Eli Roth loves horror and he wants the world to know it with his new app, ‘The Crypt.’ The social horror app — which soft launched in December, but officially launches today — is available for free in the iTunes store, and will allow horror fans all over the world to share… Well, everything. As long as it’s scary.
“We wanted to create that one app that would be ground zero for horror,” Roth told us over in the phone in advance of the app’s official release. “I wanted a place where aspiring filmmakers, artists and people with an interest in horror could have that mobile horror experience, which I don’t think anyone has created yet.”
The app isn’t just a place to rate and create original horror content; it’s also a hub that connects to other non-horror focused social media outlets, from Instagram, to Tumblr, to Twitter and more. Rather than just posting a horror video on YouTube and hoping the right people see it, this is a way of directing the content to the right people in the right way.
“It’s a strange thing to love horror, because nobody wants to say, ‘Oh, I love watching people’s heads get chopped off,’ ” Roth continued. “The in person experience is going to a convention, and part of the fun of it, as you’re connecting with the people who have the same interest for all this weird stuff… We’ve been able to build experience for horror fans that are global to have a horror convention in your hand.”
Possibly even scarier than the short films on the app, though, is the idea of trying to tackle making one yourself. But Roth has some advice on that front.
“I was doing it with a clunky VHS camera back in the day and using two VCRs to edit them,” Roth said. “But now with iPhones, footage looks incredible.”
Beyond booting up the ol’ iMovie and making your own short, there’s one other key ingredient to a successful horror Vine: make it fresh.
“I think originality is the key,” Roth added. “We’ve all watched those videos where someone does a really cool kill, and if you’ve seen it before, it’s a very good imitation… But there’s nothing quite like the first time you saw ‘Paranormal Activity,’ that feeling you think you know what’s coming but it gets you in a way you don’t expect. An idea will win if it’s really clever and original.”
And because you’re not slaving over two hot VCRs, Roth adds that potential horror directors can be far more experimental: “People can also test stuff out on their friends very easily and see what’s working and if they don’t get a response just delete it; it’s not a big deal.”
When ‘The Crypt’ launches today, it will include all of the above features, and a fan-base already several thousand strong who have been using and utilizing the app since it soft-launched at the end of 2013. But it will also have one new user: Eli Roth.
“We’ll have my student film ‘Restaurant Dogs,’ which has never been released anywhere because I tried to violate as many copyright laws as I could in 10 minutes,” Roth said laughing. “My professors almost didn’t graduate me because it was 10 minutes of insane, Monty Python violence. I’m taking some of the best kills, which I’ve never shown anyone before for 20 years, and I’m putting up there on the app for everyone to make fun of.”
You can download The Crypt for free now on iTunes.
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