THE FIXATE & BINGE PODCAST, with Host, Joe Curdy: Deep dives into cinema and storytelling with voices who create it · Joe Curdy

A Debut in Terror: JC Doler on Co-Writing & Directing the 2025 Shudder Sensation THE TWIN

·44 min·3 clips

JC Dohler says he cut almost 40 minutes from The Twin after filming 23 days.

1. THE FIXATE & BINGE PODCAST episode centers on JC Dohler’s 2025 Shudder film The Twin and its path from short to feature. 2. Host Joe Curdy leads the conversation, and guest JC Dohler is the director, co-writer, and editor whose first feature reached Shudder after a 23-day shoot. 3. The episode asks how a 2016 short called Hangman became The Twin, and what Dohler learned while turning a $1,000 competition film into a $500,000 feature. 4. Dohler says Hangman ran 13 minutes, was made for the Louisiana Film Prize, and led people to ask whether it should become a feature. 5. He explains that the feature version took shape after he and Paul Peterson started developing the script in 2018 and kept refining it through 2022. 6. Curdy describes the film as “trauma horror,” and Dohler agrees that the story grew from a man haunted by his own double into something more tied to trauma and mental health. 7. Dohler names Relic as the biggest influence and points to its mother-daughter structure and dementia themes. 8. He also cites The Shining and The Exorcist III as major references, along with M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit. 9. Dohler says the original title was The Fetch, and he only learned the folklore while researching a story about mental health and hauntings. 10. He explains that the fetch legend is thinly documented, mainly through a short story about a doctor’s wife seeing a doppelganger as a sign of death. 11. Curdy connects that folklore to Hamlet and quotes the idea that “the spirit I have seen may be the devil,” linking the movie to older literary fears about grief and deception. 12. Dohler says the film’s cast came together through Logan Donovan, who was attached early and then helped bring in Alexa and Robert Longstreet. 13. He says Logan Donovan studied psychology, watched and read material for the role, and spent years shaping Nicholas before production. 14. Dohler describes Robert Longstreet as the kind of performer who is funny and personable off-screen and strong in monologue-heavy work on screen. 15. He says Alexa was the last major cast addition, but the production kept adapting the script around the performers’ sensibilities. 16. Dohler says he edited features professionally since 2009, which helped him plan shots, cut efficiently, and complete a rough cut by January 1 after filming in October and November 2022. 17. Curdy’s interview style is expansive and referential, moving from horror criticism to Shakespeare, Twin Peaks, and festival talk without losing the thread. 18. Dohler answers in detailed, practical terms, and the exchange stays focused on process, influences, and the logistics of independent filmmaking. 19. Fans of indie horror, Shudder subscribers, and viewers interested in trauma-driven genre films. 20. Viewers who want fast plot summaries or dislike detailed craft talk.

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