. So the Black Girl Lives was a night of screening four horror short four, was it four, yeah.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Four horror shorts by Black women. So it was just a night of celebrating Black women who make horror movies, essentially. And we put together a nice program. We had a couple of vendors out in the front.

There were also women, Black women who owned, you know. The one Cora Sense who just had her own incense that she made and smudge packs. And then we had Astro Botanica who does tarot card readings and is also a therapist and infuses both of these things in her work. And I really wanted to feel like a house party, almost like a kickback.

That’s why I had it be BYOB. I was like, yeah, bring your own bottle, eat some, you know, eat some concessions and enjoy these films. And I partnered with Philly Film Society that does a lot of community screenings and Be Reel Black Cinema, which is all about like bringing Black folks together to see Black films, independent Black films in particular.

And so, you know, it was Stephanie over at Be Reel Black Cinema, Jasmine over at, you know, it was just a team of Black women. And Lola, who is not Black identified, but I just wanna lift her up ’cause she did some great work marketing and like the lows on the step and repeat. She’s the one who made those cards and everybody hold up.

Like, yeah, she’s, she was handling all of that. And the, we talked a lot about film screenings in general and how we wanted this one to be different. Wanting it to feel like a party, wanting it to feel like a gathering, wanting it to feel low key wanting it to feel accessible. Like you don’t need to be a filmophile necessarily to come.

And then I really talked a lot about the talk back. So going back to what you were saying, the talk back needs to be call and response. And I wanted questions that weren’t necessarily about filmmaking, so I was like, you can ask a couple of those. I told Stephanie, you can ask a couple of those, but everything else needs to not be about that.

And I want, and it has to be a conversation with the audience. They have to know that they can talk to us and we’re doing this together. I think she did a wonderful job of that. But I also feel like because of that, the vibe, like people were yelling at the screen, people were talking to the screen and you still heard the movies.

And all of the movies are, because they are coming from the cultural lens of a Black woman. And it was diasporic, right? So I really wanted like the most expansive view of Black. And when I do it again, I definitely wanna start including this time around. It was just kind of like, these are the films.

You know, we had some Afro-Latinas and then we also had some Black Americans, but I, next time around, I’ll definitely have like things that are not in English. And have subtitles and like, you know, just to be like Black everywhere, y’all. Black people are everywhere. The boat made more than one stop.

And so, so when I say Black women, some of them speak French, some of them speak [indecipherable], some of them speak Spanish, some of them, you know, like it’s all kinds. Some of them have Scottish accents, like yeah, but, really wanting it to be a place where people like, no, we made these movies for you to yell at them.

Like, I was kind of even thinking about that. I was making my film.

David Dylan Thomas: I was gonna ask you that. Yeah.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah. Like, I’m like, I want, I want, I’m trying to get a rise at these certain parts. There were definitely some parts where I’m like, I hope people respond here. There were some other parts where I’m like, I didn’t even know people were gonna find that funny.

But it, but definitely in the writing, there is an invitation.

David Dylan Thomas: Yes.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: To yell, laugh, comment. Then from there, it’s like the entire screening. When I have control, because, you know, sometimes you submit to places and they’re screening you’r work and you don’t have control. But when I have control of the screening, it’s like, this is the vibe because I, I just, I feel like that’s how horror needs to be experienced.

It’s a little bit like, it’s all kind of Rocky Horror Picture Show a little bit. I mean, it’s got like, it actually is a genre where even when it’s serious, we should be doing this. Or at the very least, out of all the film genres, I think this is the one that culturally is, fits, you know?

David Dylan Thomas: Well, I think it goes back to the, to the campfire, right? ’cause the campfire story. Like, I know there were probably lots of different genres of stories that were told around the campfire, but the one we remember that we think about when we think about a campfire story is a spooky story, right? It’s the trope. If you’re sitting around a campfire and it’s in a movie, they’re not telling a story that’s like nice. They’re telling a scary story. Like that’s, there’s an intimacy to it.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And even if you do go camping and you’re sitting around a campfire, eventually you’re like, let’s tell a spooky story.

