Silas Howard on friendship, death and Darby and the Dead

In the age of streaming, you have to act fast before the good disappears without a trace. But in some cases, if the good is really good, it will gain its own cult status.

Such was the fate of transgender director Silas Howard’s playful entry into the teen paranormal genre in 2022. Darby and the Dead. A perfect complement to current neon gothic offerings such as Lisa Frankenstein And WednesdayThe film tells the story of Darby, a girl who survived a near-death experience and was then gifted with the unpleasant ability to speak to the dead. Darby— which features a fantastic, diverse cast including Auli’i Cravalho, Nicole Maines, and Riele Downs — will be released later this month at Eagle Rock’s Vidiots cinema as part of UCLA’s Queer Rhapsody screening series. Ahead of the screening, INTO spoke with Silas Howard about queer content in the age of streaming, friendship, and making films about death.

SILAS HOWARD: I just got out of New Orleans where I’m editing a new show for Netflix based on a memoir called Pink Navy about a gay man who joins the Marines in the early 90s. Greg Cope White is the writer and Andy Parker is the showrunner, who I worked with Stories from the city. It’s really interesting. I remember that time. Under Clinton, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was the big improvement, and the name alone says it all.

INTO: Yeah, they said, “Aren’t you glad we threw you a pathetic bone?”

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Yes. It’s a great cast. I learned a lot about the Marines because we have all these advisors, and they’re pretty gentle guys, which was surprising.

That sounds great. I’m glad to hear that Netflix is ​​still investing in queer stuff. Obviously, it’s a very strange time in terms of queer content and streaming in general.

It really is. I felt the same way. There was a moment where there were some issues with the script and it took them a couple more months to get back to us after the strike, which was hard for everyone. But they did a good job. I like the changes they made and they’re more committed. So yeah, I feel the same way. Queer stories are not a given at the moment.

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Speaking of which, I loved Darby and the Dead. It was right up my alley. I was wondering why it’s not currently on Disney Plus or streaming?

Well, it’s a blessing and a curse when it comes to streaming. It’s the first movie I got paid for, because even (2018) A child like Jake was realized with such a small budget that it was a matter of the heart for all of us. Darby We had a very generous budget and we were under time pressure. The film had to be in theaters before 2023, so it had to come out in December 2022. The advantage was that I didn’t have to worry about box office numbers, but that’s the thing with films that stream. There are films by even bigger directors – things are just going to get lost.

Because to their credit, my manager at Hulu was great, and the manager at 20th Century Fox was great, too. And they’re both pretty important players. They were very passionate about it, and they listened to me when I had objections to certain things in the casting. They were really excited to bring Nicole (Maine’s) character, the transgender, queer friend, onto the team.

you put Darby on the homepage of Hulu, and for a while we got quite a bit of press. It was nice that everyone was paid, and there was respect in terms of the vision. But yeah, it’s one of those things of getting lost in the streaming algorithms. We were online for at least a year before the film was pulled. And then it went back online pretty quickly as far as Amazon and (VOD) go. But now it’s showing on Vidiots about Queer Rhapsody. Amanda Salazar, who programs for Sundance but also programs at Vidiots, was so passionate about this and also wanted to talk about what happens with films that get pulled. I mean, Disney has pulled so many films, and during Pride they pulled a lot of queer content. But one of the things that Hulu and 20th Century were really proud of is that this film reached a younger demographic and a more diverse audience. Particularly in the South, the film found a young black audience that they hadn’t really reached before. But apparently the accounting department at Disney doesn’t necessarily think about that.

That’s the frustrating thing. It’s so well made and has a great cast. I loved Nicole Maines in it. I love it when there’s a trans character who’s a normal teenager, but it’s rare that they’re portrayed as explicitly trans. So I loved the moment with the tampon.

That was a moment that we found together. Because that was another thing that the studio really gave me complete freedom with. Nicole, when she was first cast, she didn’t know that I was trans, and then she said: Ohit was like a little bonus. So when we got to do that scene, I said, “Hey, your character is queer. That part is very important to me, but whether she’s out as transgender or not, let’s talk about that.” And then Nicole was like, “Well, we’re doing a scene in the women’s locker room, and we kind of can’t resist that.” And so she improved a lot of things. And then we told Kylie (Liya Page), who plays the main mean girl character, that we were doing this. We told her the lines and she was like, “Oh, is that offensive that I forget that she’s trans?” And Nicole was like, “Oh no. Girl, that means I’m a f***ing fish.”

That’s a benefit of having authentic people behind the scenes. Because I knew the community would probably appreciate that. But even some of the older, white cis guys that were in the post were so grateful for that statement. They said: I really love this moment. So, beyond the terrible politics, the way things are going is really exciting. Just the visibility and the fact that the younger generation is fully embracing it is no small thing.

Absolutely. I love this moment when there are things like Wednesday And Lisa Frankenstein and the upcoming Beetlejuice Sequel because I feel it’s important to have funny movies and series for teens and kids that deal with death.

Yes, I agree. Thank you for saying that. I love comedies about death and I liked that the film was about this magical power that trauma gave her. Because when you think about it, people who go through trauma don’t just live in that trauma and that’s so sad. That trauma actually gives us superpowers. So I liked that as a kind of underlying theme. I liked having a film where I had to smile at the funeral scene and laugh at the electrocution scene. That was a fun challenge.

Yes! There was a line where Darby explains what she’s doing and she just says, “What I do for the dead is so they can leave this world where they’re invisible.” And I just thought… wow. Relatable.

I’m so glad because I was really proud of it, and there are these little heartbreaking moments at the end. And it felt like young people responded to it. There were a lot of funny TikTok videos, especially about Darby blossoming and how her hair goes from straight to natural, that Darby is a dark-skinned black woman in a film of this genre, wearing Converse and just being a weirdo.