Alex Phillip’s sophomore feature, Anything that Moves, has been making the festival rounds these last few months and is now making its theatrical runs with recent screenings at Alamo Drafthouse and upcoming screenings at Hyperreal in Austin on February 16 and Brain Dead in Los Angeles on February 20.

While thematically and tonally different from his first feature, All Jacked Up and Full of Worms (2022), director Alex Phillips continues to create some of the more surreal indie horror films around. While Anything that Moves plays off of giallo and grindhouse genre films of the 70s, there is a unique warmth that Phillips brings along with all the blood and sex.

Ghouls Magazine sat down with Alex for a little while about the film and discussed how he balanced emotional depth with “good old-fashioned schlock” in this twisty erotic thriller.

I feel like your films play with a lot of different genres, but one thing that stuck out to me was the giallo vibes. I was curious if there were some specific films or filmmakers, either visually or thematically, that were inspirations?

I think the filmmaker who drew me to the genre was probably Fulci. Don't Torture a Duckling (1972) and The New York Ripper (1982) are a part of my film education, and they kind of blow my mind. Not just visually, but in terms of storytelling, how they poetically and also crazily weave between scenes. Like going back in time and telling us about characters in a dream sequence, and they are just free-wheeling the feel of a piece, but are totally chaotic. I think it's really cool how they use and play with the camera, music, and deal with just taboo subjects like sex, violence, and all the fun shit. That's why I love giallo. I was talking about A Bay of Blood (1971) a lot recently, where it's a very contained world that also goes outside the bounds of what you think a small movie can do. And I think that's important when you're making a low-budget film, being adventurous with the constraints of your budget.

So obviously, there's a lot of sex in this film. How did you approach handling the intimacy on set with your actors?

The idea of the movie began with a sex worker who is going to have sex with a lot of people. I wanted to create a character that cuts through judgment, bullshit, and can give people what they need, no matter what. Which I think is something we need in the world right now. Where there's a lot of puritanical judgment from the right, and then also a lot of fear around sex and intimacy and eroticism. There's a lot of playing it safe with the kind of movies and art that's put out right now. And I think part of the duty of making a low-budget film is being adventurous and pushing boundaries.

All that said, I approached working with the actors with total communication and tried to be as transparent as possible about what I expected from the beginning. I didn't want to have to show up on a day on set and have to convince someone to do something; I wanted them to be on board all the way. And then I found great collaborators in everyone involved. Hal [Baum] was so down for everything all the time. And Gianna was also a real presence in terms of communicating what she was comfortable with on any given day.

And working with Jade [Perry] and Ginger [Lynn] who were not just showing up to be our porn star gets, but like, they showed up as real forces of nature, on screen, but then also on set, relating to Hal [Baum] or relating to Maxton [Koc]. Like in the van with Nina, she was very encouraging, and also talked a lot about her experiences in working in the porn industry. They were very effusive and commanding in the rooms, so it was cool to have them. But because we were such a small set, flexibility and dealing with what people needed on the day to day was how we got through it. And lots of rehearsal and lots of blocking. None of it was like, we're just gonna feel this out and improvise.

I love the idea of the scene in the van, but then she really does command the space.

Hell yeah. That's kind of her whole personality. And also the kind of output in terms of her porn is like, she's kind of a DOM in everything. She's also a vocal activist and educator in sex positivity and helping people get off and all that stuff, that's awesome.

I wanted to talk a little bit about how your films showcase sex workers. And I feel like you had mentioned this a little bit, but it felt like you were approaching sex work as community service in a way. How did you approach focusing and representing the sex work community in your film?

When I was in pre-production, I did reach out to sex workers and got them involved, trying to get multiple perspectives on what I was doing. At the same time, like, this is absolutely not like a realistic film. I’m not trying to accurately represent sex work. I'm trying to represent what radical empathy looks like and what a fairy tale person would be like if they're gonna reach all these people. I was trying to come up with a character that could do the impossible, which is make people feel seen, understood, whole, and almost a biblical physical act of sex. Ultimately, we need more than that.

The characters in your film feel really complex and fleshed out, especially Liam. I was wondering if you could talk about your process of crafting the characters and then directing your actors on set?

I wrote that character for Hal specifically. I had been wanting to work with him on my last feature, and it didn't work out because he didn't want to eat a bunch of worms. But then he watched it, and he was like, “hell, yeah, I'll do whatever you want,” which was the best thing you could hear from anyone, especially if you are going to go into making a movie. He's like a bald singer-songwriter who does comics and stuff. I've seen him do stuff on stage, and he’s totally magnetic, so I thought he was perfect for this character. Also, it's easy to then see him face danger. Someone who's totally open to the world can easily run into the wrong kinds of people to exploit or hurt him.

It was completely scripted, I really didn't like people improvising. But what I do is shoot it in the way where, the camera is always moving. I shoot the scene within the space and have long takes that I can then cut up, which then gives the movie this lived in, kind of chaotic feel where we would shoot an entire three pages all in one shot. And so then that gives the actors a lot of opportunity to live in the space and play off of each other, as opposed to setting up a shot and then a reverse. They're actually physically interacting and moving through the space. It becomes sort of theatrical, which I think gives it that kinetic energy as well.

