Lock your doors, check the backseat of your car and don’t walk alone. There’s a new terror hitting the screen, as CSUN alumnus Jermey Ashley Pair debuts his first feature film, “Meathook.”
“Meathook” has screened at film festivals across the country, winning Best Horror Feature Film at the Golden State Film Festival in February at the TCL Chinese Theatre. It also showed at the Days of the Dead Film Festival in Indianapolis, Tucson TerrorFest and the Chicago Horror Film Festival, where directors including Jennifer Reeder of “V/H/S 94” also screened new work. Ashley is in negotiations to debut his film on streaming services in April. The festivals, he said, offered amazing opportunities to connect with other passionate filmmakers.
Pair, known professionally as Jermey Ashley, wrote and directed “Meathook.” The horror-comedy slasher film tells the tale of a killer who returns to kill a woman who initially escaped from him. Ashley ’17 (Cinema and Television Arts) based his movie on the question: What happens to the “final girl” — the horror movie trope of a single female character who survives to the end of a film — after the original incident? And, where does she go from there? Flashbacks throughout the movie reveal the events of the initial killings.
“It’s really great to be able to convene with all these fans and filmmakers who have the same love and appreciation for these types of stories and characters that I do,” Ashley said. “There are so many great films out there that don’t get a chance to be seen.”
Ashley was drawn to CSUN to study filmmaking in the Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication, and he learned through hands-on experience, he said. That included making films in his classes and working as a technical assistant at the ARRI Resource Center, where CTVA students can reserve industry-standard equipment. Ashley worked on several student films, including his senior film, “Golden Age.”
His Matador connections have lasted well past graduation — including several CSUN film alumni listed in the “Meathook” credits, such as sound mixer Brain Gobuty ‘17, editor Dylan England ‘18 and producer Estella Robinson ‘15, M.S. ‘19.
“The most important thing [in filmmaking] is collaboration,” Ashley said. “It’s such a collaborative medium with dozens, hundreds, if not thousands of people that work on these things. At CSUN, I learned to lay the framework for a fruitful collaboration where everyone has a say in the film.”
Ashley has been fascinated by the horror genre for as long as he can remember, and he was inspired to make his own by movies such as “Alien” and “Scream,” he said. He was drawn to filmmaking after his mom brought home a used camcorder when he was a child. There is comfort in scary films despite the horror, Ashley said — when the audience and characters have to face their fears, the movies show that good can triumph over evil.
“As a boy, I remember being deathly afraid of walking down the horror aisle at the local video store, doing my best to avoid all the terrifying covers of these horror movies staring at me,” he said. “Part of my love of the genre stems from that desire to overcome my fears.”
After CSUN, Ashley interned at Ghosthouse Productions, the production company of acclaimed filmmaker Sam Raimi, who made the “Evil Dead” movies, among other classics. While at Ghosthouse Productions, Ashley worked with the director of development and got to learn and get hands-on experience with the ins-and-outs of the early stages of making movies and trying to get those initial ideas off the ground. Ashley currently works as a teacher’s assistant at the New York Film Academy in Burbank, where he helps mentor aspiring film students.
Ashley has been working on “Meathook” since 2020 and had a very low budget for the film, in the range of $20,000 to $30,000, which came from a fundraising campaign on a crowdfunding website called Seed & Spark, along with funds donated by family and friends and money from Ashley’s own pockets. The film’s low budget led to a lot of creative problem-solving, such as using his own house as one of the main locations, and creating cost-effective gore effects.
The planning and responsibilities for his first feature film were daunting, he said. However, Ashley noted, he tried to use the resources he had to their full advantage: timing the score, lighting to set the mood, lenses for the right shot.
The skills and connections he gained at CSUN gave him the courage to step into the film industry, Ashley said.
“I knew no one was going to just show up at my door and offer me the chance to direct a feature,” he said. “So, I had to take a leap of faith and create that opportunity myself — with minimal resources and barely any money. I leaned on relationships I had formed in the halls of Manzanita [Hall] at CSUN, pulling together a team of people who believed in my vision and were willing to make it happen.”
Comments are closed.