Casper Kelly On Why His Secret Adult Swim Horror Sequel Needed to Be a Hallmark Movie [Interview]

Casper Kelly, the writer and director of Adult Swim Yule Log 2, opens up on his surprise sequel, genre mash-ups, the joys of practical effects, and what he’d like to explore in a part three.

Adult Swim Yule Log was one of the most creative horror surprises to come out of 2022. Casper Kelly’s holiday bait-and-switch starts as an innocuous Yule Log video loop that’s meant to add ambiance to one’s home, only to gradually transform into a heightened absurdist film about a sentient Murder Log. Two years later, Adult Swim has concocted a macabre sequel to this experimental gem. Adult Swim Yule Log 2: Branchin’ Out is somehow even wilder than its predecessor. Yule Log 2 mashes together an aggressive horror film with a cheerful Christmas Hallmark movie, the likes of which culminates in another Adult Swim classic that’s guaranteed to be one of the network’s most talked about productions in 2024.

To celebrate Adult Swim Yule Log 2’s release, Casper Kelly gets candid on the comforting joys of Hallmark holiday movies, the struggles of bringing this ambitious sequel to life, the delights of subverting structure and expectations, and his future horror genre aspirations.

Bloody Disgusting: First of all, how did the idea for a sequel come about in the first place? Did you pitch the idea to Adult Swim or did they propose it to you?

Casper Kelly: I think I knew that they were happy with the result. So I knew they would be potentially open to a sequel. I had a few ideas that I was thinking about and, for some reason, I was very interested in Hallmark movies. I was in a movie club and we watched one called Holiday in Handcuffs.

BD: Yes, of course! With Mario Lopez…

Kelly: Yes! Okay. What surprised me was that I was kind of looking down on the movie, but I also did get emotionally involved with it. Then we watched a few more. I watched Falling for Christmas – the Lindsay Lohan Netflix movie – which is not technically a Hallmark movie, and then A California Christmas. I just thought it was something kind of interesting to investigate because I had cognitive dissonance where I sort of didn’t admire these movies, but I got emotionally involved in them and enjoyed them. They made me feel good. 

BD: That’s interesting, because I was really trying to look and see if there’s been a horror Hallmark hybrid before and I couldn’t really find any. And even when Hallmark is trying to kind of do something darker, it’s never a full-on horror movie. But I think that’s a good point. Holiday In Handcuffs, when you kind of strip everything away from it, you’re like, “This is a pretty messed up story,” if you actually just look at what’s going on.

Kelly: Yes. They try to play it as light as possible, but it is a kidnapping. That man is afraid for his life and if he’s going to get shot.

BD: Were you always kind of thinking of this “horror meets Hallmark” angle, or were there other kinds of ideas that you were considering?

Kelly: Yeah, absolutely. I am itching, if I get to do a third one, to go very dark and very weird. Just bring it home in the darkest, weirdest way possible. I also noticed that some trilogies – not all, but some – like the original Star Wars or Back to the Future, make the middle one their darkest entry. So I thought to maybe go lighter on the middle one – go against the norm – but then go really dark for the last one.

BD: It almost gave me kind of a Human Centipede 2 or Blair Witch 2 vibe, in the sense that the first movie is a text in this film. I always love when a sequel can take that meta approach.

Kelly: Part of the original plan, which we ended up not doing, was to advertise it as a re-airing of the first one. But then it becomes the second one as a surprise. For some reason, in terms of scheduling and other issues, that didn’t happen. That was the original idea though.

BD: I really like that because, yeah, inevitably you can’t just do what you did in the first movie. The surprise of the first one is that you think you’re getting a Yule Log thing, but that doesn’t work a second time. You need to subvert it. I think that’s a clever way to do it though where you think it’s just a repeat, but then you learn that there’s more to it.

Kelly: That was the plan and then, if I get to do a third one, I have a plan for that one, too.

