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Gregory Lamberson Reflects On Making Frenzy Moon, Teases Upcoming Projects
Image Credit: Nancy J. Parisi
The 411 Interview: Gregory Lamberson
Gregory Lamberson is a writer, director, and producer who has been making movies since the late 1980s, starting with the classic horror flick Slime City (1988). Since then, Lamberson has directed such movies as Naked Fear (1999), Slime City Massacre (2010), Dry Bones (2013, he co-directed this with Michael O’Hear), the absolutely fantastic horror comedies Killer Rack (2015) and Johnny Gruesome (the best movie of 2018), the truly unsettling horror flick Widow’s Point (2019) starring modern horror icon Craig Sheffer, and the badass 2022 action flick Guns of Eden (check out my review of that flick here). Lamberson is also an author, responsible for the books Black Creek, Carnage Road, Johnny Gruesome, The Frenzy Wolves, and The Jake Helman Files series. Lamberson is also the director of the Amazing Fantasy Fest film festival, set to enter its third year in 2026. Lamberson’s newest movie is the badass werewolf horror flick Frenzy Moon, released by Uncork’d Entertainment and which is now available to rent or buy on via Video On Demand via Apple TV, Fandango, Google Play, and Amazon Prime Video. In this interview, Lamberson talks with this writer about making Frenzy Moon, how difficult it was to actually make, working with practical special effects, and more.
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Bryan Kristopowitz: How do you think Frenzy Moon turned out?
Gregory Lamberson: It turned out well – good direction, cinematography, music and acting, and a lot of the special effects are fun. I’ve seen it with an audience five times now and it’s played well each time; jokes landed and people reacted to the gore. I made it for 130 grand, about the same amount of money I had for Guns of Eden, which didn’t feature werewolf suits and puppets. So, it’s what I consider a “miracle film,” meaning it shouldn’t even exist when you consider our resources. For perspective, Werewolves (2024) cost 35 times as much and Wolf Man (2025) cost 200 times as much. We obviously don’t have the production value of either of those, but I think it’s more enjoyable than either of them.
BK: Where was Frenzy Moon made?
GL: Clarence, New York, a tony suburb of Buffalo. We shot at the Clarence Nature Center, a former Girl Scouts cabin located in a tiny park behind a wood dump. Watching the film, it seems like that cabin was in the middle of nowhere, but it was right off a main avenue and just around the corner from Main Street, very convenient and 20 minutes from my house instead of 40. I still fell asleep behind the wheel several times driving home. Night shoots are brutal. I need a driver next time.
BK: How did you cast Frenzy Moon?
GL: I went to a number of plays and visited other film sets. I don’t do the typical casting call auditions because I want to see actors interacting with others. I did a damned good job casting this one. Of the principal seven cast members, I had worked with Gabrielle Nunzio on Unbillievable! The Movie (2023), a comedy which is out now; observed Alyssa Grace Adams on the set of another film; and cast Kayla Malika Walker and Harold Jacobs on Alyssa’s recommendations. I saw Aaron Krygier, Jacob Applegate and Steven Maiseke in plays. And, of course, I knew our guest stars, KateLynn E. Newberry and Chad Ridgely, and was lucky they were available. I need to work with both of them again.
BK: The soundtrack for Frenzy Moon is fantastic. Describe your working relationship with composer Armand John Petri.
GL: I send Armand the script, but that doesn’t really seem to trigger anything. We may have a few conversations in which I reference film scores I think would be appropriate for whatever film we’re working on. Then he visits the set and seeing the actors working usually inspires him. We do a spotting session like any director and composer, which is when we get into specifics. Then we tinker with what he comes up with. It’s all pretty painless, which is how it goes when you work with a pro, and that’s what he is. His scores are unique and he contributes a lot to each project.
BK: What was the hardest part of making Frenzy Moon for you, as a director? What was the easiest?
GL: Working in the time frame we had was the biggest challenge. There’s never enough time on independent films, and practical effects monster movies are even worse, just ridiculous. I wanted four times the budget I had to make this and tried to make up for the shortage by cutting shooting days. I’m never doing another film with this kind of shooting schedule again. I know people who are proud to have shot features or verticals in only 8 days, and I think, what’s the point if there’s not even a chance you can do your best work? Everything is a compromise on a 15-day shoot. Shooting fog in October was also very difficult, because the wind kept blowing it away. We’d start shooting and the wind would suddenly change direction in the middle of a take. There’s a daytime sequence with Steven and Kayla driving through the woods, which are just blanketed in fog the whole time they’re driving, and I can’t believe we achieved that.
The easiest part was working with the cast. We had a couple of days for light rehearsal, and it was nice to have them all together on set for filming at the same time, instead of shooting their scenes piecemeal. And my camera team. I mean, Chris Cosgrave, my cinematographer, and Alex Frank, my camera operator, did amazing work; look at the lighting in that climax!
