An Interview with Gregory Lamberson, Director of Frenzy Moon

by Mike Haberfelner

December 2025

Films directed by Gregory Lamberson on (re)Search my Trash

Your new movie Frenzy Moon - in a few words, what's it about?

Werewolves and people who become werewolf chow. Six college students go to a cabin – heard that one before? – and several get eaten. There’s a paranoia angle too, because one of the students might be a critter too. It’s a throwback to monster movies from the 70s and 80s, which I love. I did direct Slime City, Killer Rack and Johnny Gruesome…

With Frenzy Moon being a werewolf movie, is that a genre especially dear to you, and some of your genre favourites?

I wrote three werewolf novels which were well reviewed and sold well: The Frenzy Way, The Frenzy War, and The Frenzy Wolves. Those stories were all too big for me to tell as a microbudget film, but I wanted to do something with them. This movie is a smaller scale companion piece to those novels. I love the obvious werewolf movies, zero surprises: An American Werewolf in London, The Howling, Bad Moon, Ginger Snaps, Dog Soldiers. But I also like Scream of the Wolf, This Beast Must Die and The Boy Who Cried Werewolf. I love monsters, and I can be very forgiving as long as I’m entertained.

What do you think makes Frenzy Moon stick out of the crowd of werewolf movies?

Well, mine only cost $135,000, so it’s a different breed; it’s a mutt, but it’s fucking proud to be a mutt. Werewolves cost 25 times more and Wolfman cost 200 times more, but I honestly like my story better than either of those: it’s unpretentious and only 80 minutes long. Carpenter’s The Thing was a bigger inspiration than any werewolf film, also Assault on Precinct 13. My characters come up against a pack of werewolves, and there are a lot of werewolves in the climax. There’s no bullshit CGI, which I see as a positive selling point.

Do talk about the creature work in your movie for a bit, and to what extent were you involved in your movie*s werewolf design?

I described what I wanted in my screenplay, and I met with the SFX guys several times and reiterated what I wanted and they basically did their own thing and there was no going back. Four different werewolves were used in the film: two suits, one rod puppet, and one hand puppet. They all look different, and one of the suits looks like what I described in my script. Sometimes you pay for what you get, not the other way around. Some of the interpretations work better than others, but in the end I’m glad we have different looks. If you’re looking for a $10 million film with muscular CGI monsters, look elsewhere; this is a tribute to a certain kind of film, and the effects work within that milieu. You know, when I’m watching Tubi late at night, and I put on something like Empire of the Ants, I don’t bitch about the special effects - I love crude magic. The other day I watched another Bert I. Gordon movie, Beginning of the End, with Peter Graves fighting giant locusts. The SFX were so cheesy, but I still loved watching them and I really enjoyed the film.

A few words about Frenzy Moon's approach to horror?

It’s a traditional creature feature siege film, very character based. I wanted to show a lot less of the werewolves in the beginning, but my distributor wanted to see them upfront, so there they are, in broad daylight. Not my choice, but I’m okay with it. In general, I wanted creeping suspense that turns into paranoia and builds to an action climax, and I think that’s what we delivered. It was good to get some practical blood in there too, in addition to the digital splats.

Do talk about your overall directorial approach to your story at hand!

I took casting very seriously, and went to a lot of plays to find people with theater backgrounds. I think they’re terrific, and the acting is one of the film’s strong suits, so to speak. We had 14 days to shoot inside that cabin, and it was a pleasure working with the same cast day after day, instead of spread out like usual. We had two days of rehearsals, which was a luxury. I encouraged the actors to create, and we did as many takes as we needed for all of us to be satisfied. In terms of technical direction, we did a lot of shots on a dolly, something no one has really pointed out; I think we did nice work, with cool angles and moves. I especially like the climax: We filled the interior of the cabin with haze so the green laser scope on the hero’s assault rifle shows up. 95% of the shots with that laser were practical, done live on set; we only faked two of them, one for actor safety and the other to correct a continuity error. There’s one shot when Aaron Krygier is shooting at a werewolf outside a window, and we dollied along the laser itself for five seconds. I’ve never seen a shot like that before.

You also just have to talk about Frenzy Moon's forest annd cabin locations for a bit, and what was it like filming there? And a few words about the shoot as such, and the on-set atmosphere?

I’m in Buffalo, and that cabin was located in a suburb called Clarence. It looks secluded, but it’s located in a very small park behind a dump, hidden from the public but easy to access. We shot one week in daylight and two weeks at night in October, and a couple of those nights were really cold. The wind blew our fog everywhere, so we wasted a lot of time chasing it. But it does have atmosphere, and I’m proud of it.

Anything you can tell us about audience and critical reception of Frenzy Moon?

Pretty much the same as for all of my films: the audience that saw it in theaters for film festivals really liked it, we won some awards, and people who understand it’s a throwback film enjoy it; and then you get people who don’t really seem to understand, or care, what an indie film is and compare them to Blumhouse productions. Shit, give me one of those budgets! It’s to be expected, but I think the trend is getting worse. I’ve seen three different YouTube videos in which the reviewer has spent five minutes tearing the film apart, and then at the end they say, “But I really enjoyed it, and I’ll watch it again, and if you like An American Werewolf in London and The Howling, you should see it too!” Thanks for burying the lead, people J

Any future projects you'd like to share?

This is my 10^th feature as director. I’m done with microbudget horror, at least of the “no budget” variety. You work twice as hard as the people who have money so you pay the cast and crew something, and after a year and a half of hard work you get some guy in a basement who’s never created anything shitting all over you online like a monkey in a zoo throwing poo. It used to be that indies provided horror films because the big studios didn’t want them, and the fans ate it up and the horror mags supported it. But now the studios churn out $20 million B movies that the little guys can’t compete with, and that’s what younger fans are conditioned to expect, and the horror mags don’t give a shit about the little guys anymore – thank God for people like you and a few others. For the first time I understand why so many indie horror filmmakers have turned to making Christmas movies, there’s a real audience for those. So, after 40 years of fighting the good fight I’ve decided that I need to at least double my budgets, which won’t be easy, and if I can’t, I’m done. I call these films “miracle productions”, and I’m tired of pulling off miracles. I’m currently developing two films, one, Blood Heretics, is a vampire script with a lot of action that I wrote; the other, Deadly Rites, is an action thriller with a little horror written by an old college friend, Ed Walloga, who was the AD on my first three films (Slime City, Undying Love, Naked Fear).

Your/your movie's website, social media, whatever else? And anything else you're dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask?

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Thanks for the interview!

© by Mike Haberfelner

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