BD: I think one of the movie’s most satisfying elements is how you play with the genre staples of a Hallmark movie, whether it’s the lighting, music, or dialogue. That dinner scene that’s split in half with the different lighting is so perfect. Can you talk a little on fleshing out those elements and bringing all that together? 

Kelly: Thank you so much for pointing that out. I found that very satisfying. It’s great because it says something about people’s state of minds. Even when you’re among your friends and somebody’s depressed and in hell. You have a group of people around a table and one kind of person can be depressed, but another person is in a good mood. It kind of visually represents that. So I’m very glad you pointed that out. That was kind of an early idea. I thought of Halloween and the second Halloween, which picks up right after the first one. For my final girl, I knew that she was going to hold onto that ax and, whatever is happening, she’s not going to let her guard down again. 

Secondly, I just liked the idea of her getting out of town. If she just gets away then maybe this log can’t travel 1,000 miles. That’s what I would do in that situation. But in this she’s not just getting away geographically. But she’s escaping to a whole other genre. Then I was attracted to the idea of color collection, changing the music, and so forth. Hallmark movie coloration is very even and there’s not a lot of highlights or shadows. It’s warm and cozy. Horror – a lot of modern horror – has that sort of blue tint. It’s a little more crushed. There’s greater contrast. Then my DP, Alex Allgood, also had the idea of the letterboxed shift. That was really fun to play with.

BD: I love that you use the same musical theme, but then it just gets a lot creepier when the horror stuff comes in.

Kelly: Thank you! You’re my favorite. Thank you for noticing that. Yeah, I didn’t have a composer for the first one. For the sequel, I hired a composer, Jonathan Snipes, specifically to try to do that. He does a lot of Rodney Ascher’s movies. Rodney is a friend of mine. One fun, but hellish thing about making these movies is that they usually want us to make it and air it within that year. This is another movie that I wrote, made, and edited in the span of nine months. It’s very back-breaking, but it’s fun to do something that fast. So many movie projects just fall through in development. Here, the money’s got to get spent. You’re locked in. You’re going to have, at the end of the year, a movie. 

BD: How was the budget and filming schedule in comparison to the first movie? I know that the first Yule Log took 15 days to shoot. Was this significantly more intense than that? A lot of the time, sequels will get a higher budget to play around with. Was that the case here?

Kelly: It wasn’t significantly higher, to be honest. In fact, because of two years of inflation, the budget was really about the same. The production team and media team were very good at putting the money on the screen. For example, a bunch of the locations – the police headquarters, the hospital room, the Coral Conservancy offices, and one other location – were all shot at Adult Swim because that’s a free building. Things like that were just very smart choices. But I won’t lie to you. It was hard and I probably can’t do that again. Usually I just go for it and think that I’ll figure out how to do it with the money. 

Now, going forward, I’ve really got to think about the budget and what can be done comfortably with this level of money. I can’t just keep cashing in favors. This sequel has a much bigger scope. There are many more locations, many more actors. You gotta have a bunch of hunks, you know? They were like, “Can we cut down the hunks?” I’m like, “No! We’ve got to have a lot of hunks.” The hunks were fun to cast because I don’t have the best radar of who’s a hunk and who’s not. So I involved my wife and my two teenage daughters. It was fun to do that with them and learn about what they like. 

BD: To that point, I love when a horror sequel is able to follow some of the same characters and become a story about survivor’s guilt and PTSD. Why was that something that you wanted to explore here rather than a sequel with totally new characters?

Kelly: Yeah, I did think about doing a sequel where it’s the Yule Log in a new fireplace and we start off the same, but it’s a new group of people. However, I thought that the avenue that we took offered more opportunities for doing new things and asking new questions that hopefully will get answered in the next one.

BD: Was it a rewarding experience to get to expand upon the story and lore of the first movie and push all that even further? Was it challenging to build upon those ideas?