BK: Was it difficult working with practical effects?
GL: Always. They take forever to set up, and then they don’t work or they break and you have to wait while the effects guys repair the damage. I had to adapt a lot of my plans, and don’t know too many people who could completely reconfigure a big action sequence on the fly. And the pickups went on and on. But that’s the nature of the beast. If you don’t want to deal with problematic effects, make a rom-com or a Christmas movie. I wanted to make a practical effects werewolf movie and I did: two suits, one rod puppet, one hand puppet – four different looks – and a whole lot of werewolves at the end.
BK: How long did it take to make Frenzy Moon, from finishing the script to completing post-production?
GL: Well, I wrote during pre-production for Widow’s Point, seven or eight years before shooting. But, from the time I committed to making the movie, meaning I decided I was going to crowdfund it for much less than I needed, to the delivery of the unfinished film to the distributor, less than a year and a half passed, so pretty damn fast. In terms of shooting, we had one day for the opening sequence with KateLynn and Chad, then 15 days for principal photography… and then we added a day. And then we added a bunch of pickup days to re-do special effects. And then we added the second sequence in the film, with the hunters. And then we shot Chad again. Two hours here, a half-day there. It probably ended up being 20 days total with the hours added up. But 20 cumulative days isn’t the same as having a 20-day schedule. Give me 20 days and then add a couple of pickup days!
BK: Do you have a favorite scene or sequence in Frenzy Moon?
GL: I like The Thing (1982) sequence, when Gavin the hunter tests the college students to see who might be a werewolf, but others have told me they think the outhouse sequence is the best thing I’ve done, and clearly the ending works with all that siege action. There’s a lot of good stuff in there.
BK: Will there be a physical media release for Frenzy Moon in the future?
GL: I’m told yes, probably at the beginning of the new year, but anything can change and usually does.
BK: Any upcoming projects you can tell us about?
GL: I’m giving you the exclusive! I’m leaning heavily into action for three projects I’m developing. I have two finished scripts I could start prep on today if I had the money, and a third one I’m writing. One is a vampire film I wrote called Blood Heretics – very bloody with a lot of action. Another is an action-thriller in the survival horror mold called Dealy Rites, written by a longtime friend of mine, Ed Walloga. And the third is a vigilante-revenge film I’d rather not name because it has a great title. In a perfect world, I’d raise money to shoot all three of them within a year-and-a-half period, but this world sure isn’t perfect. I aim to shoot one of these this summer.
BK: What do you hope audiences get out of Frenzy Moon?
GL: Just to have a good time for 80 minutes. It’s an unpretentious little monster movie straight out of the 70s and 80s. Anyone going into this expecting The Conjuring (2013) is pissing on the wrong tree.
BK: Any interest in a potential Frenzy Moon sequel of some sort?
GL: Not really. If you look at my body of work, I never repeat myself. Slime City Massacre (2010) may be a sequel, but it’s a wildly different film than Slime City. If my distributor or investors said, “Let’s do another one!” I would say, “If you give me twice the budget I had on this one, I’m ready” – and it would still be a micro-budget film. There are three different ways I could go with a sequel, but I’m not writing a script unless there’s a reason to. I have three great projects to choose from next.
BK: Besides Frenzy Moon, what’s your favorite werewolf movie?
GL: No surprise here: I love An American Werewolf in London (1981) and The Howling (1981) equally, and Ginger Snaps (2000), Bad Moon (1996) and Dog Soldiers (2002) are right up there.
BK: What happened to that outhouse?
GL: That outhouse was a symbol of the production. I paid a production designer $500 to design it and start building it, and the POS ran off with my money two weeks before shooting. Keith Lukowski, one of my co-producers, had to step in as production designer and build that thing. Throughout the shoot we had to stand it up and lay it down on the ground, depending on where we were in the script. It was big and heavy, and it took four people to bring it down. Then we disassembled it after principal photography and took it to Keith’s house, where we re-assembled it to shoot most of that outhouse sequence with Alyssa one week later. The very next day Keith took it apart and had people come take the wood away just to make sure we were finished… and then we had to go back to the cabin a couple more times anyway. At one point I asked Keith if he still had the wood, because I was thinking of one more shot…
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A very special thanks to Gregory Lamberson for agreeing to participate in this interview.
Frenzy Moon is now available to rent or buy on via Video On Demand via Apple TV, Fandango, Google Play, and Amazon Prime Video!
Check out my review of Frenzy Moon here!
Check out my Frenzy Moon set visit report here!
Check out Gregory Lamberson’s Facebook page here!
Check out Gregory Lamberson’s official website here!
The Gregory Lamberson headshot and Bearded Man image courtesy of Gregory Lamberson. The Frenzy Moon poster image courtesy of Uncork’d Entertainment. The werewolf claw image courtesy of Chris Cosgrave. The female vampires image courtesy of Stephen Gilliam. All other images courtesy of Nancy J. Parisi.
