Filmmaker Joshua Hull is about to release his debut novella, Mouth, and we at PosterSpy couldn’t be more excited! Joshua is a longtime friend and collaborator of the website, and he has brought his love of film into all aspects of the book. Read the interview to learn about his influences, his thoughts on the book’s cover art, and his history with PosterSpy.
Links:
X: https://twitter.com/joshuathehull
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshuathehull/?hl=en
Preorder Mouth: https://tenebrous-press.square.site/product/mouth-preorder-a-novella-by-joshua-hull-softcover-includes-ebook-/106
Congratulations on your latest book, Mouth! Could you tell us a little about it?
Thank you so much! Mouth is my debut novella and it’s a horrifically weird, sad, and sweet little thing. It follows a drifter named Rusty who is left a secluded property by a stranger… and finds himself the caretaker of a massive, tooth-filled mouth in the ground… and it’s hungry. His situation is complicated by Abigail, a wannabe filmmaker who stumbles on the secret. Together, the odd pair set out to discover the origins of Mouth and the hidden history of its former owner, setting in motion an outlandish scheme that could endanger them all.
Think Guillermo del Toro’s Harold and Maude with a splash of James Gunn and Roger Corman. It’s my love letter to movies, filmmaking, monsters, and second chances. It’s out March 15th from the wonderful Tenebrous Press.
The book is your first novella. How has your experience as a screenwriter involved the writing process?
It was tough to juggle at first… just moving so heavily into prose. Screenwriting is about simple descriptions and showing… not telling. So, trying to get out of that mindset and move into “tell, tell, tell!” took a little bit of time to get used to. But on the other hand, I naturally tell stories cinematically because that’s really all I know how to do. I’ve dedicated my life to movies and screenwriting so that aspect is always going to be a part of my writing style. So even though Mouth isn’t a screenplay or even close to being one, folks have pointed out how it reads and flows like a movie. A very weird movie. That being said, I know I made my wonderful editor Alex Woodroe’s editing absolute HELL because the friggin’ jerk screenwriter side of me kept hijacking chunks of the book. Whoops…
Halil Karasu‘s cover for Mouth is a real standout. How did this collaboration come to be?
Yes! I absolutely ADORE Halil’s cover art and I was SO happy when he came on board. It was a few months into the writing process when Matt, Alex, and I started talking about cover ideas. Initially, the book pitch was much darker, more Cronenbergian monster horror. But as the book took shape and it became what the story was, it was clear the cover needed to mirror the contents. So, we needed something fun, colorful, wild, and horrific.
Tenebrous asked me if I had any artist ideas… and that was a big ole yes. I immediately thought of Halil after seeing his art featured by PosterSpy a while back (shameless plug… buy the book Jack Woodhams and I did together: Underexposed: The 50 Greatest Movies Never Made!). I remember being just wowed by the colors and composition of his posters. Specifically Videodrome, Braindead, Basket Case, and Scanners. I loved them all! So yeah, Tenebrous reached out to him and thankfully he came on board.
Did the final version of the cover come into existence fast?
I don’t remember the timeline exactly, but I feel like I saw the cover sketch pretty quickly and I was absolutely stunned. Halil had packed so much detail into the cover and it blew me away. I would just stare at it and go “Oh! There’s that! And that! Oh, wow… he even included THAT!” It was cool to see him pluck some of those little things out and bring them to life. It really means the world to me that he put so much care and thought into the cover. He’s a marvelous talent and I can’t wait to work with him again.
Any other exciting projects in the works that you can share with us?
My debut novel is due out July 2025… and that’s a haunted house story that is sort of Scott Derrickson’s Sinister by way of Bret Easton Ellis. I’ll have another novella out early next year. Both of those books should officially be announced in the next few months. I have two films closing in on production and a handful more in different stages. I’m just going to keep writing movies and books until someone asks me to stop haha. I’m having a ton of fun and I’m genuinely excited about everything that is happening. I get to collaborate and work with wonderful people on a daily basis. So yeah, it’s all exciting.
