SCREAMFEST L.A. 2019 – Exclusive Opening Night Photos & Interviews with EAT, BRAINS, LOVE Director Rodman Flender & More

Sean Decker |

Oct 9, 2019

With the 19th Annual Screamfest Horror Film Festival having kicked off last night at TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood, CA with the US premiere of director Rodman Flender’s romantic horror-comedy feature film Eat, Brains, Love, we were there on the carpet to capture the launch. Read on for our photo gallery and interviews.

In attendance for Screamfest’s prestigious kick-off (in addition to one particularly gruesome zombie who roamed the carpet) was Eat, Brains, Love director Flender, as well as the film’s cast members Angelique Rivera (Supernatural), Jim Titus. Kym Johnson, Patrick Fabian (The Last Exorcism), Sarah Yarkin (Happy Death Day 2 U), Jake Cannavale and Kristin Daniel (Preacher).

Also gracing the carpet was Screamfest alumni and filmmaker Samuel Gonzalez Jr. and producers Mario Lopez, GiGi Gustin and Ron Gemende with their buzzed-about short film The Springfield Three, as well as actresses Kristina Klebe (Rob Zombie’s Halloween), Screamfest awards co-host Sarah Nicklin (From Hell, She Rises) and Screamfest founder and festival director Rachel Belofsky, among countless other festival attendees.

Chatting with Flender (whose horror credits include 1991’s The Unborn, 1999’s Idle Hands and Tales From the Crypt and Scream – The TV Series, among others) on the carpet pre-screening regarding Eat, Brains, Love the filmmaker said of what drew him to the Michael Herro and David Strauss-written script (which is based on novel by the same name by Jeff Hart), “I’ve always loved the horror genre, and I’ve always been a horror kid at heart. What intrigued me about this project, is that it’s a zombie film, it’s a love triangle and it’s a road movie, and I’ve never done a road movie. It has elements of (the films) Wild at Heart and Freeway in it, so it’s not simply just a zombie story: it’s a peculiar one and I seem to be drawn to peculiar stories, but ones with heart and humanity.”

Said filmmaker Gonzalez of his Screamfest selection The Springfield Three, a true-crime short starring The Human Centipede’s Ashlynn Yennie (which screens October 10^th at 9PM), “It’s a film based on a real-life event, when three girls from Springfield, Missouri went missing in 1991, and they haven’t been seen since. Not many know about the case, and it’s been forgotten and swept under the rug. When I learned of it, I felt somehow that it was my responsibility as a filmmaker to revive the case through the art of storytelling, and hopefully, it brings about some awareness.”

Of Screamfest’s lineup, which includes twenty-one features and fifty shorts overall, and which runs through Thursday, October 17th, fest founder Belofsky effused of the selections for 2019, “It’s exciting and diverse, and I’m thrilled to support such talented filmmakers and their work in the genre which I love.”