Film Name: The Weird World of Molly Brown
Director: Molly Brown
Writer: Molly Brown
Starring: Mark Lawrence, James P. Gleason, Mark Gibbons, Debbie Lane, Leanne Herring, Molly Brown
Three short films – Elevator Pitch, The Horror-on-Sea Fitness Club, and Room 102: Resurrection – shot on a phone at Horror-on-Sea 2025.
In a new exclusive interview on Blazing Minds, I got a chance to ask Writer-Director Molly Brown a few questions about the film ‘The Weird World of Molly Brown‘, which will have its World Premiere at Horror-on-Sea on Friday, 16th January at 20:00hrs.
Q. Your collection of short films has been selected to play at the Horror-on-Sea Film Festival. Can you tell us what we can expect?
A. This year I’m screening three films – Elevator Pitch, The Horror-on-Sea Fitness Club, and Room 102: Resurrection – all of which were shot on a phone at Horror-on-Sea 2025. (When I say they were shot on a phone, I mean the live action sequences were shot on my phone; the animation and special effects were added after I got home, as well as the music by David Fisher and Simon Woodham and the voice-overs by Sean Botha, Cy Henty, Leanne Herring, and Simon Woodham.)
Q. Filmed once again at Horror-on-Sea 2025, how did the concept for each of the films come about?
A. I wasn’t going to make a film while I was at Horror-on-Sea 2025 because over the last few years, the festival has become so popular there is too much background noise – people talking in the bar, crowds coming in and out screenings, and so on – to get good sound. But then the night before the 2025 festival started, I got ambushed in a pub by a few Horror-on-Sea regulars – who I will name and shame as: Mark Lawrence, Kevin Skelhorn, and Phillip Tatchell – who wanted me to make a shark film.
When I protested that recording sound was getting more difficult, it was somehow decided that we could avoid all the background noise by making the film in the hotel lift. By the end of the evening, three other people who had the misfortune to be sitting at the same table – Christopher Dine, Rowena Jordan, and an American filmmaker named James P. Gleason – had been roped into appearing in this film to be shot in a lift… which by now had acquired the title of: Elevator Pitch. Mark Lawrence also volunteered the services of a woman named Debbie Blake (who was not with us in the pub but would be at the festival tomorrow) who he was sure would want to be involved because she knew “a lot about sharks.”
The next day as we gathered beside the lift, another festival regular – a man named Mark Gibbons – happened to walk by in a rather snazzy suit and I thought: I want that suit in the film. So Mark (and his suit; especially his suit!) ended up making a shark film in the lift with us. And that’s how I spent the Friday. The second film was an accident. What happened was: on the Saturday morning, another couple of festival regulars – David Fox and Debbie Fox – were going up to the hotel gym, so I went along with them. Debbie and I had no inclination to exercise so Debbie started shooting e just being silly and before I knew it, I had the beginning of another film and I spent a good chunk of Saturday making The Horror-on-Sea Fitness Club.
I told myself that was it, two films in one weekend was plenty, but then on the Saturday night, I happened to mention to another filmmaker – Steven N. Sibley – that I’d made two films that weekend, and he said: “You can’t just do two, now you have to do a third.” I asked him why, and he said: “Because it has to be a trilogy.”
I realised he was right and I had to make a third film, but I had no idea what it would be until I spotted another Horror-on-Sea regular, the animator Debbie Lane. The plot of one of my earlier “made at Horror-on-Sea” films, The Curse of Room 102, was that Debbie Lane had fallen to her death from the hotel balcony and I may – or may not – have pushed her because she was a better animator than me.
So Debbie Lane rose from the dead for Room 102: Resurrection and people such as Martin W. Payne, Robyn Adams, Cassandra Haswell, Aaron Shakespeare, Philip Rogers, and basically anyone who happened to be around got roped in for various onscreen cameos.
And that was how I spent the Sunday.
Q. What were some of your influences for the look and style of the films?
A. Elevator Pitch parodies and/or references several different films, so the look varies throughout. The Horror-on-Sea Fitness Club aims for the look of a 1970’s television and/or local cinema ad, and the look of Room 102: Resurrection is pretty much based on the look of the earlier film: The Curse of Room 102. What *that* look was, I have no idea.
Q. What were some of your favourite moments of the filming?
A. In Room 102: Resurrection, Debbie Lane and I have a long and silly series of fight scenes. I couldn’t shoot the fight scenes myself because I was onscreen, so Debbie’s partner, Jes Hammond, took over the cinematography for these sequences and it was a bit of a struggle getting those scenes shot because the three of us couldn’t stop laughing.
Q. Did you experience any issues during filming?
A. I’d thought that shooting in a lift would save us from random people wandering into shot, but I could not have been more wrong. We had constant interruptions with the lift doors opening and closing, and people with suitcases trying to squeeze into the lift with us. We tried holding the button to keep the doors closed but you could only do that for a minute or two before it set off an alarm. The result of this was that we ended up doing a lot of takes (and I ended up shouting: “Go away!” at a lot of innocent people who were just trying to go to breakfast or get back to their rooms).
Q. In addition to your shorts, you are also reprising your role as Debbie is the feature horror sequel ‘Cleaver 3: Maximum Cleavage’, from MJ Dixon. Can you tell us a little bit about the film and your character?
A. Cleaver 3: Maximum Cleavage is a sequel to Cleaver 2: Killer Clowns (2019), which was the second film in a series about a killer clown and his daughter. I had a very small part in the second film, playing the waitress/owner of a diner in the American south, who happened to be in league with the killer clown (and his then very young daughter), serving up their victims as my diner’s special meat loaf.
Maximum Cleavage is a jailbreak film in which the killer clown’s daughter (now all grown up!)is being held – along with the killers from several others of Mj Dixon’s films – in a maximum security prison run by a sadistic warden. My character has infiltrated the prison as the prison cook, and it all leads up to a big escape.
Q. How was the experience bringing back the character and what were some of your favourite moments on set?
A. It had been seven years since I went up to Milton Keynes to shoot my scenes in the previous film, and I had pretty much forgotten how my character had spoken, moved, and looked, so I re-watched Cleaver 2 to try and get a handle on the character again. I eventually came to the conclusion that my character mostly just scowled a lot. And so seven years later, I went up to Milton Keynes and scowled again.
My favourite moments were seeing people like Holly-Anne Dodkins (who plays Lil Miss Cleaver and was still a child when we made Cleaver 2) and Kimberley Lassi (Mama Cleaver) who I hadn’t seen for seven years and meeting new people like Asher Chan and Petrina Richardson. And it was fun to watch my stunt double – yes, I had a stunt double! – somersaulting through the air.
Q. What do you hope people take away after watching The Weird World of Molly Brown?
A. I just hope people will enjoy them and maybe have a laugh.
Q. Do you have any other projects which you are currently working on?
A. I have a few old scripts for films I never got round to making. Maybe 2026 will be the year I finally do something with them.
Q. If someone was looking to write and direct their own film what advice would you give them?
A. Don’t worry about making mistakes because you learn from them. And sometimes the things you think are mistakes turn out to be lucky accidents that lead you somewhere you never expected to go.
The Weird World of Molly Brown will be playing at Horror-on-Sea on Friday 16th January at 20:00hrs.
You can find out more about Horror-on-Sea and purchase tickets the The Weird World of Molly Brown here
Published in various websites, Philip is a reviewer who is best known for his interviews and media coverage of independent projects including; films, books, theatre and live events. Always on the lookout for something different to cover!
