‘Big Break’: In This Meta Horror Comedy, a Real-Life Sketch Group Pursues Fame and Dodges a Killer
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- Simple Town's horror-comedy "Big Break" premieres July 19 at Fantasia Festival, with all five group members — Sam Lanier, Will Niedmann, Ian Faria, Caroline Yost, and Felipe Di Poi — writing, directing, or starring as fictionalized versions of themselves.
- The plot centers on Lanier's character hitting it big on a movie project, leaving his sketch group behind, then inviting the underemployed trio to a vacation home where a serial killer may be lurking in the woods.
- Editor Yost said the premise mirrors real comedy-world dynamics: "People are unknown artists and struggling to get by, and then, occasionally, someone skyrockets to success," straining long-held friendships.
- Director Faria used horror visual vocabulary — framing open doorways, dark rooms, high contrast lighting — to "make fun of the fact something would be scary in that moment," describing the film as a "comedy movie using a horror vocabulary."
- Niedmann cited Jordan Peele, Zach Cregger, and Curry Barker as sketch comedians turned filmmakers who inspired the approach, noting both comedy and horror "heighten" the same anxieties.
- Di Poi said the group rehearsed extensively, debating whether to play scenes "big and silly" or "really real," before finalizing the tone during the edit.
Why it matters: A sketch troupe pivoting to features follows a proven lane — Peele, Cregger, and Barker all made the jump — but Simple Town's pitch is unusually self-aware: their slasher premise is a direct dramatization of the career-success fears the five friends already live with, making the genre mashup inseparable from the group's own creative rivalry.
