Scottsdale native makes horror on her own terms | Neighbors

Director Quentin Tarantino once called Scottsdale native and Horizon High School graduate Rachel Redleaf “absolutely amazing.”

In an account of the making of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” he added that he was “head over heels for her.”

He is not the first. From Netflix to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Redleaf has spent years making that kind of impression. Last March, she came home to Arizona to do it on her own terms, spending a week in Scottsdale to make a horror film with four of her closest friends.

“Eat, Pray, Rot” is a short that Redleaf produced and stars in alongside four collaborators who collectively wrote, directed, produced and acted in the project.

The story follows childhood best friends Gigi and Frankie — played by Maya Danzig and Redleaf, respectively — as their lifelong bond is tested at a Stepford-Wives-esque wellness retreat.

Gigi is seduced by the retreat’s promise of transformation. Frankie resists. And as Gigi slips deeper into the retreat’s hypnotic world, Frankie begins, literally, to decay.

After years of steady work — a recurring role as Beth Chapin across all four seasons of Netflix’s “Atypical” and a memorable turn as Mama Cass opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt — the pandemic and the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike brought the industry to a standstill. Redleaf found herself at a crossroads familiar to a generation of working actors: wait, or create.

“I have to make my own work,” she decided.

It wasn’t the first time she’d built something from scratch. Redleaf wrote and performed “Too Much of a Good Thing,” a one-woman show exploring body image, identity and self-love, giving its first-ever audience performance at Greasepaint Youtheatre — the same Scottsdale stage where she got her start as a child — before taking it to the NYC Fringe, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Playbill Cruise’s Fringe Ship.

The show, and the Hollywood roles she’d played, kept circling the same territory: what women are willing to do, and give up, to belong. “Eat, Pray, Rot” is that territory rendered in horror.

The film’s core creative team is made up of five Jewish women. Danzig, a New York-based actress and Sarasota Film Festival Special Jury Award winner, wrote the screenplay and co-produced alongside Redleaf; her screen credits include a celebrated feature alongside “1923” breakout Aminah Nieves.

Nashville-born Amber Steigelfest directed and produced, bringing festival credits from the Austin Comedy Film Festival and Mammoth. Shayna Nash co-wrote and produced, with credits including “Pop Cultured with Jimmy Pardo.” Arizona’s Peyton Morton, whose credits include the television mini-series “Holidazed” and the hit medical drama “Doc,” served as local producer.

“This was one of the most extraordinary creative experiences of my life,” Redleaf said. “These women are so brilliant, and everyone brought something so specific and so essential to this project.

“It felt like we had been waiting to make something together, and when we finally did, it just came together in a way that felt truly magical.”

Steigelfest added, “Every single person internalized this project as their own, completely and fully, while also trusting everyone else to do the same.

“Frankie was written for Rachel because we knew she would bring her hilarious and vulnerable self to the role. … Five different points of view made this so much richer than any one of us could have done alone.”

The film’s thematic heart, Steigelfest explained, is something all five of them felt personally.

“It’s about what you’re willing to give up for community and for love, and the terrifying realization that sometimes those things ask too much of you. Frankie can see that something is wrong, but her devotion to Gigi leads her to choose her friend over her own wellbeing.

“Finding a way to hold onto deep, intimate relationships while still honoring and protecting yourself — that felt like something we all understood.”

For Redleaf, playing Frankie opened something new in her work.

“I really got to show off a vulnerability I haven’t been able to access before,” she said. “Body image, femininity and what it means to be a woman: these themes matter so deeply to me. The way it all came together was something very, very special.”

Arizona’s production economics made sense, and Redleaf and Morton’s local roots made it possible. The shoot took place in March at the Redleaf family’s Scottsdale home. Both the Redleaf and Morton families opened their homes to house out-of-state cast and crew, and Rachel’s mother kept the entire production fed.

The community spirit ran deep. Virginia Olivieri, a familiar face in the Valley’s theater community, was cast as Nadia, the retreat’s unsettling leader.

 Maureen Dias Watson — artistic director of Greasepaint Youtheatre — appears in the film as Maude, the retreat’s enigmatic chef.

Dias Watson didn’t hesitate when Redleaf called.

“When Rachel told me about the film, I said ‘I’m in’ before she even finished. Because she’s Rachel, a literal force of nature and fountain of talent, onstage and on screen. Rachel can do anything. Not all of us can say that.”

“Watching them work just reinforced what I already know: the talent is right there. Artists just need the opportunity to bring their projects to life. Watch them. You’ll be seeing their names again.”

Cinematographer Christopher Sheffield and production designer Emma Pine brought Steigelfest’s visual world to life. It’s a setting that is, by design, almost suffocatingly beautiful before it cracks open to reveal something deeply unsettling.

Roughly 20 extras filled out the retreat’s eerie community, most of them drawn from Redleaf’s own orbit: friends from Horizon High, theater colleagues and community members including  Tawny Audi and Jamaelya Hines.

Behind the scenes, Scottsdale photographers Bella Tindall and Savannah Thompson documented the shoot with behind-the-scenes imagery now living on the film’s Instagram page at @eatprayrotfilm.

Steigelfest credits first assistant director Ava Eckstein-Schoemann, her cousin and the youngest person on set, with keeping the production running ahead of schedule every single day.

The team is now deep in post-production — sound design, color grading, visual effects and an original score — targeting a completion date of Aug. 1.

A local premiere is planned for late summer or early fall, with Greasepaint Youtheatre among the venues under consideration. From there, the festival circuit awaits, including a September screening at New York City’s Iris Bahr Neurotica Festival, where the film has already been accepted.

The team’s ambitions extend well beyond the short format. They’re already envisioning a feature-length version or a limited series, if the audience and resources align.

For now, the world they’ve built is 20 minutes long, shot in Scottsdale and — if Quentin Tarantino’s instincts about Rachel Redleaf are any indication — worth every second.

Follow the film on Instagram at @eatprayrotfilm.