My guest on the pod is Michael Smallwood (@mikeluvsgushers), an actor, director, podcaster, and screenwriter from Charleston. He recently appeared in the biggest movie role of his career as the character Marcus in Halloween Kills, the latest installment of the Michael Myers saga. If you've seen it, you'll recognize him as the guy in the doctor costume from the first 20 or so minutes of the movie. He was great. I screamed when I saw him.
Michael and I have crossed paths a few times over the years here in South Carolina, but we'd never gotten to sit down and talk at length. As cool as it was to see him in a big Hollywood production, I was even more excited to talk to him about his original short film What a Beautiful Wedding, which deals with the underlying current of horror in weddings that take place on former slave plantations. We'll get into that in the second half of the show.
If you want to see Halloween Kills, I don't need to tell you how to find it; it's the No. 1 movie in America. If you want to see What a Beautiful Wedding, it's currently only available to stream via the Octopunk Media Patreon page at patreon.com/octopunkmedia. Worth it.
Over on the newsletter at brutalsouth.substack.com, my latest piece is about the state of the death penalty in Missouri, Alabama, and Oklahoma. Coming soon, I've got some juicy details on former UN Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley's weird, bespoke, neo-McCarthyite think tank and how it's blowing millions of dollars on Facebook ads.
If you’d like to support my work and get access to some exclusive content, subscriptions are $5/month at brutalsouth.substack.com/subscribe.
Exciting stuff on the way, y'all. Have a lovely spooky season.
28: Long knives and haunted plantations (w/ Michael Smallwood)