Natalie Erika James

without much further ado, let's get to it.

First up is Todd Brown, former head of international acquisitions at XYZ Films, now principal at Rourke Moving Pictures Corp. XYZ are a US sales and production studio behind global genre hits such as the Indonesian action series The Raid, Panos Kosmodos horror Mandy, and recent Australian title Sakaran by Natalie Erica James.

Here's Todd talking through his role in the global market.

Historically, my focus...

And there's like a literary tradition in Australia.

And then it's kind of, for me, it all starts with caliber of writing.

You know, is there a voice on the page? Is there something that's kind of coming across? In the case of somebody like Natalie Erica James, I first came across her with her very first short films, things like Kreswick.

To me, it was obvious right from the beginning with Natalie that she had something really unusual happening.

Yeah.

Okay, so this movie was written and directed by Natalie Erica James.

And the name didn't sound familiar, but these two movies that she directed previously, Relic...

Uh-huh.

Saccharin came out in May.

It was written and directed by Natalie Erika James, who is a familiar name here on the show.

Last year, Nicole and I covered Relic by her.

I really like that one.

It had a limited theater release on May 22nd of this year, 2026, and came to Shudder a few weeks ago, so that's where you can stream it if you'd like to catch it before we spoil it.

I was so stoked for this movie to come out.

I, I do like Natalie Erika James as a director.

So I was like, "Okay," excited to see something by her, especially in the theater.