Noah Segan may not be a name up there with the likes of Chris Hemsworth, Bradley Cooper or other A-listers in Hollywood, but Segan has been a big part of several major movies, such as Knives Out and Looper, as well as a genre mainstay who brings a welcome presence to whatever he is involved in. For his latest trick, Segan has suited up for a genre mash-up in the form of The Pale Door.
The latest from director Adam B. Koontz is a blend of western and horror the likes of which cinema just simply doesn’t see that often, if ever. It focuses on the Dalton gang who make their way to a seemingly welcoming brothel in a ghost town after a train robbery goes south on them. But the beautiful women there turn out to be a coven of witches. Horror ensues.
I recently had the chance to speak with Noah Segan in honor of the movie’s release this week. We talked about what it’s like working in a unique blend such as this, his future aspirations as a director and much more. Enjoy.
So let’s just get right into it. This is a wild ass movie. As someone who’s in it, and I would like to not give too much away, but how would you distill this down for people, if you’re just trying to give them the elevator pitch for it.
Noah Segan: Oh, boy, I would say that this is, it’s a horror/Western, of course, I think is the real tight descriptive. But it’s the best part of witches, and hauntings, and comeuppance, in conjunction with your sort of classic ensemble gunslinger, horse-riding outlaw picture. Obviously, there’s a lot of Magnificent Seven. There’s a lot of The Wild Bunch. But there’s also just a ton of good old-fashioned Cannon horror in there. You know what I mean?
Totally. So the next point is that you and Adam have made two movies together this year. Scare Package was awesome by the way.
Noah Segan: Thank you, thank you.
Yeah, for sure, man. I got to watch it when it premiered on The Last Drive-In and it was great.
Noah Segan: What a dream come true man. To have Joe Bob talk s*** about you. That’s like a bucket. It’s like, “Roast me, daddy.” [laughs].
That’s great. As far as Adam goes, you guys have obviously worked together quite a bit. What was it like working with him on a feature as opposed to doing an anthology like you guys had done with Scare Package?
Noah Segan: I think this is actually the fourth picture that Aaron and I worked on together. He was an executive producer on Starry Eyes, which was a movie that I worked on about, a while ago now, probably around seven years ago. Then he hired me for his first film Camera Obscura, which was a feature that came out a few years ago that we shot in in Louisiana. Sort of a psychological horror film on. So, yeah, this was the fourth piece of material that we worked on together. And it’s just exactly what you want. You’re with your family. You’re with somebody that you love and you trust. You’re kind of getting the band back together.
It seems like you develop these relationships with guys. Because you have that with Adam, and then you have that with Rian Johnson. Does that just come about as a natural thing where you like collaborating with the same people? Or is it just happenstance?
Noah Segan: Within it you’ve got people who worked with before. I’ve worked with Zachary Knighton before. Even our editor, Greg MacLennan, is a good old friend of mine from the Alamo Drafthouse days. I think, first of all, it’s a small world, but really, it’s just that there’s no big secret. Everybody wants to spend their time with the people that they love and the people that they feel comfortable with. You want to be together making the stuff that you want to see, right? I’m just very lucky that these guys, who are the bosses, have chosen to continue that relationship. But really, I want to believe It’s just that you want to be with the people that you love. That you have a good time with.
horror movie would be the most fun to do. So what is it like doing both at the same time?}
Noah Segan: It’s a little, what is it? You’re chewing gum and patting your head at the same time. But it’s also very much like that sort of nine-year-old dream come true where you find yourself as a little kid playing cowboy. Then you also find yourself playing haunted house, and there’s nothing stopping you from combining the two. The older we get, and the more bogged down that we get in our own conceptions, we forget, I think, that it’s possible to just throw it in there. Throw it all in there. I think that was the joy of doing something like this, where even though it’s challenging because you’ve got to do the western stuff. You’ve gotta do the harder stuff. There’s a certain joy in combining them because you are all of a sudden kind of going back to being a little kid who doesn’t have any limitations.
You made your directorial debut within Scare Package on one of the segments. Is that something you want to do more of? Do you have any aspirations of doing a feature?
Noah Segan: You’re not gonna get rid of me that easily, unfortunately. Sorry to say. This was the first taste, and now I have the true bloodlust. No, I’m out here trying to get you guys a feature film done.
Do you have your eyes on something specific?
Noah Segan: I do. I don’t mean to be too vague, but I’m working with some folks who, indeed, I have worked with before, no big surprise, in trying to bring to life a script that I wrote. I hopefully will be able to do that sometime next year. It’s another example of why you work with people that you love. Because as you grow, and change, and want to do something different then, hopefully, they want to help you do that. Because that’s what family does.
Right now people are just, and they have been for the past few months, desperate for entertainment. For a distraction. What makes The Pale Door a good distraction?
Noah Segan: Hopefully, of all the things that we are challenged with right now, and all of the things that people are very legitimately struggling with, and I hope that they’re doing well and that we’re all getting through this and staying healthy, I hope you are not dealing with a coven of old-timey, old west witches. I hope at the very least that this movie is so extreme, and wild, and fun, and crazy that it can help people have a bit of an adventure that is really far removed from any of the challenges that we all have today in this current world. So I’m hoping that we give them a little bit of an escape with some of the really wild gags, and action, and silly stuff that I do, and that we do in the movie.
The Pale Door arrives in theaters, on demand and digital on August 21 from RLJE Films