What is your editing process like? The film feels so chaotic and crazy, but there has to be a method to the madness.

It's hard to say, because editing this was kind of a fugue state situation, which I think is maybe the best thing. When it's rhythmic, you're finding the right beat in the right moment to change the shot. It’s all about establishing the physical space, who/where people are in relation to each other, and unveiling moments of the story over time. But then the shots that Hunter [Zimny] (Cinematographer) gave me made it so that, because there is so much movement, any sort of lens flare or focus is a great cutting point to move the next thing. So that's kind of what gives it that chaos.

Anything That Moves (2025) horror film interview - poster

One thing that I love is that this really fits perfectly into the erotic thriller genre, which is something that I feel like has slowly had a comeback in recent years. So what drew you to the erotic thriller genre?

I love the erotic thriller genre, and I love 90s sleaze so much. We watched a lot of stuff in preparation for this, like Cruising (1980), which was a huge one, and Wild Things (1998) and The Last Seduction (1994). Neo noir was also one of the major influences on this; everything in my head is kind of noir, which is why we have all this, sort of, contrasting colors, and then also these cop characters. When you take Neo Noir, and you run into a serial killer with a knife, and you get all this horny stuff, then it enters the erotic thriller.

You worked with Vinegar Syndrome for this film. What was it like collaborating with them?

So the story of how this movie got made with them was on the heels of All Jacked Up and Full of Worms when it premiered at Fantasia. I pitched this movie to Liane Cunje, who was with Vinegar Syndrome, and then she took it to them, so I was able to pitch it again at Fantastic Fest. And the Vinegar Syndrome came in, and they were like, “We'll read the script.” Then I pitched it to them, and they were like, “This is crazy. Why does this feel like a dream? This kind of reminds us of The Long Goodbye (1973) and stuff like that.” And I was like, hell yeah, you guys get it, and so they trusted me to make this movie. There wasn't any pushback or any notes; it was all just like, do what you set out to do. They set us up really well with the film stock and the processing. This is my first time with assistant editing help, as in, they synced all the footage, which I thought was going to be a nightmare because we don't have time code. It was like I was living the life of luxury, which was nice.

I'm assuming, and please correct me if you feel like I'm wrong, but your work isn't for everyone. So how do you stay motivated and true to yourself and your vision, like when you know you're creating something that isn't necessarily going to be beloved by everyone?

I've found my audience purely by accident, kind of grassroots, because I've always been this way. I've always written weird shit, put on weird plays, made weird little movies, like I've done this since I was a kid. So I've had basically every reaction under the sun in terms of, why are you doing this, and what's wrong with you? And I just wanted to do it. It was the only thing that felt good. So that's why I kept doing it. And now that I do, some people are not gonna like it, but the fact that there is an audience for it, that has found it, is so encouraging. It's by no means an enormous audience, but I feel blessed that there are people who come to the movie, are engaging with it, taking it seriously, and loving it. And also to have all these collaborators who are amazing artists and equally as enthusiastic about the project is such a huge honour.

I had watched an interview with you where you were talking about the film coming from your experience as a bike delivery person, and you said something that I really liked, which was the inspiration being “open and loving in an inhospitable world”, which really resonates. How do you approach this in your life, and in your work, in a world that feels increasingly inhospitable?

Not to sound too self-help, but just approaching people with kindness is the number one thing. You can approach art, collaborating, and everyday interaction with a preconceived notion about someone, or with your guard up. The best way to make the best work is to let other people in. I think about my growth, in making movies, it's very easy to have an ego or be afraid of other people's input because you want the whole thing. You read about Stanley Kubrick being the ultimate auteur who's going to do a million takes, and everything's going to be perfection. That's just not the game for low-budget filmmaking. We need everybody on board, and you need everybody to be in more than 100%. I think if you can apply that to life, let people in and work together.

I have one silly one I wanted to ask, which was just who drew all of the beautiful dicks on the dollar bills?

This is a great artist in Chicago, Joshua Rains. He made these beautiful, horny cock dollars. They weren't in the script until I saw them. And then I was like, this has got to be the serial killer's signature. It was cool to then be able to take them and work them into the credit sequence. It was because of this guy, Martin Guitar, who did the optical effects for it. He has this handmade motorised rig with a camera and this lens setup that moves things around.

Do you have anything lined up, or anything you're hopeful to work on soon?

I'm almost done with this script for this sci-fi horror about this telepathic pig that gets discovered on this distant planet that fucks with this spaceship, and it's kind of like a love story between this crazy guy and this telepathic pig.

If you are interested in checking out Anything That Moves look for these upcoming screenings happening in the US:

February 28th through March 1- Circle Cinema in Tulsa on 35mm
March 10- The Music Box in Chicago on 35mm with an in person appearance from Alex Phillips
March 21- Arkadin Cinema in St. Louis on March 21st with an in person appearance from Alex Phillips

The film will be in 35+ theaters across North America so find a screening near you!