Josh Stolberg Discusses the Twisted Social Commentary of SKILLHOUSE

By Shannon McGrew

In SKILLHOUSE, the latest film from writer/director Josh Stolberg, ten influencers are lured into a sinister content house and forced to compete in lethal social media challenges. They soon realize that in Skillhouse, clout isn't just currency; it's a matter of survival. 

For the release of SKILLHOUSE, Creepy Kingdom's Shannon McGrew spoke with Josh Stolberg. During their chat, they discussed everything from the inspiration behind the film and its critique of influencer culture to the most memorable kills.

It's so great to speak with you today, Josh. I loved the premise of this film and thought it was so much fun. What was the inspiration behind SKILLHOUSE? 

Josh Stolberg: I had just finished doing SAW X and got a call from Mark Berg, who's the producer of the SAW franchise, and he said a guy was looking for a writer/director for a new horror movie he had an idea for. I sat down with actor Bryce Hall and producer Ryan Kavanaugh, and they said, 'Hey, we want to make a movie where we put 10 influencers in a house and kill them off. Do you have any ideas?' Immediately, my mind started whirling. I have fantasized about killing influencers before, but now I get to do it for real, which is very exciting [Laughs]. 

As you can tell from the little gray in my beard, I'm not the guy who jumps on TikTok every day, but I have two kids who do, and I've been watching the way they react to the algorithms and watching how the social media platforms control things a little bit in their world. I was very excited about the idea of creating a SAW-like movie but approaching it in a completely different way, allowing me to explore themes that I couldn't in other films where I don't have influencers. The idea of this toxic influencer culture and the parasitic feeling of looking for fame, I was able to embrace, welcoming these characters into my head for a little while, and not just kill them, but to understand them a little bit more. Part of writing movies is trying to understand a different kind of person, and this was a lot of fun. 

While the film focuses on influencers, it also implicates the audience by making us complicit in what's happening to these characters.

Josh Stolberg: Yes, 100%. The influencers are to blame for diving so hard into this world of spectacle for profit, but it's the audience's complicity along the way that makes it all happen. You would have a kid doing some dumb dare and filming it, only to die on camera. They're trying to find likes; they're trying to be loved. That's what made me feel sympathy for many of these characters. It's not all their fault; it's a lack of various things, but it's also the audience's responsibility. 

The scene in the movie that I was most excited to dive into and play with was the scene later in the film where Dani Oliveros, who plays Kirsten, sets up this room with lights and candles for the perfect lighting and then goes about basically tearing off her face and crying out to the audience that this is what they want, this is what I am to you. To me, that was the scene that got me excited, where I was able to say, 'Okay, she's blaming the audience who have come to see these horrible things.' It was the thing that grounded me and gave me, as an older user of social media platforms, a way into the story. When I look at my likes on Instagram and see the "For You," it gives me a snapshot of who you are as a person, and sometimes I have to clear those out because I'm like, oh my god, that's not who I am [Laughs].

One of the other thematic elements that I was hoping to explore is when the cop, Brandon Vega, played by Neal McDonough, calls them parasites and says that if you die today, drop dead today, no one will miss you at all, and it underscores the disposable internet celebrity and this idea that we're just churning through these people. It's Mr. Beast today, but in ten years, is Mr. Beast going to be anything? It's even more so with these kids who are in the million-follower range, where they think they're everything because they have a million people tuning in every single day to see what they do. That's not going to last. It's going to make people do bad things, do embarrassing things, or even cancel themselves or hurt themselves to maintain this fake feeling of being loved. 

On a lighter note, do you have a favorite kill from the film? There are some iconic ones!

Josh Stolberg: I've got two favorite kills in this movie. The first one is the one we were talking about with Kirsten. The reason I like it is that the FX was incredible and all-practical. [Kirsten] tearing off her face, to me, was because it intersected with the thematic elements that I was hoping to do with the film. She's looking out into the audience, crying and begging, saying, This is what you want, this is what you need; if this is going to keep me alive, I'll continue cutting myself. It was such a perfect metaphor for the evils of social media.

There are great things about social media. I love the way that social media has opened the eyes of, especially the youth, to politics and to things that they would usually be shielded from, because kids don't turn on NBC, CNN, or Fox News to read the news. They get their news from the internet, and thank God they do because they're coming out in force. It is inspiring to me that they want to make a change in the world. I'm not saying all social media is bad. Still, a lot of it is, and that scene, in particular, with her cutting her face and crying to the camera and realizing the parallels between wanting to be loved and liked and doing bad things and hurting yourself to get it, is my favorite part of the movie. As a filmmaker and a storyteller, it perfectly encapsulated what I was going to do. 

My other favorite kill is Rumer Brandjes, played by Leah Pipes, who is one of my all-time favorite actresses. She starred in Sorority Row as Jessica. For her death, it took us a considerable amount of time to complete, as we did it almost entirely practically, with a little bit of digital effects. For the bottom of her face to explode, we shot the scene where she is acting and then throws her head back a little. We sprayed air and threw a little blood on her face, and then we locked off the camera. She went away, and they put these prosthetics on her face that were basically mutton chops that went all the way down, connected to her mouth, and then underneath that. It was all painted green right there. That was the digital part. Then, we glued the pieces of her face back together. That was all latex prosthetics that we painted to make them look fine, and then there were two fishing lines hooked to either side. We drew circles where her eyes and mouth were and had her get into the exact same spot while the camera was locked off. She then repeats the exact same movement, and we rip the two sides of the face open. It's a practical element of her face literally exploding and then digitizing the bottom of her chin, coming off, and leaking blood. It was so much fun to shoot. My favorite aspect of horror movies is devising creative and entertaining ways to kill people. However, another element I love is working on set and collaborating with creatives, makeup artists, FX specialists, and blood specialists. 

Lastly, I'm dying to know how it was working with Neal McDonough and 50 Cent.

Josh Stolberg: Neal McDonough is one of those actors who always surprises me. He's so great. I wrote him some lines that I didn't think he was going to say because they were too dark and twisted, and man, he leaned into those lines. When we first talked, I told him I wanted him to make a meal out of this and that I wanted this to be fun and crazy. I told him not to hold back or be subtle and to just lean into it, which he did and killed it. 

50 Cent was fun. I've been a big fan of him and his music forever, so having him on the set and being able to direct him was really, really special. It was such a fun time.

SKILLHOUSE is now in theaters nationwide.