Like, you know, like it just, everybody defaults to that. I, I kind of, you know, I remember some of like. Some of the first sleepovers. Just thinking about sleepover. ’cause I, you know, I have a nephew and my sister and I were talking about sleepovers, how that’s not really a thing anymore. Slumber parties isn’t really like what you do now as a parent.

Or there’s more complications around it than there used to be. Because again, we’re afraid of each other. And, but we started talking about sleepovers and how it’s like, how did we even know to, at some point you do something spooky, like you all get together and you’re like, let’s tell a scary story.

And you try to freak each other out. I can’t tell you how many slumber parties I did, I went to, and I was like, and it wasn’t ’cause I saw it anywhere. For some reason, a bunch of girls got together and we decided that’s what we needed to do. And I’m like, and I, why did we do that?

David Dylan Thomas: And I think that’s something we like, we underestimate our kids, right?

Like there’s a show called Evil. That’s a really great show.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

David Dylan Thomas: So there’s these four. One of the main characters has these four daughters of kind of different age ranges. And every damn week they’re getting into some scary shit. And I’m like, this is the most realistic depiction of little tween girls ever ’cause little tween girls love scary shit.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Little tween girls are creepy Like, it’s just like, it’s true. It’s some of the like, I think my creepiness or my, my creep factor, my interest in creep and my ability to be creepy came with puberty like that. That’s that’s true.

David Dylan Thomas: It is scary. So why shouldn’t we? Like, I feel like when we’re kids, we lean into that more than we’re given credit for.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Mm. Yeah.

David Dylan Thomas: So I would love for you to tell people what is the name of your movie? What’s it about?

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Affordable Housing is the name of the movie. It is a horror comedy or a documentary depending on where you stand.

And it is about two women who, let’s see. They’re in this cutthroat rental market and they are gonna fight to the death to keep their cheap apartment.

David Dylan Thomas: So what was, other than real life or maybe that’s it, what was your inspiration for this story?

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah, it’s based on a true story and, and I really do mean that a friend of mine, you know, we were all teaching artists together and, and we were on a lunch break and she was looking for an apartment and much of the story is based on an apartment that she and her experience of an apartment that she looked at.

David Dylan Thomas: Wow.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: So the unstable roommate, the ex-roommate that left under mysterious reasons named Jesus the creepy landlord. And the egg in the ceiling is all real.

David Dylan Thomas: Really? Oh my God.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Including the price, the price too of like, because it opens with like her saying the price and being like, that’s utilities included.

And you know, it’s like a, it’s a get which is why she moves in despite some weird things right from the top. And you know, my friend was talking about it and really asking our opinions. She’s like, I don’t know. And we’re like, oscillating. ’cause it’s like, well that price is good. But I was like, I don’t know, maybe you should go see and ultimately she didn’t live there. But I was like, that egg in the ceiling is probably where the monster lives. It like feeds on you at night. And everybody was laughing and then I wrote it down ’cause I was like, that’d be a great story. And then like nearly a decade later, here we are.

David Dylan Thomas: I mean, that’s such a great motivation for modern horror. Or even just like going back like ’cause horror usually involves a situation where you have to have a character do something that’s a really bad idea that everyone in the audience knows is a really bad idea, but they gotta do it anyway. And being poor is one of the best motivators in horror ever.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah, no, because it, everyone understands. I mean, like at some point you didn’t have any money, you know, like being broke is, is the, is always the catalyst for you doing something that was, you knew was a bad idea, but you were like-

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Oh, I gotta do this thing ’cause I can’t afford that. You know, like, and I think about it all the times and I should have gotten a car, but I took the subway.

I shouldn’t have, you know, like all just like basic little things where I’m like, I almost died like eight times. But, but it’s fine because I saved $20. And just the amount of times that I make decisions like that, really, you know, make it home. And I’m like, I don’t by the skin of my teeth, I mean, I really should have been murdered like twice already.

David Dylan Thomas: I’m just thinking even like Dracula, the reason Jonathan Harkness is going out to this crazy Count’s castle in the middle of nowhere and everyone’s telling him not to go is ’cause he needs the money. He’s trying to get in with his like lawyer or whatever he needs. Yeah. He needs the money for his, for his wedding and his sort like no.

