Who's Watching: A Conversation with Cursive's Tim Kasher about his new film.
Tim Kasher can’t stop telling stories.
The Omaha, Nebraska native is known around the world over as a solo singer-songwriter, the founder of the criminally underrated band The Good Life and most importantly as the mastermind frontman behind the iconic emo/indie band Cursive.
But music has not been the only creative arts that Kasher has been involved with. For the past 22 years, the acclaimed songwriter has been quietly hammering away at writing screenplays.
But in those years he has written a bevy of scripts of all shapes and sizes, but to date he has only managed to get two films produced. Both of which he directed on a shoestring budget.
Kasher’s first film, No Resolution was released in 2017. It is an indie drama about an engagement falling apart on New Years Eve and is filmed in a mumblecore style reminiscent of Joe Swanberg. The film was unable to find distribution and was self-released on Video On Demand. As of this moment, the film is not currently available for purchase or streaming.
In 2023 with a $300,000 budget, Kasher directed his next film, a riveting horror thriller called Who’s Watching. Who’s Watching played a handful of film festivals in 2024, including Beyond Fest and Brooklyn Horror Film Festival. It was picked up for distribution by Dark Sky films and will be released on Video-On-Demand on September 18th with a specialty Blu-ray release to be announced in the near future.
To promote the release of the film, Kasher is doing what he’s always done with his finished projects. He’s taking it on tour.
Kasher is currently in the middle of a monthslong tour with Who’s Watching. He’s personally bringing the film to theaters across the country. Kasher will be on hand for post-screening Q&A’s and will be performing short, acoustic sets of songs from Cursive and the fictional band from the film Toxic Cock Syndrome.
For diehard Kasher fans, this will be a rare opportunity to see him perform in smaller and more intimate rooms than he normally plays in with his myriad of musical projects.
His tour will bring him through the Bay Area with performances in Santa Rosa at the Roxy Stadium 14 on Thursday August 27 and at the 4-Star in San Francisco on Saturday August 29. Kasher will also be performing (without a film screening) on Friday August 28 in Redding, CA at the Dip.
It may seem crazy to some folks that Kasher, a well known musician would try his hand at making films, but for Kasher, it all comes from a similar place.
“I'm just trying to tell stories,” says Kasher from his Los Angeles home. “I know that the mediums are crazy different, but there's still kind of a through line in my head.”
“I've had a lifelong love of film,” he continues. “I consider it the medium of my generation. I really pushed myself to get into screenwriting because I wanted to be able to expand the storytelling and that's a great way to do it.”
“I think that [a film] is more complete and a fully fleshed out story. I recognized the songs that I was writing on Cursive’s second album are songs specifically expressing my frustration that there's not enough meter to work through my full ideas in storytelling.”
When asked about the pivot between film and music, Kasher replies, “On one hand I had this lifelong daydream of being a filmmaker. And then on the other hand, I was now a musician, but found myself frustrated that I couldn't get more of a fleshed out, complete story out of the songwriting.”
“Lyric writing aside, I just love playing with the instrumental side of music and that will hopefully never change in me. But with the lyric writing, I started to feel frustrated. I found that I was better adjusted when I started writing screenplays because I was able to exercise that more fleshed out storytelling.”
Kasher did not go to college for film, instead choosing to major in English and creative writing. “I spent years wanting to write films, but seeing it as way too daunting,” says Kasher.
After years of stopping and starting scripts, Kasher decided when he turned 30 to take this dream more seriously and decided to start “putting in the work.”
To learn how to do the work, he visited his local library to learn how to write screenplays. He would check out scripts for films like The Godfather or Silence of the Lambs and would read along while he watched the films to discover how they would craft their scenes.
When asked about courage to pursue a film career, Kasher replies, “It really sucks. It's really hard and you really have to fall flat on your face. The amount of times that I've asked myself to stop and you just kind of keep going.”
