At this year's Fantastic Fest, movie lovers had the opportunity to catch a special anniversary screening of Corey Feldman's horror-comedy The Birthday, 20 years after its World Premiere at the Sitges International Film Festival. In fact, this marks the second time co-writer and director Eugenio Mira showed his film to the Austin, Texas crowds. The Birthday played at the first-ever Fantastic Fest before it all but disappeared.
In the movie, Feldman plays Norman Forrester, a pizza maker who's finally going to meet his girlfriend's family for her father's birthday. Dressed to the nines, Norman shows up to a lavish hotel, only to find he's not on the guest list. As the night goes on, everyone acts strangely, but things get a lot worse when Norman discovers he's among a religious group anxiously awaiting the birth of their god.
During this conversation with Collider's Perri Nemiroff, Mira and Feldman share the story behind The Birthday. Mira explains how he first fell in love with filmmaking, how that passion ultimately led to his partnership with co-writer Mikel Alvariño, and how casting Feldman gave him the chance to work alongside a childhood icon. As a birthday surprise, instead of Feldman, Nemiroff was joined by Norman Forrester from the movie, who discusses his role in the film and what he learned from the experience. They both explain what happened with the movie's distribution, why it never got an official theatrical release, and the importance of sharing it with the world now.
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