Yeah. It’s a real thing.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: He needs the money because he wants to get married and he has, and she can’t work because women are property, so she can’t even, she can’t have a credit card and weren’t no credit card. She can’t own, she can’t own anything. Like she can’t do anything.

So it’s like you wanna get married and have companionship. You really have to support another grown adult.

David Dylan Thomas: And now you gotta go and just spend time with this creepy, rich guy.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: In the middle of nowhere. And there’s so many reasons.

David Dylan Thomas: Everyone in the village is like, do not go there.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Everyone is like, don’t go there, you’re gonna die.

And then a carriage comes and it’s like manned by a ghost and you’re like, I don’t, this is a terrible idea.

David Dylan Thomas: But you know, that shit would happen today. Someone’s like, hey listen, I need you to go out into the middle of nowhere and hang out with this creepy rich guy that everyone thinks is a murderer. But, but I’m gonna give you $50,000 and be like, ah, alright.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: I mean, not to get super dark, but you know, for some of the people who work for ICE, they, you know, they told them, we’ll pay your student loans. So just think about that. Think about what they do. And that’s just to get out of debt.

David Dylan Thomas: So that, I mean, we’re just gonna like brainstorm movie ideas here, but I feel like that is a side of it that I would love to see explored more.

Right. So in horror, we have the trope of I am poor there I’m gonna be default to bad judgment and become the target of violence. What about the horror where, because I’m poor, I’m gonna become the slasher. Like I feel like that’s a story we need to tell more of.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah, yeah. As we, as we enter this phase in human history of like, what are the things that lead like evil is boring, right?

It’s a bunch of little choices that get you there. Yeah.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. Like what if Jason’s working for minimum wage, right?

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah. Seriously.

David Dylan Thomas: So I wanna talk a little bit about, so I’ve seen the movie folks. It’s great if you get the opportunity to see it, see it. Without getting too spoilery, tell me about the choice to use animation in the film.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: I’m a huge fan of mixed media, so I have this in transmedia project called Last Days of Cartica, where I use motion comics and film, and I, it eventually moved into installation work and then it had a musical theater prequel where I also use projection design. So a lot of the things that you saw on the web series you see on the stage, and then they’re telling you everything led up to this animation.

So I, I really love mixing media, telling a story in more than one medium. That’s like my jam. But also illustration, animation in particular, the kind that we used, you know, which wasn’t like we’re fully animating and lip syncing and all the things a little more, a little more artsy, I guess, our approach really getting into the visual art.

I mean, film is a visual medium, so I just think animation is beautiful. I think illustration is beautiful. I think that that craft is amazing and the people who do it should be, you know celebrated a little bit more. But I also kind of feel that because it’s literally an ink, there’s this kind of lasting quality, this.

I’m making my own iconography. I’m making my own monuments because illustration can really stay, you know, not just in, in film, but you can even print out the picture and like forever Constance and Haley look like this, right? So if it were to be redone again someplace else, it’s like, but they have to look like this.

And there’s this kind of lasting power to it that I think appeals to me as a Bdlack woman because it’s like, you cannot change what I said.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: You can’t appropriate it. You can’t whitewash it. You cannot erase these people. ’cause I had them drawn and inked. In the same way that I see with comic books, where it’s like Batman is always looked a man who looks like this.

Superman is always throughout the ages. Superman is always a man that like, like Peter Parker always looked like this so much so that when they changed it, he had to have a whole different name. Right? That’s Miles Morales is a different Spider-Man altogether. ’cause we can’t, ’cause Peter Parker looks like this.

Like there’s something about how, permanent it is in a way, and the way that people, you know, their fans will argue if you do try to change it, right? And I’m kind of, I’m leveraging that to my advantage of like, yeah, like right.

David Dylan Thomas: We have this concept of comic accurate that’s based on that iconography.

