A Brief Interview with Duncan Birmingham

In the past few years, you've released your debut story collection The Cult in My Garage and your debut feature film Who Invited Them (one of my favorite movies of 2022). Do you find yourself gravitating more toward fiction writing or screenwriting lately? 

Thank you for saying that. Making a movie and birthing a book are both hard so I tend to gravitate towards the path of least resistance. Although every path seems to be equally resistant nowadays. I'm working on a second feature and second book now. It's like the race between the tortoise and another tortoise. 

Who Invited Them is very popular in Germany. Did that come as a surprise to you and any thoughts on why it has such a following there?

Who Invited Them is like the David Hasselhoff of indie dark comedy horror films over there. Or at least that's what I like to think. But this really cool Blu-ray for the film was released over there and I'm still waiting for it to come out on physical media here. There's probably an obvious reason for this that has to do with marketing and foreign sales that I don't understand.

Thanksgiving is coming up. What are you thankful for this year and/or what’s your favorite dish?  

I'm thankful for my health, for the reopened Vista theatre in my neighborhood and for matcha tea which is helping me wean myself off an out of control coffee addiction. Honestly, I'm not that crazy about traditional Thanksgiving food -- I want to skip right to the pies. It's challenging but I try to save room for the pies.