Split Tooth Media

Split Tooth Media
  • 5.0 (12)
  • TV & FILM

Split Tooth Media is an independent publication based in Portland, Oregon, that still believes in long-form journalism and in-depth podcasts about music and film. Home of "Split Picks," a head-to-head showdown series about the career trajectories of filmmakers and musicians, created by Craig Wright; Jim Hickcox and Jason Michelitch's film criticism series "Cinesthesia;" and Rob Delany and 'T' Trimble's guide to exploring the world of art cinema with "Arthouse Drive-In."

  1. Make More Movies: Michael Glover Smith on 'Hekla' (Ep. 4)

    MAR 23

    Make More Movies: Michael Glover Smith on 'Hekla' (Ep. 4)

    Split Tooth Media has done extensive coverage of Michael Glover Smith’s body of work over the years. Our own Bennett Glace has interviewed him three times — once when his film Mercury in Retrograde (2017) streamed as part of the Gene Siskel Film Center’s “Film Center From Your Sofa” series, and again after the release of his feature film Relative (2022). A third interview was conducted to follow a Split Tooth Presents screening of Mercury in Retrograde at Portland’s Movie Madness Miniplex. Since then, Smith has premiered two films here on our site — Paper Planes (2023), a melancholy Christmas story about agoraphobia, and a vulnerable account of a first date entitled Handle With Care (2024). It is easy to write so much about a creator whose output has been as consistent as Smith’s. In 2026, he already has two artistic endeavors of note. The first is Bob Dylan as Filmmaker: No Time To Think, a book by Smith released on March 2. The second is his fifth official feature film, Hekla, which premiered at the 29th annual George Lindsey UNA Film Festival in Alabama on March 6. It was quite the busy week for Michael Glover Smith, but he still made time to chat with me about these two new projects and his career as a whole. With Hekla, Smith crafts his most intimate portrait of a Chicagoan to date. The film’s titular character, a young actress played exuberantly by Elizabeth Stam, spends an entire day moving from one audition to another, rarely getting a moment to breathe. During all of this, she has to deal with relationship issues, headshot appointments, and a live bar performance of Macbeth that night. The character of Hekla first appeared in Smith’s film Relative and Stam was an obvious standout amongst the cast. The decision to revisit this character also marks Smith’s first time making a film without an ensemble cast at the forefront. Typically, a Michael Glover Smith venture features two couples, three couples, or an entire family to keep up with. Here, the filmmaker shows growth in his ability to focus on a sole protagonist, one that Stam herself helped him craft. The film has already garnered some rave reception from those who saw it in Alabama and will continue its festival run this week on March 28 at the Beloit International Film Festival in Wisconsin. Tune in to hear my conversation with Michael Glover Smith. He was an incredible guest on the podcast and had lots of great advice to give to those crazy enough to pursue a career in film. We discuss the importance of collaborating with the same people throughout your career, pushing your stylistic limits as a director, and taking chances in the editing room. Give it a listen.

    53 min
  2. Make More Movies: Aidan Cronin (Ep. 3)

    11/16/2025

    Make More Movies: Aidan Cronin (Ep. 3)

    Aidan Cronin explores the things that confuse him. Like so many artists, he is on the often frustrating but sometimes freeing journey for answers to what very well could be unanswerable questions. Unlike a lot of artists, he doesn’t restrict himself to just one medium. He explores these questions through poetry — as seen in the stanza above and the ones throughout this piece, ripped directly from the 2023 archives of his notes app. He recently began exploring through painting, although most of his acrylic work has yet to be seen by the public. His main vehicle for artistic exploration over the past eight years has been film. As for the things that confuse him? Well, in his own words, Cronin seeks to “examine the cyclical banality of our continued existence.” Listen to our conversation here, and read my full profile on Cronin's work at Split Tooth Media. Make More Movies is a new podcast from Split Tooth Media about independent filmmakers where Aaron Bartuska interviews various DIY filmmakers about what keeps them creating. Be sure to read Aaron's full career overview of Cronin's work: https://www.splittoothmedia.com/aidan-cronin/ Hosted and produced by Aaron Bartuska Music by Will DiNola