Kelly: Yes, but in a way, I didn’t really expand the lore. I did think about it. I mean, I did expand the lore to a degree, but I didn’t have Zoe like investigating what this is and trying to understand it. I did think about it, but it didn’t seem like Zoe would be ready to do that if this sequel is picking up right after the first one. She needs to get away. So that was my approach, but I am interested in exploring the lore further. On the other hand, I think some movies today sometimes over-explain the lore. I prefer a world that feels lived in where some things are implied or you don’t really have all the answers. I tend to like that better. Take any superhero and I don’t necessarily need to know how his parents met in a flashback, or whatever.

BD: The practical effects gore set-piece that kicks off the final act is so wonderful. Can you talk about putting that transformation sequence together and pulling it off? Was it just a dream come true to bring something like that to life?

Kelly: Yes, I’m good friends with this practical effects artist, Shane Morton, who runs Silver Scream FX Labs. He worked with me on Too Many Cooks, Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell, and the Cheddar Goblin in Mandy. I was thinking of ways to up the ante and he really delivered. I mean, I couldn’t believe the effects that he and his team put together. You’re talking about that “can opener effect.” It was just wild that he could do that. He has a studio here in Atlanta and going there is just very relaxing to me. It’s the type of place where it’s like, “Hey, do you need some eyeballs? I’ve got a whole box of eyeballs over here. How many do you need?” You want some blood to go with the eyeballs? I’ve got some on that shelf over there.” It’s just a great place.

BD: Were there any specific creature inspirations for the final Murder Log monster? I got a lot of Pumpkinhead vibes there…

Kelly: I actually haven’t seen Pumpkinhead! I have weird, annoying gaps in my movie knowledge, but I’ll look it up! So no, Pumpkinhead wasn’t intentional. I think I just liked playing with that Alien sensibility and how these horror elements can infect a Hallmark film. It was all about figuring out a way to have it be a little different than what we did before.

BD: There’s a surprising moment when Holly from the first film shows up, along with Santa Claus, where they help transform the Murder Log into a different type of threat. Was there more that you wanted to do with them? How did they enter the equation?

Kelly: Yeah, I just felt like I should do something with Holly. It just seemed right. And then, weirdly, Santa Claus is a trope in these Hallmark movies. He will appear and sort of do something magical to get people to meet. This detail really confused people who don’t know Hallmark movies. Like, “Why is Santa in this?” In my mind, he and Holly were kind of using Zoe as bait to trap this thing, once and for all. But they weren’t quite as thorough as they needed to be.

BD: You now have two features under your belt. Are you interested in making more horror movies and pitching something to a place like Blumhouse, A24, or Neon that could end up in theaters, rather than these more experimental projects? What do you see ahead in the future?

Kelly: Yes, definitely! Music from your lips to God’s ears. Right now I have a movie with a script with BoulderLight Pictures, who did Barbarian. So we’re working to get financiers for that. I’ve got the fever though. I love making movies and I want to make a bunch of them. I’ve got a few movies going on, but just in between that, I want to do a Kickstarter to do a very low budget, micro-budget experimental film. Sort of like Skinamarink, Eraserhead, or something like that. Something that’s very Let’s All Go to the World’s Fair. Adult Swim gives me tons of freedom, but at the end of the day, you still want to be able to deliver something to a certain type of audience. If it was a Kickstarter thing, I could really – you know – try something truly experimental. That’s on my list of something that I want to try and put together. 

BD: On that note – and you kind of hinted at this – but have you thought about what you’d do in a third Yule Log movie? Would it be another big stylistic change?

Kelly: Yes, but I want people to be surprised. I know the entertainment business is struggling right now. Getting to make any movie is a gift. Who knows if I’ll even get to make a third one. But yes, I have a bunch of really dark ideas that I’d love to get to do.

‘Adult Swim Yule Log 2: Branchin’ Out’ is now available to stream on Adult Swim and Max.