From Musical Theatre To Horror: A Conversation With Erik Bloomquist For SELF-HELP

American actor and filmmaker Erik Bloomquist’s ninth horror feature Self-Help revolves around Olivia (Landry Bender), who, along with her best friend Sophie (Madison Lintz), visits a self-actualisation camp, run by the enigmatic cult leader Curtis Clark (Jake Webber). Sophie, however, isn’t interested in self-actualisation. Instead, she has been lured there by her mother, Rebecca (Amy Hargreaves), who she hasn’t seen and has barely spoken to since leaving home for college. A rift has formed between mother and daughter after the death of her father, and to Sophie’s surprise, she learns that her mother has married Clark. 

Bloomquist’s previous films include his debut feature, Ten Minutes Until Midnight, about a late-night radio host, whose colleagues become her prey after she’s bitten by a bat and turns into a vampire. Amassing a body count and offering audiences a liberal amount of bloodshed is an interest of Bloomquist’s, who also directed the summer camp slasher She Came From the Woods, and a slice and dice killing spree in the run-up to a mayoral election in Founders Day. 

In conversation with The Fan Carpet, Bloomquist discussed the roots of his love for storytelling, the sad and bleak reality of the film business, and finding inspiration in the headlines…

The following has been edited for clarity and contains spoilers.  

 

 

‘What we are’ versus ‘who we feel we are’ can often be out of synch. I’ve spoken with directors who say that it took a number of films before they felt they could call themselves a filmmaker. Have you become comfortable calling yourself a filmmaker?

I think it ebbs and flows. I’m very grateful and proud of the filmography that we’ve been able to build—this is feature number nine. You have these moments where you are in the flow, and you think, ‘This is exactly what I’m built for.’ And you know that to be true, but it’s in those in-between quiet moments, for me at least, where you get introspective about the industry at large and your place in it. Do you get a certificate in the mail that says, okay, now you’re officially a filmmaker? No, so, who decides? To some extent, you do. 

We had an experience with FOUNDERS DAY when it broke through more than any of the other films we had done. We have friends who overheard conversations about it in the street, and that was affirming because it existed outside us, and it was something bigger in the zeitgeist. Those moments are great, but that’s not to say that the other ones are less real. In fact, they’re all key parts of the foundation of the house, and so, the short answer to that question is that it ebbs and flows.

Was writing and directing always an ambition? 

Growing up, I was a musical theatre kid through and through—I’m still an actor. It sneaks its way into everything that I do, subject matter wise, and also the way we do it with this repertory company of actors who come back, and its collaborative nature. But I always wanted to be creative, and so, it turned into me making my own stuff and corralling kids at daycare into doing bootleg BEAUTY AND THE BEAST or whatever it was for audiences that had no choice but to watch us. And that tenacious entrepreneurial spirit has grown—one side feeds the other. 

It’s funny, because there are some people in my life who know me only as a filmmaker and don’t know that acting is the root of this tree. And then there are people from my past who may not know that I’m doing this. 

I always loved movies; I always loved theatre, and so, first and foremost, in the most non-pretentious way possible, I’m a storyteller in whatever medium and whatever way I can serve that. 

 

I remember Joachim Trier telling me you have to be given permission to make a film. Nicole Riegel, however, told me, “I’ve always had to make films without permission.” Given your repertory theatre-like set-up, what are your thoughts on this idea of permission?

Both are true. They contradict and complement one another—it’s this very weird paradox. Ultimately, what this makes me think of is the ever-increasing tug of war between the value and purpose of what we do on the creative end, and unfortunately, the devaluation at the end of the ladder in terms of what the value of a movie is seen as. It’s a sad, bleak thing, and I think that’s the constant tug of war. So, maybe when it comes to permission, yes. 

Unless you reach a certain level, money is not easy to come by for most. There’s absolutely a responsibility to cater to and make something for an audience and be true to yourself, and we really endeavour to live at the intersection of that. But permission, wherever it comes from, when there are other people and money at play, is a valid thing. But I don’t think it should dictate creativity or the way that one nurtures themselves, and there are ways to be creative outside of that. 

Part of that’s building a network of people who believe in you and who you believe in. In the early days, and even still to this day, it’s about what story I want to tell that I can or can almost make right now with what I have, and then I can fill in the gaps. But it’s never easy, whether it’s all on you or you’re dependent on somebody else to give you the green light, It’s a waiting game; it’s a marathon. And not to be cliché, but there are no guarantees.

I don’t mean to be all doom and gloom here, but that is the reality of it, which is why I’m so thankful that we’ve been able to do as much as we have. And with every dance set I’m increasingly thankful because I see how fleeting it can be. So, it’s just about entering these things with gratitude, even when you’re feeling fatigued. 