So when you make something Black, that becomes the icon. And so for it to be accurate, it needs to be Black. It needs to be this.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: It needs to be, it’s like Haley is an Asian American woman. Constance is a Black woman. The end, right? Like Blade is Black.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Period. If you’re gonna reboot Blade, it has to be played by a Black man.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: The end. Right. And no one is gonna be like, oh my God, he’s Black. No one’s going to like take to the internet and cry about these things.

David Dylan Thomas: Well this, yeah, and this gets into this interesting area that I always find myself in of thinking about these kind of two pronged attack around inclusivity of we need our own Black superheroes versus, oh, I want a Black James Bond.

Right? I don’t necessarily think of it as an either or, but it is interesting to me the costs of each, you know what I mean? The implications of each.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I’m a big fan of not, I don’t really, I’m not into the Black version or the Latina version or the woman version of a thing.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Because I always find them to be lacking in that they don’t even acknowledge the cultural context.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Right. So it’s basically like, I’ll take, I’ll take race out of it and just do gender. Whenever it’s and now we’re gonna have a woman action hero. Right. And she essentially operates like a man throughout the film.

And even in the way that she gets into fights, and even in the way that she fights, it’s like a man. And so it never feels good. Like you’re like, this is fine, but it’s, you are already dealing in an unrealistic genre. And I love action films, and there’s a suspension of disbelief, right? Like if I drive a car off of a, out of a building and into another one, I die.

Like, I don’t just like, it’s not just like I do it and I’m fine, right? If I get in a car crash, I’m messed up. I don’t run out and then continue shooting. So, but whatever. I like action films, right? So you already have the suspension of disbelief, but like, then you add this other thing where you’re like, well that guy is literally 300 pounds.

And she’s like, I don’t know, 120 if she’s soaking wet. So like, what do you mean? And now I think you’re finding more pe, more women who are directing action films and you can really see the difference. The way the fight choreography happens, the choices that she makes being more in keeping with like her using and leveraging being a woman in the space.

More so than like, I’m gonna be a man. I’m gonna do everything like a man, and proving the point that like, women can do everything men can do, rather than being like, no, that’s not really what we’re focusing on. We’re focusing on all the things that women can do in the way that women do them. And that’s great ’cause she’s not a man.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. And I think, and I think, and I’m also a huge action afficionado. Like ranking my favorite genre is it’s action and then horror, and then horror. Very, very close. But, but, but but no, I think, and I see that the most, honestly, when I look at horror films directed by men versus horror films directed by women.

Just to put it broadly. Because women have been the main characters in horror films for a very long time. But by majority and still majority directed by men. But when I see a woman at the center of a film, direct, written and directed by a woman, it just hits different. Right?

If you see a movie like Fresh, or if you compare like The First Omen to Immaculate, which are both devil impregnating women stories. And they’re both very good, but the, but The First Omen, which is direct written, written and directed by a woman, hits different

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah, right.

David Dylan Thomas: Just fundamentally.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Right. There’s insider information. I mean, literally it’s just like

David Dylan Thomas: Exactly, exactly.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: She knows. And she’s not, and it’s operating. I just like it when it’s operating from a place of like, it’s not about proving that a woman is as good as a man, like we’re not using men as a measure of excellence..

David Dylan Thomas: Exactly Exactly.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: And so I feel then if you translate that into culture, it’s the same thing, right? So it’s like if you have the Black version or the Latino version, or the Asian version of a thing, it still is centering whiteness and saying like, well, we’re proving that we’re as good as this, as opposed to, that’s not actually up for debate.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. What is the fundamental assumption you’re starting with?

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah. Yeah. And so when you see things that you know. That’s not what we’re talking about right now. We’re talking about, you know, whatever the lore is. What a difference it makes regardless of the, like, again, let’s go back to Sinners as you brought it up.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: That’s clearly he’s not having that conversation.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: He’s not like, it’s as good as, he’s not saying that. He’s telling this story with those cultural contexts and, and yeah, and people resonate, people resonate. Like, it, people of all cultures liked that film and understood what was going on. They can come to it with their experience, with their own community references and, you know, epigenetics and cellular memory and all the things.

