Scottsdale director's horror film 'The Vindicator' gives podcasters a taste of their own medicine

In the new horror film “The Vindicator,” a group of friends host a true-crime podcast that profiles serial killers. In the opening scene, they’re wrapping up an episode about a murderer who goes by — you guessed it — The Vindicator.

He’s killed 49 people, one in every state — except Arizona.

And as the episode is wrapping up, one of the co-hosts, a woman named Ava, makes an announcement — the Grand Canyon state is exactly where they're going.

And that’s not all, Ava says. Not only are they going to broadcast from the state where the Vindicator is most likely to commit his next crime. Ava thinks she might have made a major discovery about the case.

The podcasters do indeed travel to Arizona, where their podcast taping goes very, very wrong.

“The Vindicator” recently premiered on Apple TV and Amazon Prime, and it’s the first feature film by Scottsdale writer and director Luca Patruno. The Show recently caught up with Patruno about what he was hoping to capture with the story.

Full conversation

SAM DINGMAN: OK, so my first question for you, Luca, is this movie is rough on podcasters.

Let's talk about our three principal podcasters. We have Ava, Bradley and Tommy. And what's interesting is Ava, Bradley and Tommy, they don't just have this relationship as podcasters. There are also these personal relationships. Bradley and Ava are in a relationship.

And actually, from the very first scene, we get the sense that Ava and the other guy, Tommy, they're close in, like, a different way. We don't really know the details, although we find out more as the film goes on. Talk about coming up with them as characters and sketching out that relationship dynamic.

LUCA PATRUNO: Yeah, so with. With Ava, we really wanted to create this kind of almost go-getter character and that the justify or the ends justify the means. And, you know, everything is about this project. Everything is about this episode, this. And so I really wanted to see her character just kind of take that to the level that I know if I've seen in filmmakers and in myself of just like, nothing else comes first, and you kind of hope you win at the end.

And then with the other characters, yeah, it was a lot about building, like, with the Bradley character, it's like yes, it's her boyfriend outside of it, but really wanted to showcase, people, even if you've known them for a while, have, like, intimate relationships or friendships with them, it's, you don't really know everything about them.

And kind of once you get put in a position that you have to, like, learn a little bit more about people, that's, I think, really where the horror of the movie comes. Yes, they're in a kind of a scary situation with a killer around, but the real horror is, like, inside, like, with them and what can come out of each of them.

DINGMAN: Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, in the vein of all this, one of the other things it felt to me like you were exploring is the performativity that's kind of inherent in podcasting. Because it has this reputation as, like, an informal, conversational way of communicating.

But one of the things that you show in the film, which I really appreciate it, is there's a couple sequences where you see Ava and Tommy trying to have a little exchange, you know, about whatever crime they're discussing. And then one of them has, like, a verbal stumble. So they just redo the conversation in the moment. 'Cause they know they'll be able to edit out the verbal stumble.

[AUDIO CLIP PLAYS]

Which to me was like, oh, that's exactly what happens when you are podcasting, or when you're recording a radio interview, you know, in advance, before it's going to air. And it kind of nods at this idea that you think you're, you have this totally authentic relationship with the hosts of a show, but you don't. They're curating it.

PATRUNO: It's actually funny, in the podcast sequence, when that happens, that's actually the actor just messing up his line.

DINGMAN: Oh, interesting.

PATRUNO: Yeah. And the, him and Anna, who plays Ava, like, they just had such great chemistry that they just played it off so well. And then when we were editing it, it was just like this kind of actually, like, works really well.

And then it, with the cutaway to Bradley just being like, you know, kind of a little up a little, just like, they have this kind of fun relationship that I don't have with, with my own girlfriend. Like, I think that's just social media in a nutshell. It's just everybody's putting out their, their best looks, their best whatever, and you never really know what's going on behind the scenes.

DINGMAN: Yes. I also thought you, you did something kind of interesting with the idea of a podcast in the, in the film, which is that the whole reason that the characters come to Arizona is to do a live taping, a live stream of their video podcast.

PATRUNO: Right.

DINGMAN: And for reasons that we won't spoil, the stream is disrupted.

PATRUNO: Yes.

DINGMAN: And they aren't able to continue their live video broadcast. And then the person who has disrupted their stream starts torturing them. And he's doing it via radio, like on a walkie talkie.

[AUDIO CLIP PLAYS]

So there's this interesting like new media, old media thing happening there, where they tried to do this video podcast live stream. It doesn't work. He uses radio waves to do a sort of live broadcast of his own, where they don't know what's gonna happen next. And he's kind of hosting it for them as the audience but they're participating, right?

PATRUNO: Yeah, I mean, it was very much like, how do we blend kind of like the old school and new school, like you were talking about. And just really kind of making it more of like this isolated feeling and using the radio, the walkie talkie specifically, as almost like a character of its own, but also being able to play into or he understands what these people are about and like how they, they like to be kind of performative and stuff, too.

And so he's like, OK, how do I almost mirror that and give them kind of almost a taste of their own medicine? They put, you know, people like me and other episode topics like kind of like on blast or on the spot or you know, like let's, let's kind of do the same thing for them.

DINGMAN: Yeah. Well, I mean, it ends up being a moment where, through audio, he forces them to reveal the real people they are behind the characters they play, not just on the podcast, but to each other.

So you co-wrote this script and you co-directed this film. And in order to make the story work, you had to invent this really horrific serial killer and you kind of had to do what the podcasters are doing.

You had to kind of become one of these crime-obsessed people in order to convincingly render this. What impact did that have on you?

PATRUNO: It's always, especially in writing in, in horror, it's a lot of darker research. But it was like watching a lot of like interviews with Gacy or Dahmer and just kind of like, really getting into, you know, what these guys try to think about or what they were saying and how they justified what they were doing.

Because Dahmer was, like, very open about. He's like, yeah, I know, you know, I know it's crazy to do these things, but, like, the urges and whatever, like. And obviously that's what separates those people with, for lack of better term, normal people. Because, like, they, somebody might be like, oh, I wonder what, you know, human tastes like. But I know I'm not, you know, I'm not going to act on it. And, you know, I don't have that kind of that crave or urge.

And so it's just, to me, it was always kind of fascinating, like, learning about, like, what is the moment or moments where somebody snaps to, like, kind of block that out and allow themselves to kind of, like, reach over to the next kind of dark side or whatever you want to call it.