Analyze Toxic Relationships Through Absurdity With ‘Crumb Catcher’

If you’ve ever worked in the service industry as a waitor, you might have found your self in a situation like this:

Pardon me, sorry to interrupt. I know you’re in the middle of dinner, but I noticed quite a bit of crumbs accumulating on your table. I hate that I have to keep interrupting to take care of all of these crumbs for you. I only just wish there was some sort of apparatus that could make it so I don’t have to interrupt you anymore…

What if there was an answer? Well, look no further than Chris Skotchdopole’s absurdist thriller, Crumb Catcher.

Eloquently described as a mash-up of Scorsese’s After Hours and Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Skotchdopole’s Crumb Catcher uses genre filmmaking to hold a microscope over the pitfalls of toxic relationships via the hook of a bulky invention known as, you guessed it, the Crumb Catcher. After all, what better way to analyze a failing relationship than an over-eager sociopath injecting himself into a newly weds’ drama?

Crumb Catcher premiered last year at Fantastic Fest, and we were happy to chat with Skotchdopole about all things casting, film distribution, and, of course, Crumb Catchers. Please, please do enjoy our chat with him below.

Editor’s Note: the following quotes from Chris Skotchdopole are edited for length and clarity.

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Inspiration for ‘Crumb Catcher’ 

“It started with a couple and the idea that this guy, the groom Shane (Rigo Garay), was getting photographed at his wedding and he didn’t want to be there. That was the first instinct. I liked the idea of someone that didn’t want to be at his own party. And then John (John Speredakos) came along—I had his voice figured out pretty quickly, because he is an antagonist that fit with Shane organically.

Shane is sort of constantly retreating, and then John is always on the go. He’s in your face about all the great stuff he has. I really was hoping that personality would create a dangerous atmosphere, and the blackmail plot ensued. His voice dictated that, okay, this guy wants something, and then it turned into the Crumb Catcher. It started with his tenacity and how bold he is, and that felt fitting.

I really love movies like After Hours and Red Rock West where the believability keeps getting stretched further and further into a dream a little bit. It starts believable and then [something crazy] happens.

When I really figured it out the whole thing was with John and his counterpart, Rose (Lorraine Farris)—a married couple as a parallel to a man not wanting to be at his own wedding. As soon as I figured out Rose it really started to feel like this fun house mirror of the two couples. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf was another movie that I was thinking about a lot—how we show two different couples at opposing ends of life.

I feel like Crumb Catcher is a blend of an After Hours and a Virginia Woolf in a way.

A lot of times I’m setting up these relationships and it almost feels like a little bit of a chemistry set where you have these two personalities, figuring what do they have to say to each other. And then it’s really the job of following the threads to figure out what I’m trying to say about relationships.

I think that Crumb Catcher is really about how relationships are kind of abusive in nature, and our younger couple is heading down the road of being, in my opinion, is heading down the road of being bad or toxic, and then you have this other one that is clearly toxic.

I remember talking to the actors about that, and directing that to Ella (Rae Peck), who played Leah in the movie, that I don’t think that Shane has ever yelled at you before. Whenever they would get into a fight, he would just sort of go out and get drunk and come back at four o’clock in the morning. That’s how he dealt with things. And then this night is forcing him to explode in some way.”

The Ebbs and Flows of Indie Casting 

“The guy who plays Shane is a Rigo Garay, who’s a really good friend of mine and fellow filmmaker, and he’s acted for me before. There was a lot of struggle to get the movie made—as all these things are, these dreams that we have. But I remember it was during the pandemic, and I just felt like I was in this corner. Out of frustration I just wanted to make Crumb Catcher with my friends. So I started building it with a very can-do attitude with my friend. And then John was someone that I almost wrote it for from the beginning.

It felt organic and almost meant to be that I came back to John, who is also a friend and a collaborator of Larry Fessenden, one of our producers. I had those two. And then we found Ella through our casting agent, Bonnie Timmerman. She was on a list and I just thought she was amazing.

And then for Rose was, someone else was cast for her part. We did all our rehearsals with somebody else, and then a week before the shoot that actresses’ mother was put in hospice so she couldn’t do the film. I was just looking through headshots, and Lorraine was exactly what I thought she should look like. So I took a leap of faith and was like, “we’re going with her.” And she was amazing. She’s such a gentle person as a human being, but the character is so… “these boots are made for walking” type of a woman, and really tough. It’s interesting that she’s such a soft and gentle person. She almost had to put on this aggressive suit. That was the most difficult part for her, getting into it and creating this facade of anger.”

Secret Origins of the Titular Crumb Catcher 

“It was a long journey, but the idea for John being a waiter happened because … I hate when in movies [when] they’re these nice people and then something bad happens to them, and then they fight to get out of it, and then they’re nice people in the end. I really love when characters are their own worst enemies—the things that they have to work out in their personalities are the things that put them in the situation that we’re seeing, and almost enjoying the torture of the character going through something because they deserve it. I didn’t want John to be a person that was just after money.

I liked that he had this dream.

My wife runs restaurants in New York, and so I was just talking to her. What would a waiter want, what kind of thing would he dream of? I was thinking of an invention. I just wanted there to be a presentation. She mentioned [the idea of] a Crumb Catcher. I didn’t really know what that was. I started thinking that maybe the Crumb Catcher has a relationship with John’s personality, like when you’re at a table at a restaurant and the waiter comes and interrupts you. I felt that this guy might have those insecurities that he talks too much, that he’s like, “oh, I’ll invent a thing that deals with my personality.” So he creates this obtuse product to course correct his personality.

I thought that felt very honest, even though it’s absurd. You know what I mean? If he was pitching, I don’t know, a pillow, like a great pillow, it wouldn’t be his perfect glove.

I was at this restaurant ages ago, this Thai food restaurant—I haven’t remembered this in so long. [The waiter had] this little box, and he put it on the table. There were three buttons, and when you want your check you press this button, when you want more beverages, press this button, when you want food or whatever, you press this. It’s interesting.

Damn, I haven’t thought about this in so long.”

The Future of Film Distribution is Punk 

“I pushed to do a theatrical release, wait a month, and then do VOD. That was great.

In my mind, I was thinking about when I was a kid and Independence Day came out, and this idea of anticipation for this movie then with lines around the block. If you didn’t get into that theater, you would go to another theater and get in. It felt like it was the summer of Independence Day. And then it wasn’t until winter right when DVD players were coming out, and I remember you would buy a DVD player and Independence Day. They would come [packaged together]. It was this whole thing, and it really was a part of my life, this movie.

Something that we’re dealing with now is, a movie comes out, you give it attention for five days and then you forget about it, and it goes into the abyss. I think we got a pretty decent audience for the theatrical release, I guess the model now is to do theatrical and VOD at the same time and get all your spiking moments right here. I want the movie to live in people’s minds a little bit longer so that it can have a longer life.

I don’t know. I’m very new to the whole marketing thing, but I do feel that, I think that when you’re making a movie and when you’re doing anything, it’s very important to not take people’s advice who have been in the industry for a long time. I think people become jaded. “This is what it is. This is what a movie this size should do. These are the pants that fit you.”

I don’t agree.

Orson Welles always said there’s something about just being new to something. You look at it fresh in a way that someone who’s been around for a while can’t see. It’s not to not listen to those people. It’s listen and then do your own thing.”