Exclusive Interview: Brian Krause Talks Camel Spiders and More

Brian Krause: Oh absolutely! Roger is the best at making these kinds of movies so I knew I was in for a fun time. But how I got involved was that I’m friends with Matt Borlenghi, who was attached to it, and he pitched my name to Jim (Wynorski) and they got ahold of me. It really was that simple.

Dread Central: I know we recently talked when you were promoting Cyrus– which is an entirely different kind of movie and had you playing the villain. Was it nice to follow up something like that with Camel Spiders, which has a bit of a lighter tone?

Brian Krause: Definitely; I loved doing Cyrus because it was so different and challenged me so much, but it was nice to do a movie like this, too. It’s just a fun time, and I really love doing them. I’ve done a few sci-fi movies before, and there’s just something really fun about these campy make-believe worlds.

But Camel Spiders was a lot of fun, too, because we had such a great ensemble. And Jim’s a madman; he’s so much fun to work with. He’s quick and he knows what he wants so it’s a really easy working environment when you’re on his set. He does a great job of keeping everyone going and excited to be there.

Dread Central: So how challenging was it fighting off swarms of spiders you couldn’t see?

Brian Krause: Much easier than fighting off real spiders! (laughs) But no, seriously- it is a little challenging because you do have to worry when you’re filming if you’re aiming right, looking the right way- stuff like that. But fortunately for me I had quite a bit of green screen experience on Charmed, but even a lot of that has changed so much in the last 15 years into something a bit different. But you get used to ‘pretending’ over time and then you kind of relax and have fun with it.

Dread Central: So how long were you guys shooting for then?

Brian Krause: I think we were working on this for about two weeks. It was pretty fast, but I think Jim pretty much had every single shot mapped out in his head before we even stepped onto set. It’s interesting adapting to that kind of quick approach, but it also keeps you on your game consistently. You may want another take but Jim usually wasn’t having that. He’s a one and done kind of guy, but that approach definitely worked on this.

Dread Central: So with Camel Spiders out this week, what’s up next for you?

Brian Krause: I recently worked on this project for Crackle; they created a series with Sony called “The Unknown” and it’s a lot like “The Twilight Zone.” It’s pretty cool to see something like that on a new platform. But I worked on one of the episodes and it was a lot of fun. I think fans will really enjoy the series a lot.