Dolly’s Rod Blackhurst Talks Unhinged Horror Movie, Why He Wants Stephen King to Watch | Interview
ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with Dolly director Rod Blackhurst about his violent new horror movie. Blackhurst discussed letting his “freak flag” fly in the film, working with Seann William Scott, and why he wants Stephen King to see his movie. Starring Fabianne Therese, Ethan Suplee, and Max the Impaler, it is out in theaters on March 6, 2026.
“A young woman, Macy, fights for survival after being abducted by a deranged, monster-like figure who wants to raise Macy as their child. A daring blend of New French Extremity and 1970s American horror,” says the synopsis.
Tyler Treese: Rod, congrats on Dolly. I didn’t really know what to expect going into this film, and this was way more brutal than I was expecting. I had a blast. It’s also very lean. It’s like 82 minutes. Can you speak about just the creative decision to really just go for it? Because this movie is brutal. I was regularly disgusted in the best of ways. That’s always a risk, so why did you decide to go that way?
Rod Blackhurst: It’s funny you mentioned the runtime. Like no money, no time, right? So like, there isn’t a wasted shot. In fact, my editor Justin Oakey actually got really crafty in some sections and like, kind of reused shot, reverse shot… well, not reused, but like found ways to draw scenes out. I think the movie ultimately might have been a little shorter had he not been such an incredible collaborator in that regard.
But I’ll tell you why. The reason why I went for it, and I’ve been saying this recently to a bunch of people in my life. I’m 45, and I have two kids. I’m trying to make a living. I’m trying to make my way in the world, and I’m tired of people telling me, “No.” So, I was like, “Well, if I can show you all the things…” like, I just haven’t had the chance to make a movie like this in this insane, like, I think my other movies were safe, right? Like, I mean, they were safe relative to this for other reasons.
But I was like, well, I’m gonna plant the flag. I’m gonna fly my freak flag. I’m gonna make something nuts. ‘Cause that’s also an equal part of me. I like crazy. Why not do that? If I don’t do this now, maybe I’ll never get the chance. So here we are, and I’m glad that you find it crazy.
We’ve seen stuff like Terrifier and In A Violent Nature really show that there is this audience that wants gore and kills that are more wild than what the studio horror films will provide. Do you think that there’s kind of an opening because that niche is kind of established now that we can make and distribute these ultraviolent films like Dolly?
Maybe. I mean, it’s interesting. When I first took this movie out, I took it to everybody in Hollywood. I’ve made a couple of big movies, and they were like, “Well, this is too crazy for us. Like, we can’t make this come back to us. Maybe when you finish this, we’ll take a look at it.”
But what I love about independent cinema and independent horror is that people aren’t afraid, right? I think that everything can exist, right? There is ample room for the Hollywood studio movies, which don’t get me wrong. Like I have many of those I want to make, I sold a horror thriller to Amblin years ago that’s set in my hometown, where the protagonist is my mother, and is gonna function very differently. I developed this movie called Night Swim that my friend and I made, but it is a very different tenor of movie. There’s room for it all.
I think what we are seeing, though, is that there’s an audience out there that wants things a little more dangerous, right? Why don’t they deserve a nice dinner? We can all eat at the table, and I’m very excited by that. At the same time, it’d be nice if you didn’t have to kill yourself as an independent filmmaker if there’s more institutional support for it. Because I think you are seeing that there is a large audience for it. I don’t know why that’s happening now, but if it takes a bunch of these other movies and this point in cinematic history for that to happen, I’m grateful to be able to make my contribution.
I wanted to ask you about working with Seann William Scott, because you really put that guy through hell in this film. He just gets increasingly disfigured. It’s disgusting in this film. What made you want to get a big-name actor like Seann and then just ruin that recognizable face of his?
I’m gonna try to not spoil this. I saw a negative review that had a great headline that said something, “Dude, Where’s My Face?” That’s a great headline, even though they didn’t like the film. The truth is, when you make a movie, you call your friends. That’s just what I did here. Seann and I became friends in 2019. He likes many different things. He wants to do many different things. He kind of ended up doing one thing for most of his career so far, but I was like, “Man, I’ve got a role for you.” And he just showed up, right? It was hard, and it sucked. It’s hard to crawl through the woods looking like that with those prosthetics on, and the homie did it. That means a lot to me.
I love the mask design for Dolly. How did you come up with that design? Because dolls just creep me out in general, and you found a good one here.
We worked with this incredible mask fabricator in the UK. Dan Martin, who has worked on all the Ben Wheatley movies, Possessor, and Infinity Pool, and he’s got this 13 Finger FX. He’s got this story genre horror film podcast that people love, and Dan fabricated, brought to life, what we had written.
What Brandon Weavil and I had written came from these important references in our lives and things that had affected us as storytellers. Brandon talked a lot about Tourist Trap. Like for me, it was Child’s Play. It was living in the woods. It was like seeing something that you think looks at you, right? Like, clearly it isn’t an inanimate doll, but it is.
You see something at the right time of day, and you think maybe it’s got some life behind it. At the same time, dolls and the way they exist in this movie are like family, right? So, there’s a whole element here to the house, to this dollhouse, and the familial life that the domestic… domestic sounds very nice and pleasant, but like the setting and there’s this like whole reason for why they’re all here and also why people wear the mask, right? That’s no different if it’s Batman or Halloween. So, Dolly’s mask was kind of born out of all of these influences, [and] the mask comes together the way it does.
I saw you make a post on social media. You really want Stephen King to see this film. What has King’s horror meant to you? I want I want you to pitch him a little bit.
Well, I grew up without a TV and on a gravel road. My parents still live on the gravel road, and I would watch movies when I could at my friend’s house. My parents, we lived a long way from a movie theater. I don’t remember the first movie I saw in theaters, but they were always coming from the local jewelry store in town. The jewelry store also had a hallway of movies you could rent on VHS. So, when I couldn’t watch movies, and I couldn’t invite myself over to a classmate’s house to watch movies, I read, right?
A couple of years ago, when Night Swim came out, I had my mom go back to my childhood bedroom and all my Stephen King books — while a couple are missing — they were still there. I was thinking like, I’m a product of that, right? I’m a product of all those books, and I keep thinking, man, it would be the coolest full-circle life moment to have somebody who had an impact on me, see the work I made, and know that I’m trying my best to make the contributions that they have.
I wanna buy Stephen King two tickets to see my movie on opening weekend because that man has mattered to me. The stories he has told, and the worlds he’s built, have played a big part in my life.
I love that. Let’s will that into existence. My last question for you, it seems like the great Mike Flanagan is doing all of them now, but do you have a dream Stephen King adaptation you’d like to do?
Oh my gosh. Not right now, because Mike Flanagan does have ’em all locked down. I tried to show Mike Flanagan Dolly last year. He was making Carrie in Vancouver. I tried to get him to a screening I had. I don’t know him, but I found his email on the internet because I’m a good sleuth.
Dude, you know what? Everyone else who’s making Stephen King movies has worked long and hard to get to the point to be able to make them. I’m gonna watch all those Mike Flanagan adaptations. At this point, I have many other original stories I want to tell, though, so gimme a call, everybody.
Thanks to Rod Blackhurst for taking the time to speak about Dolly.
Source: Comingsoon.net