Luke Paron On Making Horror Short Arachnid With Killer Kelly

Killer Kelly starred in Luke Paron’s horror short Arachnid, and the writer-director recently spoke about working with her on the film. The short film also features Matthew Rehwoldt, and Paron spoke with Cultaholic Wrestling about developing the film, working with Kelly and more. You can see highlights below, per Fightful:

On developing the film: “The original concept was born in 2019. I was fresh out of high school, and I never went to secondary or film school or anything like that. My whole life, all I wanted to do was make films so I write constantly. I thought, what is something that I could write that’s short, to the point, and effective that’s really just out there and will push my boundaries as a creator and be something that I was proud to write. So I wrote this film in 2019, explored some options with it and then COVID hit. I was doing some pre-production, very loose development on it but never taking it seriously. I kind of put it on the back burner and then COVID hit, which kind of put my filmmaking dreams to the side and then I found my way with joining TNA.

on working with Kelly: “Through that, me and Kelly began a working relationship with each other. Arachnid has been left on the back burner, I just wrote it and started it and never really thought about it again. Killer Kelly posted this photo shoot that she had done just covered in blood and I messaged her and said, ‘Someone has got to put you in a horror movie. She said, ‘I know, it’s my dream to be in one.’ I said, ‘It’s my dream to make one.’ At the exact same time, it kind of hit us and we were like, ‘Wait a minute.’”

On re-writing the script: “I took the idea to my brother who’s a film school graduate and my cousin who’s in film school. I said, ‘Do you guys think we could do this, do you think we could pull it off?’ They said I should go for it. I had a moment when I realized it’s kind of now or never. I have a lot of freedom in my life right now. My schedule’s clear and it’s post COVID and everyone’s kinda excited. 20 minutes after me and Kelly had that interaction, I came back to her and said, ‘I’ve got an idea, let me flesh it out.’ I couldn’t find the script from 2019 so I re-wrote it based of memory and kind of fleshed it out. Thank god I did, because I eventually found the 2019 script and it was a lot more kind of immature and leaning into some of the things that the film is critiquing and is about.”