‘Cause we all wanna battle. We all know what it is to battle monsters. We all know what it is to build a thing and have it infiltrated. Like at some point everybody’s kind of been, you know, like there’s so many themes in that and people can relate to it. Without it being a movie that’s actually having a debate about this is as good as this. And then everything getting mired in that.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah, there is no white movie where people are like, oh, Sinners is the Black this. No, Sinners is Sinners.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah. Right, right. And I mean, that’s a good point of saying like there’s a lot of films. No one ever looks at a white film and say, oh, that’s the white version of this.

Like they don’t say that. Right.

David Dylan Thomas: Even though 90% of the time it is.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah. Even though 90% of the time it’s, or 90, actually I would say like almost a hundred percent of the time, it is the American version of some foreign film. That I’m, so I like, oh, I saw the original, and then here’s the American version.

Like most of the time that’s what’s happening.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh, totally. But what I think and what I think is remarkable about Sinners is Sinners is a very Black film. It is discussing very Black things, and yet it is doing it by one of, one of the functions is that I, I’m going to take this thing that is culturally deep. Like we are gonna talk about the role of the griot.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah.

David Dylan Thomas: There’s a role that many cultures have. So I’m really saying, here’s this diamond that is humanity. We’re gonna take our little facet of it. But it’s a facet of something that every culture shares, and I think that’s what makes the film so much deeper.

And it’s, can you tell a story about something that everybody has in their soul, but tell your view of it. I think that’s a powerful place to work from as a storyteller.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah. And I actually, I mean, my stance is that it is the only place to work from. Because I don’t believe, and there’s no such, I once, you know, I know some dramaturgs, and this one dramaturg said there’s no such thing as a general audience.

So just understanding that there is like the mass, the idea of mass appeal. The idea. The idea that like this is more universally accepted or like this is more universal representation is BS.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Specificity is everything. The more personal it is, the more specific it is, the more you basically like jump off a building and land on the pin head of a needle.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Like the more, the deeper, the more piercing it is. You know, if you have to think of it less as, it’s the difference between like a blunt object and a blade.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Right. And so yeah, you wanna, you wanna be a blade, you wanna, you know.

David Dylan Thomas: And I feel you can tell me if, if you, if you agree. I feel like as a creator, ’cause I’m thinking about the movie I’m working on now and how

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Mm.

David Dylan Thomas: Even though in making it and creating it, I wasn’t thinking about very specific things. It’s sort of like as I move through the process, I’m like, oh. That’s very personal. I didn’t realize how personal that was until I wrote it, but it’s just more fun as a creator to make something really specific and really personal. For me anyway, I feel more invested when I do it that way.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah. But also like it’s, you’re creating your own lore. Like you gotta world build, you know, when you’re writing in genre, whether it’s sci-fi or horror, there still needs to be rules that you’re setting.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: And so if you are coming from a very specific place, you know the rules, or at the very least, you can have a lot of agency and autonomy over them rather than like, well, I’m trying to write about this other thing that I have to research.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: And then I gotta go by other rules, you know, like, or what history said, or I gotta explain why I’m not doing what history said, or, you know, like, whatever it is.

As opposed to, I think if you, if you were the kind of writer that wanted to do that, then you would write drama. Like, what are you doing in horror if you don’t wanna make things up?

David Dylan Thomas: Oh, that’s funny. I, so I’m curious going back to that discussion before of like how you want the audience to feel. Like, very early on I decided, you know, the work I’m making, there was one it’s called The End of the Line.

It’s a obscure Canadian apocalyptic horror film that’s sort of like super low budget. It’s super, like it’s, I I couldn’t even tell you if it’s a good or bad, honestly. Like, it’s, it’s been so, but I can tell you how it made me feel. And how it felt to watch it at midnight. It was like a midnight screening at the Philadelphia Film Festival, like 10, 20 years ago, and I can tell you how it felt to be in the audience. And I’m like, that, that this is that kind of movie. That’s, that’s the, that’s the kind of movie I want. And I’m wondering if when you’re writing your work, if you have in your head, like literally the audience experience, what does the theater feel like?

