By SUMMER GRIFFIN
The alley behind Mr. Toad’s in downtown Greensburg doesn’t look like the set of a horror film at first glance. Cars roll past on West Otterman Street, old brick buildings cast shadows over cracked pavement, and on a bright March afternoon, there lies a small group of friends huddled around cameras and equipment, laughing between takes. For local indie horror production company TDI, ordinary places like this are exactly where the terror begins.
“We envisioned going to a place that was desolate, and it worked out nicely,” Christian Herman, creative and film director and lead actor for most of the company’s films, said. “Greensburg has a lot of older buildings that really fit the tone we wanted.”
Since 2018, the six-person filmmaking crew—made up of Michael and Michael Risnear, J.T. and Nicholas Kazousky, Kevin Lee, and Christian Herman—has carved out a place in Western Pennsylvania’s indie horror scene. Their YouTube short “Garbage Night,” has amassed more than 142,000 views, and their feature-length film “Monroe Acres,” is currently making its way through the festival circuit. Across fifteen horror shorts, TDI has built a reputation for unsettling stories rooted in recognizable places and everyday fears.
“We’re just a group of friends who decided to do something and get creative with it,” said Nicholas Kazousky, cinematographer and director of photography for TDI. “I don’t think it’s ever been something we were scared of […] ‘I tried’ is way better than ‘what if.’’
“I think sometimes we just root our stories in real life—what we see on a daily basis,” Michael Risnear, founder and executive producer said, “Someone in the group will come and say, ‘I’ve heard about this thing,’ and then it helps us start coming up with ideas. Sometimes it’s just a matter of the sounding board. […] I wouldn’t say we have one specific style or one source we pull from.”
Much of TDI’s inspiration comes from those ordinary experiences and locations, giving the work an element of realism that makes it all the more terrifying. A broken down car, a swift walk up the stairs, or an isolated farmhouse can all become the foundation for a story.
The TDI production crew, alongside actress Asia Bee, standing in the alley behind Mr. Toad’s bar in Greensburg, PA, preparing to shoot a scene for their short film, “Facial Deconstruction.” Photo by Cicada Hill.
“Who hasn’t taken out the garbage at night and thought, ‘Dang, it’s a little spooky out here?’” Kazousky joked. “Boom — there’s an idea.”
“It’s just a genuine reflection of what we see,” Kazousky continued. “Because we don’t have the budget to modify our surroundings to a great degree, it is real life, and we are capturing it in a sense.”
That grounded realism also comes from the environments they film in, with the crew embracing the authenticity of real-world settings throughout Western Pennsylvania.
Herman described the idea generation process as an indie production company, “Any ideas that I have, I think about the bandwidth we have to film it … you have to think about the budget we have to film it and when we’ll all be available to do it. It’s kind of like a perfect world when you have a really great idea and realize you can shoot it on a budget of zero without using a ton of CGI or AI or anything. If we can shoot in one sitting—one singular day—that’s optimal. But nowadays we probably average in the two-to-three-day range.”
On March 22, Herman invited two Setonian reporters behind the scenes of TDI’s newest short film, “Facial Deconstruction,” which premiered on May 21. The production transformed the alley behind Mr. Toad’s into the backdrop for a grotesque body-horror story centered around vanity culture and modern “looksmaxxing” trends online.
“I had an idea for a body horror short, and at first, I didn’t really have much of a statement—it was more of a traditional horror short where a person goes to a creepy building and ends up basically getting plastic surgery in a van in an alley somewhere. But with the way the climate is right now, I thought, why not amp up the comedy a bit for commentary,” Herman said. “We don’t typically put a lot of comedy into our shorts, and so this one was arguably the most fun I’ve ever had on set. We were just throwing everything at the wall, totally goofing off.”
Christian Herman of TDI productions and actress Asia Bee discussing the set-up for the scene featured in TDI’s short film, “Facial Deconstruction.” Photo by Cicada Hill.
