Joseph Scrimshaw on Bringing His Minnesota Indie Horror Film to the Masses

Dead Media, the debut feature from Minnesota-born writer/director Joseph Scrimshaw, premiered in October 2025 at Minneapolis’s Parkway Theater. Since then, it has secured a deal for distribution and is returning to Minnesota on August 18 as part of the Bonus Features Tour, a national roadshow that features a Q&A with cast and crew, exclusive merch, and more.

The film—“the story of a troubled young woman, her lonely Gen X uncle, a haunted DVD, and a movie night that won’t die”—was shot entirely on location in Minneapolis, both in Scrimshaw’s father’s home and at the Crane Theater in Northeast Minneapolis. The cast includes James Urbaniak, Bill Corbett, Sammi-Jack Martincak, Sam Landman, and Anna Sundberg.

I caught up with Scrimshaw to talk about distribution with Antenna Releasing, touring the country with the film, and what it feels like to bring Dead Media back home to Minnesota.

Ali Rydberg (TCG): Most movie fans are likely familiar with the kind of production work that goes into getting a film made but may not be aware of the second half of the process, which is getting the film seen. What can you tell us about your experience of getting Dead Media in front of audiences? Has it changed your relationship to the production side of being a writer and director?

Joseph Scrimshaw: I have two strong opinions I developed from years of producing theater. One, that it’s always best to do a project that you deeply believe in artistically. Two, within your list of artistically satisfying ideas, you should try to pick one that has a hook that resonates with other folks.

That said, I had dual emotions when we finished making Dead Media. Artistically, I was really proud that I felt we made something unique. And in terms of marketing, I was suddenly terrified that we made something unique.

But the initial hook of physical media has really paid off. On an artistic level, I was in love with the idea of Dead Media because it was a way to talk about my own complicated relationship with nostalgia and feeling stuck in life. And on a promotional level, the idea of a haunted DVD felt novel. To my knowledge, Dead Media is the world’s first haunted DVD movie. Since I wrote the script back in October of 2023, the passion and advocacy for physical media has really exploded.

On our roadshow tour, we’ve been partnering with different physical media stores and preservation groups to do pop-up stores and mini museums of media. It’s been really great to meet and talk to so many people about why physical media is important. How much we’re missing the tactile in our lives, the third-space community created by video stores, the fun of an at-home movie night digging through endless bonus features.

Those ideas are all central to Dead Media, and lots of folks come to see the film because of that and then get pulled into the story, the characters, the mood, the wrestling with the glory and the pain of nostalgia. So I continue to think that it’s very important to embrace both sides of “showbusiness”—the show being the deeply true, personal, resonant art and the business being the reality of how you’re going to get people excited to see the art.

For my next film, I’m really determined to make it even more unique and personal while also making sure I have a good way to invite people into the art.

Sam Landman as Uncle Heppy Sloke. Antenna Releasing

TCG: What drew you to partnering with Antenna Releasing to distribute the film?

Joseph Scrimshaw: I love Antenna Releasing’s model. They’re a new distribution company that’s really working hard to make things better for indie films. Their pitch for acquiring Dead Media was doing a theatrical roadshow, which we’re currently on and will run through October of this year. Then releasing the film on streaming this fall, and finally doing a physical media release in 2027.

There are lots of great indie films that have got a fantastic response at film festivals and then just go straight to streaming. There’s one film that came out in the last few years that got a ton of buzz online for a week and I never heard anyone speak of it again. It’s just lost in the digital only purgatory of algorithm whims. […] I think a film has to exist in the physical world to truly be resonant and long-lasting. The roadshow screenings are community building. I’ve already made many new friends and have theaters I can’t wait to go back to across the country.

One of the co-owners of Antenna Releasing, Ryan Verrill, also publishes a magazine called The Physical Media Advocate. So under that banner, we made a Dead Media souvenir magazine. It’s got articles about the film, some zine pages from the characters in the movie, and articles about the renaissance of physical media. We’re selling it on the roadshow and it’s been very popular. People want to take a piece of the movie home. Again, so it isn’t just an idea, but a thing you can hold in your hands that contains the experience and emotions.

TCG: Has anything surprised you while being on tour so far? Are you finding that audiences in different parts of the country are relating to the film in different ways?

Joseph Scrimshaw: The subtle audience shift from screening to screening has been really surprising. […] At every screening, I love watching the audience watch the film. When you get a bunch of people in a room, they’re all individuals, but this magic thing happens where they also join into this collective audience.

Dead Media has a lot of ingredients. It’s a horror movie with scary parts. There’s a strong focus on physical media and nostalgia. It’s also a relationship drama, there’s some romance, there are a lot of comedic moments, there are some sad and ambiguous moments where the audience is given the room to interpret exactly what happened. So there are a lot of different ways to take in the film.

It’s fascinating to see audiences move as one and take in the film from a specific perspective. […] One night, the audience loved the comedy, lots of laughs, and in the Q&A afterwards a real focus on the meaning in the comedy. The next night, the audience vibed with the horror and the sad parts. And there was a person in the Q&A who really wanted a specific thing resolved, and we had a nice conversation about that.

I think art is a conversation. The creators get to say something. And in the case of a film, it’s pretty static. The film says what it says. Then audiences get to say something back. It’s been an amazing experience to see how fluid films can be as I wait to see what each audience will “say back” to the film.

Joseph Scrimshaw speaking at the premiere of Dead Media on October 20, 2025. Courtesy of Joseph Scrimshaw

TCG: What does it feel like to bring the film back home to Minnesota while on tour?

Joseph Scrimshaw: I’m so thrilled to bring Dead Media back to Minneapolis. The story is set in Minneapolis. It was filmed in Minneapolis. And the more I get to watch the film with other people, the more I understand how much of it was shaped by my experiences in Minneapolis. […] It’s also great to get to share the film with a lot of the Minnesota cast and crew. In Q&As across the country, people have been asking how I cast the film. And with the exception of two roles, the answer is theater people from Minnesota! I’m really happy to have captured the immense depth of talent in the Twin Cities on film, and it’s great to share that back in Minnesota, too.

The film also contains some scenes of Minneapolis—some iconic spots and some that are just deeply personal to me. When we had the premiere in Minneapolis in October of 2025, folks cheered seeing Minneapolis on screen, and I remember thinking, “You better enjoy this now, because I don’t think people in, say, Seattle are going to cheer for the IDS Center.”

But I had a really special moment at a screening in Los Angeles. A friend told me she was really moved by seeing these sights of Minneapolis even though she’s never been to the Twin Cities. She told me that she’s seen the Twin Cities a lot in the news over the last few years because of the many challenging, difficult times. But the scenes in the movie weren’t about difficult times, they were about a vibrant, exciting city that people clearly loved. And it was moving to her and to me. So all of that will be bouncing around in my soul when we get to screen Dead Media at the Heights.

TCG: What is next for Dead Media after it concludes its tour?

Joseph Scrimshaw: It’s in the contract with Antenna Releasing that there will be a physical media release on Blu-ray and old-school DVD. We’re already planning a deep collection of bonus features. When the roadshow wraps in October, the next thing on my to-do list is creating some of those. So if folks like the film, they should get ready to hunt for Easter eggs.

Antenna Releasing

Dead Media is screening at the Heights Theater at 7:00 p.m. on August 18, 2026, with preshow entertainment, a Q&A with the cast and crew, and more. Tickets are available on the Heights Theater website, and additional tour dates and other information is available from Antenna Releasing.