Next In Horror: ‘Monitor’ Filmmakers Matt Black & Ryan Polly Nearly Had Their Horror Shot Adapted By Someone Else Without Their Consent — But Seized The Opportunity For Themselves
SPOILER ALERT: The following story contains plot details from SXSW Midnighter selection Monitor.
For Matt Black and Ryan Polly, the Texas-based filmmakers behind the horror film Monitor, the project emerged, unusually, from a case of intellectual property theft.
Eight years ago, the duo came together on a lark to make a short film, posting it online and forgetting about it almost immediately. Four years later, they got a call from a screenwriter who was pitching on a feature version, which had been set up at a major studio with a major producer attached. The only problem was they knew nothing about it.
They won’t name the filmmaker who pulled their short off the web and put it forward as his own original work. But when Black and Polly found out about the situation, they became determined to get the feature made themselves, in their first outing following work on shorts.
Eventually, they got it done, securing the backing of Smile producer Temple Hill and the Spanish company Nostromo, with production taking place between Spain and the Canary Islands. And tonight, they premiere the film in the Midnighter section of SXSW.
Monitor stars Brittany O’Grady as Maggie, a young woman haunted by guilt over her sister’s suicide, who spends her days through the most disturbing material on the internet as a content moderator. After she flags and removes a mysterious video uploaded by an anonymous user, she and her coworkers find themselves targeted by a demonic force that begins stalking them through the screens around them.
The filmmakers say they shot the film with nine cameras — everything from GoPros to baby monitors, handycams, night vision goggles, and laptop webcams. Working with all this tech was a nightmare — and, Black says, the most “nerve-racking” thing of all was that all of the duo’s major set pieces took place in grainy peripheral camera footage which they could only hope came together well in the edit.
Genre filmmakers with a bright future ahead of them, Black and Polly are reminiscent of Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, the duo who just hit it big with Final Destination Bloodlines, and interestingly admit that they took direct inspiration from the duo in their pitch for Monitor.
Here, the duo reflects on the origins of their 2018 short and the process of fleshing out the feature version, getting a fire lit under them by the attempted theft of their work, and what we can expect from them creatively going forward.
DEADLINE: Where did the seed of the idea for your short come from?
MATT BLACK: It’s going to sound dumb. [Laughs] I’m a huge fan of Frasier, and I was watching a Frasier episode. [The title character is] a radio host, and there’s an episode where he has to take the late-night shift and everybody that’s calling in is crazy. There’s a joke on the episode that the security guard calls in, and he’s like, “Yeah, I’m watching myself on the monitor, and I’m not doing what I’m doing on the monitor.” And it’s like a joke, and they laugh, and Frasier hangs up. I was watching it with my wife, and I was like, “That’s terrifying. Like, that’s not funny. That’s scary.” So the idea was there.
Then, whenever Halloween was coming up, I was like, “Hey, Ryan, it’d be fun to do just a quick short film that’s no dialogue, just something fast.” So we made it and put it online and honestly didn’t think much about it after that.
DEADLINE: Where did things go from there? There’s something in your directors’ statement about a major studio trying to make a feature adaptation without your knowledge…
RYAN POLLY: It’s one of the craziest things that’s happened to us; it sounded like it was one of the craziest things that’s happened in terms of short film to feature adaptation. But four years after we released the short, I got a call from a screenwriter who told me he was pitching on a feature version of our short. Someone had downloaded our short film, changed the title and credits, claimed it was his own, somehow got involved with a major Hollywood studio, a big producer attached, and they were going out getting writer takes, starting to develop a feature version of our film.
So pretty insane. But he tells me, “I was going to pitch on this tomorrow. I told my agent it’s probably going to implode.” That same night, we got a call from the thief’s manager, who essentially was like, “Yeah, I confronted him when I was told of what happened. He lied about the film; he lied about his whole portfolio.” And essentially, he’s like, “I’m going to have to tell the producers and the studio tomorrow about what happened. But if you guys have a take, I’d love to hear it. Maybe we can get you guys involved.”
BLACK: We met immediately the next morning and were like, “What’s a take on this? We’ve got to come up with something.”
POLLY: So we we wrote a spec script, and eventually it fell away from that specific studio. We got involved with another one, and then that one fell through. And then we made it independently with our producers at Temple Hill and Nostromo, a Spanish production company that we linked up with. So yeah, long journey. Eight years since we shot the the short, four years since we got that call, and then exactly one year ago today, we had day one of production.
