Avey Tare’s Slasher Flick Will Get You Ready for Halloween
Avey Tare's Slasher Flicks sounds a lot like the name of some kind of movie production company. And it looks like founding member Tare, who also co-founded Animal Collective, has taken that idea to another level with the band's new video, 'Catchy (Was Contagious).'
The nine-minute visual focuses on a little boy who has to run away from a werewolf -- who's played by Sean Pecknold, director and Fleet Foxes frontman Robin Pecknold's older brother. 'Catchy (Was Contagious) looks more like a short horror film than actual music video, but if you're expecting epic special effects and gore, think again. The video highly resembles old horror filmmaking -- 1950s Universal horror, to be exact.
"I am obsessed with movies like the Third Man, Truffaut’s 400 Blows and Ingmar Bergman’s films," director Abigail Portner said in a statement. "I wanted it to have the style of classic old L.A. so we used the L.A. river and the neighborhoods surrounding it as locations. The movie Them from the 1940s was shot on the L.A. river and I wanted it to have that feel also. Parts of Grease and Chinatown were filmed there too."
Portner worked with actor Giovanni Ribisi, who took on the role of director of photography, and revealed that the partnership really helped the video become what it is.
"The videos I make for Animal Collective and my own personal style are pretty specific so it was great to work with Giovanni because I feel like he just got it," she said. "We were on the same page thematically, reference-wise and with regards to the style of filming and our goal -- to create something that has a classic, pretty 1950’s feel to it but the undertone is still very dark.”
'Catchy (Was Contagious)' is is off the band's ‘Enter the Slasher House,' which is out now via Domino.