    46 min
  3. Make More Movies: Anthony Leroy (Ep. 2)

    10/30/2025

    Make More Movies: Anthony Leroy (Ep. 2)

    Make More Movies is a podcast where Aaron Bartuska asks DIY filmmakers what keeps them creating. This episode is with guest Anthony Leroy. Anthony Leroy turned 30 earlier this year. In a post commemorating this milestone while simultaneously promoting his newest film, the filmmaker said that he had never really felt sure of himself as an artist until the past year. Now that he has found his voice, the decade ahead looks promising. “I’m ready for every challenge, every hiccup and I feel so honoured to be able to make tasty trash,” he wrote on Letterboxd. This particular brand of tasty trash also happens to be consistent. Since December 2023, Leroy has released five short horror films — four of which were shot on video in that same span of time. I came across one of Leroy’s shorts toward the end of last year and was shocked to discover just how productive Leroy had been in a 12-month span: not only had he made an entire SOV trilogy following the same murderous antagonist, he had also released an impressive high-concept horror short that achieved widespread praise and popularity on YouTube. When I checked up on his progress only a week later, he had already announced BUM (2025), an ambitious new found-footage film that would clock in as his longest project to date. The guy showed no signs of slowing down. Read Aaron's written profile of Leroy and his work here: https://www.splittoothmedia.com/anthony-leroy/

    50 min
  4. Make More Movies: Avalon Fast (Ep. 1)

    10/22/2025

    Make More Movies: Avalon Fast (Ep. 1)

    A new podcast from Split Tooth Media about independent filmmakers where Aaron Bartuska interviews various DIY filmmakers about what keeps them creating. In this episode, we dive deep into Avalon Fast's career, covering topics like what happens after your film sees festival success and why warm weather is overrated. If you were to stumble upon Avalon Fast’s website knowing nothing about the filmmaker, the first things you would see are her name and credentials, a picture of her on set with her friends, and the words “GIRL HORROR” in boldface font. There’s perhaps no better thesis statement for Fast’s body of work than that initial welcome. This past weekend, her sophomore feature CAMP (2025) screened as the centerpiece film at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival. The festival is known for defying audience expectation, but you’d think it safe to surmise that all of the films screening in their lineup would at the very least fall within the general confines of the horror genre. When I spoke to Fast a few weeks before the screening, she seemed uncertain how her film would be received in regard to its supposed genre — despite the bold proclamation on her homepage. “I’m curious to see if the world will define CAMP that way," Fast said. "It definitely seems like that’s where it’s been programmed. CAMP is fantasy. It’s genre. Is it horror? I don’t know.” She feels the same about Honeycomb (2022), her debut feature and her most widely seen work. The film, a DIY surrealist dreamscape about a group of girls who take to the woods to start their own society, premiered at the 2022 Slamdance Film Festival and was quickly pigeonholed in a similar way. The majority of Fast’s short films also tend to lean toward the macabre, but the complex themes they explore make them hard to classify as run-of-the-mill genre fare. She has embraced the label, but that doesn’t mean she won’t challenge it. “I like stories that are dark in that way. I think I’m just naturally attracted to that. Why? That’s something that I’m asking myself every time I make a movie.” Be sure to read Aaron's full career overview of Fast's work: https://www.splittoothmedia.com/avalon-fast/ Hosted and produced by Aaron Bartuska Music by Will DiNola

    47 min
  5. Split Picks: Videogore: The Films of J.C. Moller

    10/21/2025

    Split Picks: Videogore: The Films of J.C. Moller

    From The Norwegian Drillbit Massacre through Oslo Terror, Xposure Video's debut release collects Møller's films together for the first time. At age 15, Jon Christian Møller and some friends created a shot-on-video splatter film about a power-tool-wielding zombie's murder spree called The Norwegian Drillbit Massacre (1988). The short is full of stomach-busting practical effects and a firecracker-loaded climax. It has since become his best known film, but over a prolific two-year stretch, Møller and his friends made three short films — Drillbit, Cannibal Massacre, and I Hate You (Kill or Die) — and one feature film, The Oslo Terror. These films are exercises in homemade gore effects, stolen soundtracks, and stunts that are more extreme than they probably needed to be. For the first time, these four films are available together on DVD as Videogore: The films of J.C. Møller through Xposure Video, the new label founded by C.B. Cobb and Split Tooth's Vincent Albarano. Craig Wright, Aaron Bartuska, and Albarano team up for another October Horror Split Picks episode to discuss these Norwegian splatter films, and, more specifically, Albarano's direct role in bringing these films to a new audience. As Albarano describes, these are "four jaw droppingly sick dispatches so vile they only could have been made by jovial adolescents." Listen to hear the origin story behind Xposure Video, the common threads running through each of J.C. Møller's films, and what it took to track down and release these films.