How are the people acting? What’s the vibe like? I don’t know if that’s something that you think about when you write.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yes, I guess I do, but it’s not so much the, maybe it’s not the vibe as much as the like, this is how it’s feeling at the beginning, like the emotional journey of it, of like, this is, this is where we’re starting and this is where we’re ending. I don’t know how you’re going to feel, but I definitely have an idea of like, well, this is how I feel and I really wanna communicate how I feel, which is really hard actually.

Even in just regular conversation to be like, no, like really articulate your feelings about a thing and communicate them in a way where the other person at the very least understands whether or not they empathize or they’ve experienced it too, is a whole other thing. But the very least they’re not like, oh, I thought you were talking about clowns, or, you know what I mean?

Like, they’re not, they’re not like over here all the way in left field and you’re like, no, no, I was saying this. So I really do think about that and then I guess I, you know. So with the, with the work, whether it’s, whether it’s audio, whether it’s theater, it really is like, but this is how I feel about this and I really want you to know and I want you to, and then I, I think about bodies in the space, you know, I am really like, again, going back to the screening and going back to this live event that we’re gonna be doing in October.

There’s a. I think about intention, you know, making intentional choices in order for people to understand what they’re invited to do. I think that there’s just a lot of policing in general.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: And that, because there’s a lot of policing in a, a, a variety of ways, whether it’s actual police or other things, but there’s a lot of policing of behavior.

People don’t often I feel I hear adults say often, am I allowed to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Am I allowed to, you know, if I’m doing a workshop, a writing workshop, even, you know, is it okay if I, am I allowed to? Is it all right if we, am I allowed to? Are we allowed to? And I just think it’s really interesting that you’re a grownup and you’re asking me, are you allowed to do something?

And it’s usually not anything harmful. It’s actually quite either. Either it’s mundane or it’s kind. And I, that I think is fascinating that we’ve reached a point in our, in American society, I don’t know if this is the case in other countries.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Where being obnoxious, no one ever asks if they’re allowed to, when they’re doing something harmful or terrible people just do that and they never ask, am I allowed to do thi?. Like they just do it. But then when people wanna do something decent, they’re like, am I allowed? And I’m like, we need to flip this. So a lot of, a lot of the choices that I’m making is like, okay, this is how I feel. Can I adequately, can I accurately communicate that?

Which means that I need to know, I need to be, we’re going back to the whole idea of being specific, right?

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: I need to be very clear on what I feel about this thing. And then followed by, and then when you come and see my work, here’s what you are allowed, here’s what you’re invited to do.

When you come and see my work and that, that is the environment I’m creating around my work. I want people to associate it with these feelings and these things that they can do. And I essentially am kind of, for lack of a better word, trying to colonize the way it’s spoken about. Because, because if I don’t, then people are gonna dictate how it’s talked about.

Then I have to constantly be, again, proving myself or validating or arguing with the terms that they set. And I just have seen a lot that happen to a lot of artists. That’s happened to me, a couple of, you know. And I’ve just been like, throughout the years as I continue to create work. Just thinking, how can I do this without necessarily manipulating the entire situation?

Like, I don’t wanna be doing mind Jedi mind tricks or anything like that. Like, I’m not trying to do that, but I am putting up signposts of like, no, the conversation is gonna go this way and not that way because it’s just like I have to constantly be keeping the, the dogs outside.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. And I, and I think it’s interesting though ’cause because it poses this question around like, how can the artist embed in the work, the invitation you’re talking about, like not only here is what I am saying.

Or here’s the object, but also here is what, how you are encouraged to, or the license you have to enter to engage with it, to talk about it and all that stuff. And I think that it doesn’t surprise me that you’re interested in transmedia. It doesn’t surprise me that you’re interested in actually immersive spaces and not just the flat film, because you could do so much more with the space when it comes to communicating.

Like I I, I, I think a lot about like when you walk, when you go to a party and you see a pile of shoes by the door, what do you do? Take off your shoes. And it’s just, you just, no one said anything. No, there’s no signs saying police, it’s just, oh, okay. I get it. Right.

