Ramen Noodles & True Crime Collide In William Bagley’s Promising Feature Debut ‘The Murder Podcast’

Who knew that a packet of ramen could be used to fight the forces of evil? The cheap and filling meal choice of broke college students the world over ingeniously becomes the new holy water and crucifix in writer-director William Bagley’s auspicious feature debut — The Murder Podcast.

The love child of Fright Night, Hot Fuzz, Napoleon Dynamite, and The Lonely Island’s Hot Rod, the offbeat comedy follows two stoner podcasters — Chad (Andrew McDermott) and Eddie (Cooper Bucha) — hoping to strike it big in the true crime genre by investigating a string of local homicides that may involve the supernatural.

As it turns out, the duo is hilariously ill-equipped to solve the mystery and probably should have stuck to reviewing ramen.

“I have always been a fan of comedy mixed with other genres,” Bagley tells me over email, citing Edgar Wright and Peter Jackson (who, before venturing into Middle-earth, got his start with subversive genre mashups like Bad Taste and Dead Alive) as some of his biggest creative influences. “Action-comedy, horror-comedy, dramedy, I like it all. To me, that’s how life really is. Crazy stuff happens, but you can usually find the humor in it.”

He recalls how the project first began to take shape in his mind after learning about a tradition in Salem, Massachusetts where people place coins on the graves of alleged witches to keep their spirits at bay. “I thought that sounded like a great idea for a horror movie. I researched the topic, hoping to learn more, but I only found one source confirming his story. So if it’s true or not, I have no idea. Still a great story concept!”

Around the same time, the director’s wife had hopped on the true crime bandwagon made popular by Serial and In the Dark. “She was listening to a different podcast every week,” he remembers. “It seemed like anyone with a microphone was making true crime content. That sparked an idea about a couple of underprepared guys trying to capitalize off the hype. This combined with the witch/coin concept and The Murder Podcast was born.”

While not a huge fan of the genre himself, Bagley can understand the appeal of why we find ourselves attracted to real-life tales of brutal homicides. “It’s human nature to be morbidly curious and try to understand, ‘How the heck someone could do that!?’” he says. “I used to work in local news, and the saying, ‘If it bleeds, it leads’ is definitely true. People like dark stories. Maybe it’s a survival instinct — the more you learn, the more you can avoid danger. Or maybe it’s purely gossip. ‘Give us the dirt! We’ve got to know!’ I also think everyone loves a good mystery. It’s the reason why shows like Law and Order: SVU have survived so long. Hook the audience in the first five minutes with a brutal murder and they’ll have to stick around to find out who did it.”

Funny, bizarre, heartfelt, and sometimes shockingly brutal, The Murder Podcast signals a bright future for Bagley’s cinematic career. Give the man a larger budget in future, wind him up, and watch him go.

“My main goal as a filmmaker is to tell fun stories,” he concludes. “But to me, ‘fun’ can mean many things. Horror can be fun, comedy is definitely fun, action is fun, well-written thrillers are fun. My goal is for you to finish one of my films and say, ‘I had fun watching that!’ I am extremely proud of The Murder Podcast. It’s exactly what we set out to make and I really hope anyone who watches it has an absolute blast. Grab some friends, popcorn, maybe a few drinks and have some…fun!”

The Murder Podcast will be available to rent, beginning Wednesday, Oct. 26.