    1h 37m
  6. Split Picks: Frank Henenlotter's 'Basket Case 2' Vs. 'Bad Biology'

    10/12/2025

    Split Picks: Frank Henenlotter's 'Basket Case 2' Vs. 'Bad Biology'

    Frank Henenlotter is no stranger to capturing misfits, oddballs, and mutated figures on film, but he always manages to find the humanity in each of them. His unique avant-gutter exploitation cinema has resulted in memorable characters and brutal moments, but he embraces the deadly and unpredictable sides that his creations offer. Duane and Belial, the once-conjoined twins who shocked Times Square in Basket Case (1982), are back in Basket Case 2 (1990). They find a new home in a mansion of misfits, but the press is after them and closing in. Bad Biology (2008) follows a woman with seven clitori and an insatiable — sometimes murderous — sex drive, and has mutant babies moments after the act; her path collides with a man who has an uncontrollable, brain-controlling, drug-addled penis. This is a genuine weird film for those seeking something they've never seen before — or could even imagine exists. Our host Jim Hickcox is joined by filmmakers and film teachers Steve Collins and film Spencer Parsons. Maybe don't listen to this episode at work...

    1h 33m
  7. Split Picks: Gary P. Cohen's 'Video Violence' Vs. 'Video Violence 2'

    10/07/2025

    Split Picks: Gary P. Cohen's 'Video Violence' Vs. 'Video Violence 2'

    Split Picks reemerges to sift through two classic SOV horrors from director Gary P. Cohen. A mysterious tape left in a small town video store's dropbox leads to the shop's owner becoming immersed in an underground ring of homemade murder tapes in Gary P. Cohen's Video Violence (1987). The town's love for violence only grows more outlandish in the 1988 sequel, Video Violence 2. The chief killers, Howard and Eli, invade the airwaves with pirate broadcasts that show submitted tapes of gruesome killings from their most loyal viewers. Vincent Albarano and Aaron Bartuska make their Split Picks debuts to talk about all things Cohen and shot-on-video horror. Albarano is the author of Aesthetic Deviations, A Critical View of American Shot-On-Video horror, 1984-1994. Bartuska, a filmmaker (watch The Yardley Boys) and film teacher, recently spoke with Cohen for a career-spanning interview. With host Craig Wright, they spend some time with the hosts of the Howard and Eli Show and their gruesome tape collection.

    1h 31m
  8. (pod)Casters of Horror: Wrapup and Rankings of Season 1

    10/29/2024

    (pod)Casters of Horror: Wrapup and Rankings of Season 1

    Rather than bore listeners with the details of their miraculous escape, Bennett and Jim share their end-of-season reflections and rankings of the entire first season of Showtime's Masters of Horror. Created by Mick Garris, Masters of Horror was a two-season series on Showtime that challenged genre legends to create an hour-long horror film. Follow along as Bennett and Jim are forced to spend no more than 20 minutes discussing each episode from the first season of the series or face a room full of poisonous gas.

    28 min
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5
out of 5
12 Ratings

About

Split Tooth Media is an independent publication based in Portland, Oregon, that still believes in long-form journalism and in-depth podcasts about music and film. Home of "Split Picks," a head-to-head showdown series about the career trajectories of filmmakers and musicians, created by Craig Wright; Jim Hickcox and Jason Michelitch's film criticism series "Cinesthesia;" and Rob Delany and 'T' Trimble's guide to exploring the world of art cinema with "Arthouse Drive-In."

Information

  • Creator
    Split Tooth Media
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    161
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © All rights reserved
  • Show Website
    Split Tooth Media