DEADLINE: I take it you’re not going to get into specifics as far as the theft of your short?
POLLY: No, we don’t want it to be a thing. That’s why I avoided names. We’re friends with the screenwriter that was pitching that. Hopefully, he’s going to be at the festival, just because we’ve made friends with him in the past four years. But pretty crazy.
DEADLINE: So it really lit a fire under you to get your own take together, finding out what had transpired?
BLACK: Yeah. I mean, we’re from Denton, Texas. We have a great filmmaking community out here, but obviously it’s a far cry from Hollywood. So it was kind of insane just to be hearing names that we had heard before were interested in our short. Ryan and I had both been trying to figure out how to make our first feature. I think we were both kind of like, all right, we’ll do like a no-budget indie, whatever. So this just seemed like a crazy opportunity. It was kind of just like, yeah, let’s seize the moment if we can. And we do like the short. Even in the short, we planted the ideas of what would interest us about the feature. So it felt like if we could find the legs to make it, why not?
DEADLINE: Could you give a more detailed breakdown on the next steps in making the film a reality after writing the spec?
POLLY: We had a version of the script that we were working on for a while, got some good feedback, wrote a new version of the script, and we took it out. We pitched it around to production companies. Temple Hill got attached, our producers, who we love, and we were excited. I think the first Smile movie was coming out right as we were pitching; that was obviously a huge success for them. [We] worked with them, and there’s another studio at the time that we had a deal with that fell through. But when [Temple Hill] attached Nostromo, that’s when it started coming together.
We started casting. Brittany O’Grady was the front of our list for Maggie, our protagonist, and we were lucky enough to get our number one for that role, which was super exciting, and then brought on Gunner Willis, who was the protagonist in our short film, to play Gunner in the film. We named him Gunner because we were like, “We’ve got to get Gunner in this film. So we’re going to do everything we can to get him in.”
They’re the two Americans in our cast, and everybody else is from Europe, just because of tax stuff and shooting in Spain. So it was very fun, a cast full of Europeans, all doing American accents for our movie that takes place in Nowhere, America, essentially.
DEADLINE: I would not have imagined this film having been shot in Spain and the Canary Islands…
BLACK: If you saw the movie and were surprised, that’s great. Because that was a huge challenge. Lots of things looked very European. I mean, we lucked out because a lot of our movie is interiors by design. We wanted to have a lot of “This could be anywhere” interiors. But a few scenes, we had trouble finding in the Canary Islands.
DEADLINE: How hard was it to get companies of Temple Hill’s stature on board, as debut filmmakers? And how did you approach the task of talking with people about the film?
BLACK: I think it’s just a credit to Temple Hill that they did it, honestly. We really didn’t have anything besides the short. There were a few other shorts that we’d made, but really all we had was the short, our feature pitch, [and] a script. They just took a chance on us. They developed with us for a while and were great partners in refining the script, and I think they just saw the potential in it and jumped on it. Then, obviously, they’re amazing producers. So at that point, the project was alive.
POLLY: For a while there, we were sort of known because of our pitch. I mean, I can’t take credit. I kind of stole an idea from the guys who directed Final Destination Bloodlines. I had read something about them faking a death in a pitch for that movie, and I was like, oh, that would be great. We’re sort of showmen in some of our pitches, so in our feature film pitch for Monitor, we had our movie monster, the Tulpa, murder me at the end and Matt is freaking out on the other side.
BLACK: At the end of our pitch, everybody’s ready to see Ryan dead. So it’s a crowd pleaser.
POLLY: So it’s a combination of hopefully a great script, and a fun pitch, and a short that they liked. We didn’t scare them off with our personalities.
DEADLINE: While the concept of a being who could be seen on screens but not in real life was central to your short, the world of online content moderation is new to the feature and pretty fascinating…
POLLY: That’s what opened it up.
BLACK: Yeah. When we were trying to figure out what the feature could be, it feels like we sort of checked all the screenlife boxes. Then, I found this documentary on content moderating, and at the time, I hadn’t seen any media on content moderation. And we were like, “This has got to be Maggie’s job.” Just because we thought that aside from a horror film, it’s such a crazy, interesting sort of modern world.
