Cassie Hager
In The Civil Dead, Clay (Clay Tatum) is a photographer whose mundane daily grind is proving detrimental to his mental health. Little does he know, his sanity (and patience) is about to be tested thanks to a chance encounter with his old friend Whit (Whitmer Thomas.) The film premiered at the 2022 Slamdance Film Festival, where it won the audience award. Ahead of its wide release on VOD, Film Obsessive chatted with Clay Tatum and Whitmer Thomas about their friendship, how they found their voices in comedy, and the interesting moral dilemma posed in The Civil Dead.
Cassie: First things first: how did you two meet?
Whitmer: We grew up in Gulf Shores, Alabama, and we had homeroom together. It was just kind of a lucky situation that both our last names are close in the alphabet. We both found out we liked skating and took it from there. There really weren’t a lot of skater kids in Alabama, so we sat next to each other in homeroom and the rest is history.
Cassie: How did you start making movies?
Clay: We actually started off playing in bands. We had a punk band in high school, and we were just really into music at that point. We also started making skating videos, since I was really into filming. At the same time we were getting burnt out with music, we both wound up hurting ourselves really badly while skating. Even though we couldn’t skate for a while, we still really wanted to make videos. I think that’s where the first inkling of wanting to make videos outside of skating came about.
Whitmer: We were so naive about it, too. We would make little short films and wouldn’t even upload them onto YouTube or submit them anywhere. Some of them, looking back, weren’t even that bad for a couple of 18 and 19-year-olds. When we were playing in a band in L.A., we started going to comedy shows. Eventually we just stopped playing music and that band we had became a sketch group called Power Violence. We made sketches for years and around 2015 we started making short films.
Clay: We were also getting burnt out on comedy videos, too. We were trying to get back to the original idea we had when we came out to L.A., which was to make movies.
Cassie: So even though you are known for comedy, you didn’t set out to make comedy?
Clay: We came out here because we wanted to make movies like Gus Van Sant. That was our goal. But every time we made something we were proud of, it just so happened to be comedy-forward.
Cassie: There are shades of drama in your newest film, The Civil Dead. Are non-comedic films still the dream?
Clay: Whenever we make something we’re not, like, setting out to make the best comedy we can. We just want to make a movie that is interesting. I think we are conditioned to go for jokes, just because we have been in comedy for so long.
Whitmer: I think some of the heaviest movies ever made are also the funniest. I don’t feel like we are putting pressure on ourselves to have a laugh a minute.
Clay: Sometimes we do, though. I think it’s a subconscious thing. When we go too long in a script without a joke, we will try to get a laugh in there.
Cassie: The Civil Dead has been playing at festivals across the country. How has the reaction been?
Clay: The reaction has been really good. We notice that people in different areas laugh at different parts. Like, people in the south laugh at different scenes than people in coastal areas.
Whitmer: The south I think laughs at a broader number of things. Southerners will laugh at, like, Clay just pissing in the toilet while he’s talking on the phone. Which I think is great.
Cassie: Without giving too much away, there’s a dilemma posed in The Civil Dead: How far would you go to help out a pal with a very… unique problem. How do you think you’d handle that in real life?
Clay: I would like to believe that I would do everything I could to accommodate this person. But there is a part of me that questions how generous I would be, knowing whatever I do, there would be no real repercussions. That idea for me was really interesting, because that moral dilemma was not super clear cut. Like… what would I do? The fact that I’m even questioning how nice I would be is what made the story worth writing.
Whitmer: I think Clay in real life would be less confrontational. He would probably be really nice. But I think the conclusion would still be the same.
The Civil Dead releases everywhere on VOD February 17.