And like how can the space just unconsciously, passively suggest how to interact with it. I think that’s a fascinating area to play with.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah. I mean, again, with the partners for The Black Girl Lives like first aligning myself with people who do the kind of work that they do. So folks already had a lot of work was already done simply by the fact that they were doing this with me. And then you walk in and there were vendors and it’s like somebody who’s selling incense and doing all these things and then someone with a tarot card deck and they’re both these like gorgeous Black women. And it’s like, okay.

And then it says BYOB. And it’s like you guys, you see people at, you saw people at the tables there, they were already pouring their drinks and there’s like a step and repeat and people are like, ah. And it’s like, I’ve already told you a lot without, before it even started.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Of how you can operate in this space.

So yeah, I, I agree that like setting, there’s just a lot of things that as a filmmaker, sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off. There’s a lot of things as a filmmaker that you just don’t, you don’t have control over, right? Like, if you get in a film festival, you’re so happy. You have no idea who they’re gonna program it with, what it’s gonna be like.

Like there’s just so many things and I’ve, I’ve done that. And so it is, it is a big part of the reason why I’m like, okay, we’re gonna do film festivals, but I’m also going to be putting together events like this and like having some autonomy on how this work is screened to get the eyeballs that I want, like I made.

Because there’s also that too of like when you leave it to other people, they may not necessarily be talking to the people that your film is for. And as a black filmmaker, that’s a, as a black woman. That is a real thing of going into spaces and they’re like, we actually just don’t even know what to do with this because we never make things or invite black women.

So that’s kind of why I feel like I have to do this, because these systems in these structures in this industry wasn’t even, you never even thought I would be here.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah, and it points harder to why we are creating our own spaces, creating our own work, doing as much as we can that is, it’s the, it’s the for us, by us situation, right?

That that’s becoming clear as if we weren’t already that this is, to your point, what is out there now going back to the whole, like do we do like the Black James Bond, do we make our own shit? I think the make our own shit argument is very much around that idea of I don’t care how Black you make James Bond, it’s still James Bond.

It wasn’t built for us, it wasn’t built by us, but we get to do our own events. Okay. Now you’re talking, now we get to decide what the default is.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah. Yeah. And I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have a Black James Bond. We, yay. Let’s have a Black James Bond. It better not be set in England though.

Like, like I’m just kind of, because you know, there’s just real things where it’s just like, if it’s set in predominantly white nations. You are always gonna be able to find James Bond. So it’s like, all right, if you’re gonna make that choice, you are gonna have to change every single country. Like where does this agent actually operate?

And it has to make sense. And so right from there, it’s like, well, who’s writing and who’s directing it? That’s thinking about that, that isn’t just like, oh, but we’re just gonna make it colorblind. And it’s like, no, that’s whack. That’s whack. That’s like having the woman punch the 300 something guy, dude in the face.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: And then he punches her and she doesn’t. She’s not unconscious after that. I’m like, no, you would never do that. He’s huge. You go for the knees, you kick him in the nuts like what are you doing? Like everybody you use mace like spray something in his face and then like, you know what I mean? Like, I love the movies where they’re doing that kind of thing.

So yeah, I, I mean I’m all for the whatever version of the web, whatever. I haven’t seen this recent installment of Jurassic Park. But that’s another one where I think like Scarlet Johansson is the actiony person and then the scientist is a dude and it’s like this, the man is the smart one and the woman is the strong one and, and dinosaurs and and like it might be really, I don’t know.

I haven’t seen It might be really fun. I hope they’re thinking of what Scarlet can do that Chris Pat and Sam Neil couldn’t. You know?

David Dylan Thomas: Exactly, exactly.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: And vice versa. I hope they’re thinking, what’s that guy’s name? Oh my God, everybody loves him. He was in so many things. Who’s in that movie right now?

He’s a scientist. What’s his name?

David Dylan Thomas: From Jurassic Park or something?

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah, the [indecipherable] Jurassic Park. The co-star. It’s that guy.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh, oh. And, and this, I, I know who you’re talking about. I forget his name. The one who was in Bridgeton.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah. Yeah.

