Grave Conversations — where stars are interviewed while lying in caskets — is a new show hosted Late Night with the Devil star David Dastmalchian.
“After playing a talk show host in my most recent film ‘Late Night with the Devil,’ I felt myself longing to take the interview format phase of my career one step further … with caskets,” Dastmalchian said in a press release announcing the talk show. “The opportunity to interview my friends and colleagues presented itself with Grave Conversations, a hilarious, heartfelt, and personal exploration of some of the things that matter most in life. And death.”
The series, which consists of episodes six to eight minutes in length, debuts Wednesday on the Grave Conversations Instagram page.
The first episode features Kate Siegel, the star of such Netflix horror hits as The House on Haunted Hill, Midnight Mass and The Fall of the House of Usher.
“I never thought I would do an interview in a casket, but now that I’ve done one, I only want to do interviews in caskets,” Siegel said in the press release.
Mike Flanagan — who directed his wife and frequent collaborator Siegel in the above-mentioned horror productions — is interviewed by Dastmalchian in Episode 2 of the show.
“Grave Conversations is one of the best interviews, one of the top 15 strangest conversations with David Dastmalchian I’ve ever had,” Flanagan said in the press release. “Finally, my tendency to climb into open caskets was put to earnest and entertaining use.”
Episode 2 will also feature a casket interview with Scream and Five Nights at Freddy’s star Matthew Lillard.
Grave Conversations Was Developed In Conjunction With Dastmalchian’s New Production Company
Grave Conversations was developed by Elan Gale, who has produced and written on such hit series as Midnight Mass and The Midnight Club, and has executive produced several unscripted series smashes as The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, Bachelor in Paradise and FBOY Island.
Gale’s TheYearOfElan Productions collaborated with Titan Casket for Grave Conversations, which they developed with David Dastmalchian’s production company Good Fiend Films.
“Grave Conversations is more than just a talk show; it’s the most important talk show I’ve ever been a part of, and the only talk show I’ve been a part of,” Gale said in a press release. “Normalizing conversations about death can be just as fun as it is important.”
The release of Grave Conversations comes shortly after the theatrical and streaming release of Late Night with the Devil, which is the first feature film from Dastmalchian’s Good Fiend Films.
The logo for Good Fiend Films features X-ray glasses, and before Late Night with the Devil the logo is extended into stop-motion animated sequence where its characters put on X-ray glasses to detect monsters in their neighborhood.
Ultimately, Dastmalchian told me in a Zoom interview before the theatrical release of Late Night With the Devil, the sequence provides the viewer with a different way of looking at things. As such, Grave Conversations seems to fill that mission with his casket conversations with celebrities.
“When you put on those X-ray specs, you’re going to look and see the world in a different way,” Dastmalchian explained. “There are monsters all around us, and guess what? Not all of them are bad monsters. Sometimes there are good monsters and we have to look out for them and take care of them. Sometimes we ourselves could be the good monsters.”
Now playing on the show’s Instagram account, Grave Conversations‘ episodes were written by Bill Dixon and directed by Jacob Strunk.