“Tales From the Void” – Directors John Adams & Toby Poser Talk Nature and Creepy Dolls [Interview]

Popular r/NoSleep story “Betsy The Doll” by Rebecca Klingel gets brought to life this Sunday in “Tales From the Void” episode “Plastic Smile,” a creepy doll tale helmed by John Adams & Toby Poser (Hell Hole).

It’s the penultimate episode of the anthology series that debuted exclusively on SCREAMBOX every Sunday between October 13 and October 27. The episodes will also be available to buy or rent via electronic sell-through platforms the following Tuesday. 

The directors spoke with Bloody Disgusting about what to expect from the episode.

Poser shares, “Plastic Smile’s about a girl, her doll, and the woods she’s drawn to as an escape from her brutal home life with a drug-addict mom. It’s absolutely raw, like an open sore, but it’s also powerful because of the hope that resides within this girl, especially the actress we got to play, the young Abigail, who is just like, oh my God, she’s like Superwoman. That’s the gist of the story.”

Adams elaborates on the effusive praise for the episode’s young star, using the quick production turnaround as an example of her maturity and talents. He tells us, “Bea, that’s her name. Beatrice Schneider. We’re always like, ‘Bea, do this, Bea.’ One of my favorite things about working with this kid was, at one point, it was day four, so we had to shoot really fast. We had to get a ton of stuff. The kid moved so quickly, the crew moved so quickly, and everybody was on fire. Nailing really artistic stuff. We love trying to make it already, not just technical, over the shoulder, over the shoulder, over the shoulder, wide. We were busting everybody’s stones racing through this stuff. And then, finally, we’re running out of time. I was like, ‘Bea, just direct yourself through this one.’ She said, ‘Okay.’”

Schneider isn’t the only star in “Plastic Smile.” The episode also features an Adams Family staple: nature. “Nature’s so great because it’s filled with unknown magic, like always,” Adams says. “That’s why we love filming in nature; it just brings to it all this unknown magic. There is a ton of unknown magic in this short little tale. We also love darkness latching itself onto innocence.”

As for why nature is such a mainstay in the filmmakers’ work, Poser answers, “It’s just a constant. Nature is always our favorite place to shoot. Even with the limitations here of roads nearby and light changing. It was exciting. Then they put some fog in there, and then Scott puts up some lights and it was just like, done.”

“The nice thing about nature is she always shows up, and she’s always right,” Adams agrees.

The episode also continues the series’ knack for starting conversations, specifically in the moral conundrums the stories introduce. That, of course, was part of the appeal for Adams and Poser. “Plastic Smile“ deals with broken homes through a horror lens.

“It’s cool too that the genesis of this story was as the spoken word, on the podcast,“ Poser says of the episode’s origins. “So, it makes sense that even with the way we’re telling it visually, people would still talk about it. In this case, it says a lot about families, extremely broken ones, which we’re kind of compelled to tell these stories. Because all families, even the most perfect-looking ones, have serious cracks. I mean, this one, crack might be the key word here because this mother is deeply flawed.”

Adams explains, “I think what we gravitate to with when we read the script is it’s not, well, we don’t love black and white. We never have an antagonist, and we never have a protagonist. In my mind, there’s no antagonist or protagonist in this. That’s where the conversation lies, which is this kid and how she deals with everything between heaven and hell. Not heaven and hell, because we’re all here between heaven and hell. It’s complicated. We all make decisions based on the exceptionally real factors that are hitting us, and then there are consequences. When we read it, I had all these questions. I thought, ‘Wait a minute, I’m not sure what just happened.‘ Which became, ‘Oh, we have to do that because that’s what’s fun.‘”

Poser is excited for audiences to see the episode, summarizing her experience making it. “It really felt like a beautiful dance macabre with this dark, dark, dark material, brutal setting,“ Poser shares. “Yet I have to say that there was these little shards of light. Now, whether those lights dim out, I’m not, I’ll leave to the watcher.

“But it was beautiful, and it was really fun.”