The short film stars Herman alongside Pittsburgh actress Asia Bee as a couple seeking an extreme cosmetic procedure from a questionable alleyway surgeon. Between takes, the cast and crew joked with one another while dodging cars coming through the alleyway.
The crew filmed several sequences in the alley, capturing dramatic wide-angle shots that Risnear said became some of his favorite visuals the crew has created. “I’m really happy with some of the shots we got in the alley,” Risnear said. “It had a lot of cinematic qualities and really helped connect the story.”
Risnear remarked on seeing an area of Greensburg that he never had before, “We all grew up in the area and know Greensburg well, but we didn’t even know there was a parking lot there—it was right under our noses,” Risnear said.
With the short undergoing the editing process, the group switched gears into talking about “Monroe Acres,” a film project that started when the production company itself was formed. What started as footage inspired by a personal experience evolved into the crew’s first feature-length film—one that’s, as previously mentioned, now circulating through the festival circuit.
“As far as inspiration and the film itself, it really came down to the fact that I lived a summer in my grandfather’s farmhouse up in Mercer, Pennsylvania,” Michael Risnear said. “It was a scary environment to be in by yourself sometimes. There wasn’t any cell phone access, there was a long dirt road to even get into the property, well water, no washer or dryer. You’re living very simplistically.”
That sense of isolation became the foundation of “Monroe Acres,” Risnear explained that after spending the summer alone at the farmhouse, he discovered more than six hours of old 8mm footage his grandfather had preserved of his mother’s childhood and the property itself. The archival footage became a defining piece of the project’s identity.
As TDI continued producing short horror films beginning in 2018, the footage for “Monroe Acres,” remained in the background. But, over time, the group realized they had the material to create something much larger.
“I think because we’re very run-and-gun and we don’t always have a built set or anything like that, we tend to capture real life in a way that is more genuine than a lot of films do,” Risnear said. “But I also think there is, especially with older films and definitely ‘Monroe Acres’—we shot that over the course of multiple years. So there were continuity differences with the characters,” adding to the film’s realism.
Kazousky described the project as deeply personal to Risnear from the very beginning.
“Monroe Acres is Mike’s baby,” Kazousky said. “He was the one with the lived experience, and I think he came up with that idea of this isolated person living off the grid who loses his mind, and we fleshed it out and made it what it is today.”
Now completed, the film has entered the long process of festival submissions. Risnear said the group has submitted to roughly 16 or 17 festivals, carefully timing applications between worldwide, national, regional, and local competitions. “It’s kind of a difficult Jenga-sort-of process,” Risnear said. “You’re trying to get into the biggest festival you can submit to.”
For now, the group is waiting to hear back from festivals later this year. “It’s a bittersweet thing because we’re done with the project, and now all we can do is wait,” Risnear said. “At this point, we’re keeping the word out and looking forward to the winter to see what happens.”
While the group’s films may center on fear inducing themes, the process behind them is built on friendship. Whether filming in the backroads of Mercer County for “Monroe Acres,” or discovering hidden corners of Greensburg for “Facial Deconstruction,” the group continues to transform familiar Western Pennsylvania spaces into something delightfully unsettling.
“The countless inside jokes that come from 4 a.m. conversations after a long day of filming, delirious and not having eaten in ten hours. There have been a lot of moments throughout however many years it’s been, and that’s definitely my favorite part about it—that shared experience with my friends,” Kazousky said.
For any Seton Hill students aspiring to work within the local indie film community, TDI extends a bone chilling welcome to all creatives; actors, writers, and filmmakers alike. “We can always find a way to involve other people. At the end of the day, it’s a combination of just having fun and coming up with concepts and ideas to help fuel this production. Definitely reach out to us on Instagram or look for our email on YouTube or our website.”
You can keep up with the latest horrors from TDI through their website [https://www.tdiproductions.com/films], as well as their YouTube channel and Instagram page, @TDIProductions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzaT5B0DzR8