POLLY: Even stylistically, some of those documentaries we were watching when making the script, that was what we used stylistically for the office, having almost like a call center where it’s not the sexy side of technology. This is the old box of cables in your garage, that kind of technology. Just because in real life, a lot of the people that are keeping us safe — nowadays, it’s changing drastically with AI and everything — but the people that are keeping us safe are working in these crappy offices and watching the worst stuff on the internet. And we’re like, that’s a really interesting world for horror.
DEADLINE: How did you arrive at the mythology around your monster, the Tinkerbell effect, and what have you?
BLACK: Honestly, that was the toughest stuff for us.
POLLY: In development, the most back and forth is the rules of how we’re fleshing out the Tulpa. Because you want it to feel consistent as you’re watching it. We’ve seen Tulpas in media before, but how do we have a unique horror movie monster that makes sense with the world of our film that we’ve established in the short film, but also fleshing that out? So it definitely was one of the bigger things in development.
BLACK: I think the idea of, you believe in it and it becomes more dangerous, the more you believe in it, we liked that thematically. One of the things that we wrote on our [directors’] statement is, more just as a filmmaking challenge, could you keep it scary the whole film without ever seeing it in reality? You’re just seeing it through characters’ eyes on screens — and how long could you sustain that?
The idea of belief and characters starting to hurt each other was really something that we felt we needed to keep that engine going. And really, the challenge was just, how do you convey that idea without over-explaining it, without under-explaining it? That’s where development became kind of a hellish thing for me and Ryan. Because that’s the least interesting stuff to us. But it became what a lot of the rewriting was about, was how do you make that feel clear, but not too clear?
POLLY: And then also, sort of breaking a rule on purpose, having to establish, hey, if you really do believe in it enough, it will come out from beyond the screen and be in real life and creating that threat as well for Maggie. Then, there’s so many different versions of this where it’s like, hey, it’s released on the Internet. It goes out to everyone. And then it’s like, what do you do with that? So it was definitely one of the big challenges and big frustrations. But I think we’re pretty happy with where we ended up with it.
DEADLINE: How did you want the film to feel, stylistically? In your directors’ statement, you alluded to wanting to avoid certain kinds of trappings, in terms of “elevated” horror and the screenlife subgenre, in particular.
POLLY: From the very start, we never wanted anything to feel digital or feel like we’re in the screen. Every time we see a screen in the movie, we wanted to feel like it’s a character looking at that screen: We’re feeling the character’s point of view. Another thing that became a thing in post-production was every single screen, every single close-up, even if it’s a full screen, that is us putting something on the screen and pointing a camera at it and shooting it. Because I think me and Matt are a little allergic, in a movie, to where it cuts to an on-screen graphic and it feels very digital, very fake. We wanted to make sure that because so much of our movie is people looking at screens and seeing their reactions, when we see the the screen, we see the pixels, we see the distortions, we see the Tulpa.
BLACK: Even in our pitch, we were like, “A lot of horror movies use darkness to hide their monster. What if we just used pixels? What if we just kept it small on screen and that is what obscures our monster?” The monster design was weird, too, because in our short, it’s a guy in a bad mask. And it’s strange because we played with, okay, is it a creature? Is it a monster? Is it a guy? If it’s a guy, what is it wearing? It’s really strange because if you make it too monstrous, then it starts to feel fake. But then if it just looks like a guy, how do you keep that scary if he’s just one wide camera angle on a screen? I mean, maybe this is like every movie, but it was deceptively difficult because it’s definitely a fine line to try to find.
DEADLINE: How would you describe your general sensibility and career goals as filmmakers?
BLACK: Ryan and I love genre movies. It’s cliche, but you love the movies that you grew up watching, and we are fans of really good genre movies. So I think moving on from here, we’d love to make more horror, but we’ve written all across the genre spectrum. Really, we just love great stories that are packaged in fun concepts.
POLLY: Great characters, a good hook. Yeah, we’ve written horror movies, thrillers, action-comedies, westerns. There’s so many things that we’re we’re excited to make, but I think a lot of the stuff that we get passionate about has great characters, a good hook, is exciting, propulsive. This is a good example of a horror movie that we like, which is it’s got an interesting theme or social message, but it’s also very exciting, and we like to joke [that] the villain of the movie isn’t a metaphor. I don’t like the term four-quadrant, but we wanted to make it exciting and have a message, and it was a goal of ours to hopefully leave the viewer with a smile and not too much dread by the end.
