{"id":120557,"date":"2025-11-06T06:04:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T06:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/120557\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T06:04:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T06:04:08","slug":"a-bloody-horror-movie-satirizing-grind-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/120557\/","title":{"rendered":"A Bloody Horror Movie Satirizing Grind Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cKombucha<\/a>,\u201d the new horror-comedy film from director and co-writer Jake Myers, has been in the works for years, but the office culture satire is hitting even harder during the current economic climate.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt really does feel like this hits at a cultural moment,\u201d Myers says. \u201cIn a way that I think causes some people discomfort, but also they can laugh at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMyers, who wrote the film with Geoff Bakken, has delivered a uniquely modern take on corporate grind that does not shy away from body horror. In the film, an anonymous yet recognizable tech company offers new employees lucrative starting wages, doing something, as well as a potent kombucha that ends up making them work to death. <\/p>\n

\n\tAfter debuting at Dances with Films in June and playing at festivals like FrightFest and Grimmfest, \u201cKombucha\u201d was cheered on by industry insiders and fellow filmmakers during the Friday feature slot at FilmQuest<\/a> in Provo, Utah, on Oct. 24.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cKombucha\u201d began life as an unlikely idea, given that Myers would need money to make it, and those purse strings are often held by the kind of businessmen the story satirizes.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cGeoff gave me three different script ideas, and \u2018Kombucha\u2019 \u2026 it seemed like everyone is feeling corporate burnout,\u201d Myers said. \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone dreams of one day creating value for shareholders, and I loved the idea. It was a feature script at first. I said, \u2018I don\u2019t think anybody\u2019s going to fund this as is. I don\u2019t think that there\u2019s going to be a producer \u2014 instead of private equity investors \u2014 that is going to be able to imagine it.\u2019 So we worked together, we wrote a seven-minute short<\/a>, toured with the short and then talked with Take Care Productions in Chicago. We said, \u2018Hey, tax incentive, keeping it at this budget range. I think it\u2019s something that we can actually pull off in Chicago with the Second City talent here.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMyers was ultimately able to play with fresh ideas of corporate culture, as he considered this film to be a satire of startups vs. standard cubical fare.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI found it really refreshing in this idea that we\u2019re all going to be productive, and it felt a little \u2018woo,’\u201d Myers said. \u201cKombucha is on tap at so many startups in different places. That\u2019s why that drink felt really important. This idea of corporate family and these rituals felt culty in a way that I enjoyed. I\u2019ve worked at startups before, and all of those things happen. You do feel love bombed at first, but you also feel the fear that any day we could do a mass layoff.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0a terrifying but relatable sentiment, and I really liked that hook.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMyers was also thrilled to successfully shoot the feature in Chicago, where he lives.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think Chicago has so much talent,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t think there are any divas in Chicago. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s that culture at all. Everyone has this attitude of, \u2018We\u2019re going to get this done. We are going to solve this problem together.\u2019 And I think there\u2019s a little bit of a chip on our shoulder to prove that we can make a movie that can hold its own with the bigger cities and markets. I just like Chicago people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for Myers\u2019 future plans, he\u2019s working on a tech slasher with a killer logline (\u201ca woman with a mask uses a dating app to hunt down its developers\u201d), but he sees real potential for another serving of \u201cKombucha.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think we\u2019re going to do a \u2018Kombucha 2,’\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be down the road a little bit. We have to iron out the script, but we have an outline, and I\u2019m going to work with Geoff again. I\u2019m thinking more wellness cult, a little bit of NXIVM and branding, and multi-level marketing in there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWatch the \u201cKombucha\u201d trailer below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cKombucha,\u201d the new horror-comedy film from director and co-writer Jake Myers, has been in the works for years,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[156,73961,22803,409,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-120557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-filmquest","tag-kombucha","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}