The How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast
Named “BEST FILM PODCAST OF 2022” by ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY!!!
This podcast is a celebration of collaboration… and what happens when good collaboration goes horribly wrong.
When filmmaking craft turns to crap.
#HowNotToMakeAMoviePodcast #BordelloOfBlood
S2E56: “From HAIR To Eternity”
PAUL ABASCAL went from being a super talented, highly sought-after movie set HAIR STYLIST (he was MEL GIBSON and SLY STALLONE’S hair guy!) to being a super talented MOVIE AND TV DIRECTOR whose very first dramatic directing credit was the “Oil’s Well That Ends Well” episode of “TALES FROM THE…
S2E55 Scares & Scores
Would scary movies be as scary without scary scores? Of course not! Our guest NICK PIKE has composed scores for tons of movies and TV shows but SCORING HORROR has always been a sweet spot. Nick wrote the theme for FREDDY’S NIGHTMARES: THE NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET TV SERIES, ten…
S2E55: It’s A Crypt Keeper Spook-tacular!
JOHN KASSIR – the voice of THE CRYPT KEEPER – discusses the Crypt Keeper’s birthing process. It took FOUR PEOPLE to turn the CK from a great puppet into an iconic character. Are there Crypt Keeper segments the CK’s creators like best? Are there any they hate? There ae no…
S2E53: It’s FAN APPRECIATION Day!!!
Here at The How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast, we really and truly appreciate our fans. But, also, we appreciate how the fan experience has changed since we started making movies and TV shows back in the stone age. There used to be a lot more distance between us…
S2E52 Grim Reaper V Crypt Keeper
Welcome to the fright of the century – The Grim Reaper v The Crypt Keeper. It’s not at all unusual for writers and directors to forge long creative bonds with certain actors. Scorsese and De Niro… Hitchcock and James Stewart… Tarantino and Samuel L. Jackson. At Tales From The Crypt,…
S2E51: “Return To The Castle Of Horror”
Welcome to our return visit to the Castle Of Horror! Movie producer, director, writer and actor William Castle was one of the very first film makers who saw their own brand – understood what it was – and then bent movie-making toward themselves. Like Alfred Hitchcock – some critics called…
S2E50 Crypt Salutes William Friedkin
It’s not unusual for long-running TV shows – like HBO’s “Tales From The Crypt” was – to develop a family-like feeling among its regular crew. At Crypt, that feeling got magnified by Crypt’s whole “lightning in a bottle” mystique. As we’ve talked about here at The How NOT To Make…
S2E49 Chicken Thing Attacks!
Todd Holland directed one of the best “Tales From The Crypt” episodes – “Top Billing” – about a struggling actor (played by Jon Lovitz) who thinks he’s auditioning for the lead in “Hamlet” at a small theater tucked away in an alley. He’s actually auditioning for the role of “Yorick…
S2E48 Crypt Keeper Confidential
Odds are you’re here, reading this because you love “Tales From The Crypt” and its iconic Crypt Keeper character. We don’t blame you.; we love both of them, too! We started this season (some 48 episodes ago) with a conversation that had never been had before about how exactly The…
RIP Paul Reubens
We never had the chance to work with Paul Reubens – whose character Pee Wee Herman charmed the hell out of us – but, we sure wish we had. Paul died Sunday night after a six year long (private) battle with cancer. Though we didn’t get to work with Paul,…
S2E47: The Name Game
Run for your lives! The world is over-run with Alan Katz’s – and Allan Katz’s and Allen Katz’s! That’s what it feels like anyway (to the Alan Katz who hosts this podcast and writes these posts!). In this episode of The How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast, Alan Katz…
S2E46: Crypt We Love/Crypt We Hate
Over the course of 5 seasons, Gil & Alan produced 69 episodes of “Tales From The Crypt”. That’s out of 93 episodes total over its full 7 year run. While we’ve said many times that doing Crypt was like catching lightning in a bottle, not every day was fun. And…
S2 Bonus Episode: Killer Talent/Talented Killer
We “met” Francisco Lacerda – a very, very talented Portuguese-American moviemaker – at this year’s Chattanooga Film Festival. That is, we met a short Francisco made called “They call it… Red Cemetery”. Red Cemetery is both an homage to Sergio Leone and his brand of exploitation moviemaking and a statement…
S2E45 Make Em Laugh
Conventional wisdom says comedy is hard. It is for some people. Hell, for some people (the ones without a sense of humor – not everyone has one, ya know!), comedy is downright impossible. For the rest of us though, comedy isn’t all that hard. And it gets easier the more…
S2E44: “Hot Shots”
Want to have a G R E A T weekend? Spend it being feted by the incredible folks (led by Chris Dortch) at the Chattanooga Film Festival. Nothing beats good people treating you like a couple of hot shots. We hope we gave half as good as we got! The…
S2E43: “Lightning In A Bottle”
That should be “Lighting In A Bottle – At the Chattanooga Film Festival”. That’s where we just spent the weekend – being feted (not fetid) because of “Tales From The Crypt”, “Bordello Of Blood” and this, our “How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast”. So, before we start, thank you,…
Join Us At The Chattanooga Film Festival!
We are beyond honored that the Chattanooga Film Festival wants to honor “Tales From The Crypt”, “Bordello Of Blood” and this very podcast – “The How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast” at this year’s festival which starts THIS WEEKEND and runs from June 23 – June 29. The opening…
S2E42: “Writing Superman”
Kevin J. Anderson is a writing superman. He’s actually written Superman, too – Kevin wrote the novels “The Last Days Of Krypton” and “Enemies & Allies”. Kevin’s also written books in the Star Wars world, the X-Files world and, perhaps most famously, together with Brian Herbert, the Dune world. In…
S2E41: “The Juice”
Director Ernest Dickerson is The Juice! Our friend Ernest Dickerson is both a first rate director of photography and a first rate director. He shot all of Spike Lee’s early movies – everything from Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop (Spike’s film school dissertation) and “She’s Gotta Have It” to “School Daze” and…
S2E40 “Caligula: How NOT To Make A (Porno) Movie”
One of our big themes on this podcast is what happens when talented movie makers lose their minds… or their taste… or control over their movies. You get a “Bordello of Blood” when big name, talented people make a movie none of them really wants to make. Plus an insane…
Host (And Producer)
A L Katz (Alan to his friends) has been in the film and TV business for over 35 years. In that time, he’s written and produced iconic TV series like HBO’s “Tales From The Crypt” and Showtime’s “The Outer Limits”. He’s written and produced iconic feature franchises like “Children Of The Corn II” and “Tales From The Crypt Presents Demon Knight”. And then there’s “Bordello of Blood”. After taking two decades off to deal with a deepening depression (Bordello had a little something to do with it), Alan is back! And, boy, has he got a story to tell.

Executive Producers: Dads From The Crypt
Dads From The Crypt is a podcast where three spooky dads who really like HBO’s “Tales From The Crypt” talk about and review episodes of the TV series and the two feature films that arose from the series. They also interview whichever Crypt writers, directors, producers, actors, actresses or crew they can sink their fangs into. Same goes for all things related to the horror genre (and music, too). Each Dads From The Crypt podcast also includes a bit of battle-tested parenting advice. Where else on the internet are you going to find that? Nowhere! Please visit their website: https://dadsfromthecrypt.com/

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