What in your past creative history best prepared you for this moment with Monitor?
POLLY: Both of us have made a lot of shorts. I think with making shorts, being able to each short, be able to point back at something and say, “This is what I learned making this, this is what I learned making this.” It’s like, “I’m going to do an ensemble cast in this one to figure out how to cover a scene with a ton of actors. I’m going to do action in this one and train that up. How do I do a short with only dialogue?” I think both Matt and I have done a lot of these kinds of things. With Monitor, this is almost like a Pixar short: [the Tulpa] doesn’t say a single word. It’s all scares and action. I think using shorts as experience to take to your feature, both Matt and I were ready to take it on.
Walking into the production office and you have a whole team of people that’s already been working toward [executing your vision], that was pretty surprising because a lot of our stuff has been very small crews. But in terms of working with actors, in terms of writing the film, shotlisting, storyboard, directing a DP and actors and and working with an AD and producers, everything felt pretty normal for us from day one.
BLACK: Also, Ryan and I have done most of our stuff separately. Weirdly enough, Monitor is the only short we ever made together, just because we’re friends and we were like, oh, it’d be fun to do it together. That just happened to be the one that opened up an opportunity.
DEADLINE: Going forward, then, can we expect more from you as a duo? Or will you prioritize solo projects?
BLACK: Hopefully, you’ll see both. We love working together and we want to continue working together. Going into this, we were both like, “This could be a total disaster, dude. We’ll see how it goes.” And thankfully, it was a great experience directing this together. So I think we’d absolutely keep making movies together. We’ve got other stuff that we’d love to do on the side, as well, but for our first feature, I will say, just as a human being making a movie in Spain, away from all the people that you normally make movies with, the ability to bring one of your best friends, holy cow. It was a thousand times more fun and way less lonely than I think it would have been to do it, either one of us, by ourselves. So that was a huge grace for our first movie.
DEADLINE: Have you guys made the rounds yet in L.A.?
POLLY: Oh, yeah. Essentially from four years ago. The fun part of that story is the manager who was repping the guy who stole our film immediately became our manager. Because he’s like, “Oh, you guys are actually really talented.” So we love our manager, Jon Kee. He’s awesome. But immediately when we started working, we started making the rounds, talking to different production companies and studios and producers. There’s an action-comedy we’ve been taking out; there’s another horror movie we are about to start taking out, and then a few things for a few different production companies and studios that we’re signed on to direct or write or whatever. The hope is that we can use Monitor to get our next original project up off the ground, but we’ll see.
DEADLINE: What’s your take on all the challenges Hollywood has faced recently, as filmmakers just beginning their journey?
BLACK: I don’t really know. We’re still in Denton. To some degree, we’re pretty far removed from the industry.
POLLY: We still have normal jobs.
BLACK: We interface via Zoom with the industry. But I don’t know, man. I don’t really know what the state of the industry is at this point. I’ve heard bad things. Maybe we’re jumping onto a sinking ship. I think an appetite for like a great story is still there. I mean, we’ll see if if people respond to Monitor or not.
The problem is, I think that people are smarter now, as an audience. Everybody’s a filmmaker now on their phone, and people know when something’s made with love and care and attention, and when it’s not. And I think if you can make something cheap enough and good enough, there’s a sweet spot there where probably it’ll be profitable and probably, most people will like it. But I don’t know.
POLLY: We’re in a weird but also fun place because we live in a small town outside of Dallas. Everything we’ve done in this industry so far has been over Zoom. We’ve [only] had a few trips out to L.A. to do the rounds, meet the people we’ve talked to online and were working with.
DEADLINE: Ironic for guys making a screenlife film to be engaging with the industry mostly over Zoom...
POLLY: [Laughs] Yeah. We’ve visited Spain more than we have. L.A., just because that’s where our producers are and that’s where we shot and did post for the movie was. But we feel lucky and blessed to be able to make our first feature the way that we did, and we’re going to keep working hard, keep trying to work and make great films, and I think as long as we get to keep doing this, we’ll feel lucky and grateful. We’ll just keep working hard and seeing what happens.
