David Weiner: The Nostalgia Curator goes In Search of Darkness

At the Helm of In Search of Darkness

David Weiner – In Search of Darkness 2 – Courtesy of Production

1428 Elm: I know you are fond of referring to yourself as a nostalgia curator. So, obviously, you are a good fit to helm a documentary like In Search of Darkness. How did you become involved with Executive Producer Robin Block? Did you pitch him the idea since you are the writer of the project? Tell us about that experience.

DW: It’s another example of “cart before the horse” with my career. Robin had already started the project. He has done several other works that are 80’s themed like In Search of the Last Action Heroes. He has an 80’s Sci-Fi documentary film called, In Search of Tomorrow in development right now.

He has asked me to direct that as well. The way I came onto the project was through people I know. Jessica Dwyer, who is an entertainment journalist (who has written for Horror Hound and  has her own site) and I met on The Conjuring 2 set and became friends.

Later on, she became part of this project herself. She got in touch with me and she said that I needed to be involved in this in some way, shape or form.

Then I talked with Robin and he asked me to come on board as an advisor. So, I did. I helped to promote the first round of the Kickstarter in October.

Based on the sessions we had on how to put this film together, I got this wonderful opportunity to direct this documentary. Which means I was writing the film and writing the narrative.  Plus, creating the structure and writing the questions, basically shaping this thing so when we sit in front of 40 people, its not a random amount of horror questions.

This is all pre-determined to fit a very specific narrative background that not only goes into a deep dive, but goes into the details of 80’s horror. Not only into the movies but how they were consumed, their socio-political impact, the way they were made and the community behind the scenes.