 

 

What was the genesis of the idea for Self-Help?

There are degrees of the story that are ripped right from the headlines in terms of people making decisions in the name of bettering themselves, that are actually hurting themselves, and there are people preying on that. So, it’s also about how mental health and self-actualisation can be manipulated. 

When you can shroud yourself in the language of a benefactor, how do you call that person out when they have a get-out of jail free card with the language they have at their disposal? And how do you differentiate those legitimate people from the charlatans? That’s a tale as old as time, and it’s certainly more so now with the internet. So, it was about pairing that with an increasingly impersonal society that will say, “Oh, we’ve never been more social.” I don’t know if that’s true. And so, how do you go from this internet community to being in a small group of people? How do those dynamics change? And looking at the human nature component of that, if you’re already up to your neck in the hole that you’ve been digging, do you pull yourself out of it or do you justify it and say, “No, the only way out is to keep digging.” 

Comparatively, we’d done two big ensemble movies with a lot of principles, which I love doing. I love having this tapestry at a summer camp or in this small town. With this one, we were interested in zooming in on this family and a close friend to see what we could do with that, and how that might change some of the technical stuff that we could do within our infrastructure. It’s different sides of the same diamond, but ultimately, it was just about having an interesting genre hybrid that felt explicitly contemporary. And also, being able to sneak in the Halloween vibes, which I love.

 

What surprised me about Self-Help was how self-contained it is and the brisk pace. You’d almost expect to sit with the characters for longer and for moments or scenes to be more drawn out. In a time when the running time of movies is increasing, you’ve taken an interesting approach here.

We wanted that to be the case and there’s something about how accelerated it is. We talked about this for the characters and some of the bad decisions they make. Would they make them that quickly? They’ve paid a very steep entry fee to get there, and so, they need to get their money’s worth. But just the idea of things happening before you think that they’re going to happen was interesting to us. 

When we first met with Landry, because she was used to reading 100-plus page scripts and this was around 85 pages, she asked me why it wasn’t longer? I told her, “Because the story ended.” She said, “That totally makes sense to me; that’s how it felt when reading it. I just didn’t know if…” I said, “No, I’m glad you saw that because that’s when the story ends.” 

There are some who may think it ends too quickly, but we really feel that is true to the circumstances and the character, or just the pace that we’ve had over the course of the movie. 

 

When the credits rolled, I found myself having to decide how I felt about these characters. It appears to me that you’ve prioritised interesting over sympathetic characters. 

I’ll get into spoiler territory now, but not too heavy. Ultimately, this guy ends up being more of a con artist than a cult leader, although I guess you could say that’s the case with many.

There’s a reason that the movie ends on her birthday and the last line is, “Happy Birthday.” Ironically, having gone through this and having seen the artifice of it, our protagonist is able to actualise herself in a way she otherwise wouldn’t have been able to. So, she is leaving the situation for the better, as she says. And then the person who you think is the most well-adjusted, ends up being the person who’s trapped at the end. I just think that contrast is very probable and interesting. 

 

 

Are you actively trying to subvert expectations here? Is the trick to give the audience what they expect with a few surprises thrown in?

There’s a degree to which people watch movies because of those familiar beats, and so, you want to make them as specific as possible. You want to serve your audience, and that’s satisfying. I love that as an audience too, but then it’s fun to throw in a punch that they didn’t see coming. I will say we talked a lot, again, going into spoiler territory, about the finale. I think some people will probably go in expecting that it’s going to be a bloodbath, and she’s going to hang this guy by his ankles and find all the old cult members and get them. While in and of itself that is a fun finale I’d like to watch, and would have been really cool to do, it is not truthful to this character and her circumstances. 

The smart thing to do is to ruin somebody and then take the money and run. I think that’s what would have happened—she’s not going to incriminate herself. We talked a lot about that because we could have had blood spraying everywhere for the finale, which, again, if you know our work, we don’t shy away from—we like doing that. But this is an epilogue that is a little bit more intimate than that, which I also like. It might not be what people think they’re gonna see, but it is what would happen. 

 

Just because we’re given something we don’t expect doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad thing. Sometimes, it’s about adjusting our expectations to embrace the film the filmmakers want to give us. 

I think it needs to be a dialogue. When people are uncomfortable or surprised by something, there should be more of an internal interrogation—why does that make me uncomfortable? Discomfort isn’t necessarily bad or ineffective. Or something could be ineffective, but why? Is it because the movie misstepped? Is it because of your expectations? Is it because you wanted it to be something that it wasn’t? All these things could be true, but it’s much more interesting when it’s a conversational piece among the audience or even critics and filmmakers. Art should spark conversation. 

 

 

Self-Help played at FRIGHTFEST LONDON 2025 and is released theatrically in the US from 31st October.