"The Rattlin' Bog" Turns Cabin-in-the-Woods Horror Inside Out

Maxwell Klaiber's debut feature takes the familiar shape of a cabin-in-the-woods horror film — isolated location, an oracle-like stranger at the store below the mountain, a getaway that curdles — and refuses, deliberately, to deliver the monster. Instead, the villains of The Rattlin' Bog are two men most of us have already met. Lauren, Phil, and Chris retreat to a cabin meant for six, the other guests never arrive, and toxic masculinity, pride, and alcohol do the rest.

Born from a college thesis that never happened and reborn through a short film that revealed the chemistry of its cast, The Rattlin' Bog arrives at Not Film Fest — a festival built to reclaim rejection and screen films that might not otherwise be seen in Italy — as a character-driven satire with, as Klaiber puts it, a lot of laughs and a bonfire's worth of warmth.

Key Takeaways

• Shot in 13 days for well under $100,000, the film subverts horror tropes to become closer to a horror-tinged Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? than an Evil Dead.
• Its emotional engine is Lauren, the only woman in the group, caught between enduring escalating conflict or striking out alone down the mountain.
• The film's mantra — empathy over power — is what drew Klaiber to Not Film Fest for his World Premiere.

Klaiber spoke about the personal roots of the story, the discoveries made in the edit, and why laughter belongs beside tragedy.

Interview

What drew you to make this film, and why this story, why now?

The initial seed started with my Senior Thesis at university — a night of plays where the same actors would star in short stories throughout the evening. That project never happened. Years later, a friend wanted to do the same idea with short films, and that's where I got to see Avery, Lindsay, and Jeremy perform together. I fell in love with their chemistry and desperately wanted to see them perform together again.

It started with this idea of everyone having their first film be a horror film. I thought it would be more interesting, and frankly more personal, to have my first film be a sort of "anti-horror" — to operate within the constraints of the genre tropes we all know and subvert them at every turn. It felt personal to make the "monsters" of this cabin-in-the-woods film be two guys most everyone has come across in their lives.

I personally resonate with Lauren. I grew up around a rowdy group of guys, and I always felt out of place for being a peacemaker. As for the violence, I've seen real-world tragedy from this behavior — a friend I grew up with was murdered, on accident, while fighting over a gun. Something like that really gets to you. Men, who tend to take up the most space in the room, ultimately just want to be seen, heard, and known. When that need isn't met, they can make it everyone else's problem, which creates unsafe spaces. We were on set for the 2024 Presidential Election results, and shortly before production our candidates were fighting about golf scores on a debate stage. Two grown men with the nuclear codes on the line. That could have been a scene from our movie.

What surprised you most about the filmmaking process?

Time. Or lack thereof. We shot this in 13 days, and you're always trying to make up for lost time, figuring out how to block and shoot a scene creatively so it saves you later. So much additional spice was added in the edit — we started using flash cuts and flashbacks that weren't originally the intent of the film. It was about fully letting the experience of a feature wash over me and staying open to what the world was telling me. So many scenes changed because of how we approached them on the day. Once we got into the groove and could map where we'd been emotionally, it gave us new direction for scenes that weren't rehearsed the same way.

What moment in the film feels most like you?

The last dinner sequence in the third act. There's something so troubling, so uncomfortable, and so awkwardly funny about it that feels close to my sensibilities. It's deeply tragic, deeply sad, and — at least to me — deeply funny. So much of it spurred from real events with friends or family. It's also the only time in the film we shot our closeups on an extremely long lens, my personal favorite frames of the film. To me, that is the true "horror" scene, and I love that it's completely rooted in watching three great actors perform. No bells, no whistles. I grew up with very black, gallows humor. As Anne Lamott once said, "laughter is carbonated holiness" — having the ability to laugh during a really tough time puts you on holy ground. I really resonate with that.

What was the hardest creative decision you made while making the film?

Going back in to re-edit the film when we were told it wasn't ready. We had a cut we believed to be final, and some filmmaker friends challenged us to make it even better — to cut out as much "fat" as possible. It was a herculean task to get my post-production team onboard for another few months of work. It's hard to be steadfast in your belief that the film you have is done and good. I was tired, I was broke, five years of my life had gone into it. But the time away gave us a whole new outlook, and some of my favorite moments were found in that new edit.

What tool, technique, or mindset shift helped most during production?

Every single collaborator changed the way I approach filmmaking, but I'd highlight my post-production team. I always loved sound and music in films, but I'd never fully gotten to dive deep into that aspect due to budget. Working closely with Jay, my composer, and Joseph, my sound supervisor, opened my eyes to what can be achieved with sound. Attributing recurring themes, motifs, and sound design to the film was so rewarding, and it bookended things that, as a writer, I wanted to see come to fruition. Moving forward, as I write my next projects, I'm absolutely thinking of music and sound cues.

What does it mean to have your film selected for Not Film Fest?

It means everything. This is our World Premiere, so to us this is the first committee that wanted our film — that alone is a debt I can never repay. And in Italy of all places. I'm just a kid from a very small town in Northern California, and the idea of my work playing across the sea is still mind-blowing. This festival exists to play films that may not normally be shown in Italy — a place to reclaim rejection. Our film has faced a lot of rejection. This festival's mantra is so aligned with ours: empathy over power, a more human point of view. Its recognition that power lives in dominant narratives and cultural hierarchies that decide who deserves space might honestly be our biggest takeaway from the film. It feels like the cool kid in school picked me as their lab partner.

Where do you see this film going next?

I still need my two hometown premieres — Los Angeles and my birthplace of Redding, California. So much of the film was possible because of my community in both places, and I hope to say thank you with a good screening. I think we'll stay international as much as possible, and underground. As an "anti-horror" satire that plays like a stage-play, it may have a difficult task finding programming at bigger festivals. I'd love to do a road show with theaters and schools, telling people how we fundraised and achieved what we did at low cost while still paying everyone. I'd love a physical media release. And, dream scenario, I'd love if The Rattlin' Bog was somehow turned into a stage-play. A great full-circle moment.

Main Cast & Crew

• Avery Bagenstos — Actor
• Lindsay Lewis — Actor
• Jeremy — Actor
• Maxwell Klaiber — Writer / Director / Producer / Co-Editor
• Emilio Mazariegos — Executive Producer
• Jess Taylor — Executive Producer / Producer
• Kelly Chen — Producer / Line Producer
• Hunter Smalling — Associate Producer / UPM
• Andrés Aragón — Cinematographer
• Jay Ragsdale — Composer

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