David Dylan Thomas: I’m blanking on his name.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Oh, yeah.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. But I know, I know who you’re talking about.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: And I hope him, yeah, I hope him as the scientist we can lean into like, yeah, what if the scientist is a guy and it’s not, you know, like the brainy one is a man. I hope so, but, but I also kind of feel like this game is tired. Let’s, and I, if the, if Sinners and Weapons and together and all of these wonderful horror films that have been coming out and horror has been kicking The Substance, like, oh, all of these films that are coming out. I feel like what it says is like, people want new stories. And they will line up, like The Substance was is an independent film. Okay? And it and it, she was nominated for so many awards.

It was nominated for an Oscar. I couldn’t believe it. And I was like, this, this is how much people wanna see just something else.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah. And they wanna see, they want to, I think they specifically wanna see horror, right? Like I was just, Weapons is number one again, like as I’m recording this on Labor Day.

Weapons was number one again this weekend. That’s like three fricking that that is not how. That’s not how movies work.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: That’s not how movies work.

David Dylan Thomas: Fantastic Four can’t stay number one for three weeks.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah, and that’s kind of wild, you know, when you think about like the budget between those two films.

David Dylan Thomas: Mm-hmm.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: And I’m sure you know, there was high quality. I’m sure they spent a good amount of money on weapons, all of which went to the last 20 minutes.

David Dylan Thomas: It wasn’t, it wasn’t Fantastic Four money.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: It wasn’t Fantastic Four money. No. And, but people are like more of this and I’m just like, yeah, because it’s a scary time, you know, I think.

Folks don’t think about films in their time because everything is a franchise and they wanna milk it for all it’s worth and have it go on forever and ever and ad infinitum, but films operate in their time. And yes, some can be classics and timeless, but they’re still, Jaws is still a film from the seventies and you could tell, right?

You like it for other reasons. Same thing with all the OG like Halloween, Alien, right? It’s, it’s these other things that are going on these other universal feelings, but they do exist in their time and they need to be in conversation with their time.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: And I think like. You know, for a while we were really into zombies. I remember when Walking Dead came out and all the, there’s just like zombies all over the place and I think, you know, we could feel the system caving in on itself and we could feel people turning on them on each other. And it just felt like we were being eaten alive. And that’s why we were watching shows about the fall of capitalism is what we were doing.

David Dylan Thomas: Still, are.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: We still? Yeah. And so I, I feel like people don’t think about. Taste. Like the taste of the, of everyone. What’s popular? Like why is it trending?

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Like what’s happening emotionally to people. And so you are like, everyone loves horror and it’s like, yeah, because we’re scared. ’cause this is a very scary time and these, this genre is cathartic and it’s a way to practice courage.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: And we wanna do that. And in these films, you know, a lot of the times whether they’re open-ended or not, whether somebody wins or doesn’t, I mean, still there’s a great evil that is defeated or at least thwarted for a time. And I feel like people are missing the fact that, or like gatekeepers are missing the fact that like, yeah, everyone’s watching that because they wanna believe that a great evil can be defeated.

These are, that’s why everyone’s interested in those stories right now. Take the hint.

David Dylan Thomas: Let’s hope so. So Wi-Moto it has been great talking to you. The the last thing I wanna do is I want to thank you, for those of you who don’t know, Wi-Moto was one of the champions of White Meat: Appetizer when we were asking for funding from the IPMF. So just thank you for believing in us.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Yeah, yeah. I mean, you, and there was a couple of the genre projects, but since I was the genre person in the room, I was like, well, I’m definitely funding all of these because that’s why I’m here. But, but yeah. No, seriously, that’s why I’m here, is to advocate for other independent horror makers such as myself, you know?

I don’t wanna be the only one in the room. I don’t think that that’s,

David Dylan Thomas: yeah,

Wi-Moto Nyoka: That’s just not my jam. So,

David Dylan Thomas: yeah,

Wi-Moto Nyoka: I don’t wanna play Highlander. I’m good.

David Dylan Thomas: Well, thank you again for talking to us. We have so much more to talk about. Love to have you back on in the future. But for now, thanks so much for being here.

Wi-Moto Nyoka: Sure. Thank you.

David Dylan Thomas: And for the White Meat Podcast, I’m David Dylan Thomas. We will see you next time.