He continues, “The best word for me is probably persistence. I think there'd probably be a lot of people out there that'd be like, “Damn, I can't believe he's still going.”
“Cause after the amount of rejections that I've gotten over the last 20 years in this business that I'm still not even in.. I'm still kind of an outsider. I don't really know what else I want to do. So I just kind of keep stupidly banging my head against that wall.”
To keep himself going in spite of the rejections, Kasher focuses on the work, “The real core is that I'm chasing down the feeling of a job well done. It’s really just as simple as that.
“I'm a fortunate guy, so I have like a long list of good days and a good day for me is where I get to be where it's six or seven o'clock at night... And I get to look back and be like, ‘Man, that song I started today is awesome!”
He continues, “I like that feeling of completion and a job well done. After a day of work where you come up with one to three solid ideas? That's so much of what keeps my motor running. It just charges me up.”
“It's cool to be scrappy and figure out how to tell the story.” Kasher decided to direct Who’s Watching as his second film as it was the script of his that most fit the budget he was able to raise, $300,000. The film was shot in his hometown of Omaha to help stretch every single penny of the production.
When asked if it was okay to call the film a ‘B-Movie,” Kasher replied, “It is a B-movie, but I think it's a B-movie more by virtue of just being a low budget [film]. You hope that comes with a certain low budget charm. I certainly find charm in movies that are lower budgeted. I hope that [charm] is there with this movie.”
He continues, “I'm proud of the story and I think the story exceeds B-horror storytelling, but that's also just like a proud father, you know?”
Who’s Watching is a horror thriller with a dark comedic edge. The film stars Zachary Ray Sherman as Caleb, an incel of a young man with an apparent intellectual disability. Caleb lives with his grandmother and works for his uncle at a search engine optimization company. He performs in a death metal band and is obsessed with video taping his life. When his company hires a young new woman to lead the office, his simple obsessions become something much more sinister.
Much like his many albums and songs from his music career, Kasher doesn’t seem concerned with conforming to the normal Hollywood rules and instead turns in a challenging film with undertones of nihilism while managing to have a sympathetic ear and a sarcastic grin.
It will remind viewers of quirky indie films your local video store kept hiding in its dark corners waiting for impressionable young teens to find in the 90s. While viewing Who’s Watching, I kept thinking of movies such as American Movie, Gummo and Doom Generation, while also touching a familiar tone of The Office.
The film has been called a “Found Footage” film, but it’s instead something more, as it takes the footage Caleb films, but also shows us the world from other points of view in this world that are not from his camera. It feels voyeuristic in familiar ways while also managing to explore unique ideas for its unusual characters.
And it’s the strength of these well fleshed out characters that really make this film sing. Gracie Gillam plays Krista, the object of Caleb’s obsession. Her face and performance speaks volumes for what her character is going through. Her performance is fantastic as she navigates the professional world of her office life, while trying to handle the increasingly creepy young Caleb’s obsession with her.
For Caleb, there is something special that comes through in the performance of Zachary Ray Sherman. He’s able to imbue the role of Caleb with a real life authenticity that works so well with the documentary vibe of the film. Caleb feels like a real life character you’ve met before and it is all because of Sherman’s excellent performance that Caleb feels like a real three dimensional character.
He’s able to tap into the creepiness of Caleb, while also making him somehow likeable with a loveable sad sack-ness that flows through his character. You somehow find yourself oddly rooting for Caleb and it’s all on the strength of Sherman’s performance.
“Zachary is incredible,” exclaims Kasher. “It's incredible how much he gives of himself. He just does the work. He did all of the work. There was at least a year and a half of back and forth where every month or two I’d get a message or call from Zach with ideas about who Caleb is, what he should look like and how Caleb thinks.”
“I give Zach the bulk of the credit because he kept pushing me to flesh it out more. Together we are able to create like this character who is an antagonist, but we were trying to create somebody that you might like, ‘oops,’ have empathy for. That's complicated. And that's what I want.”
“We're hoping that the audience will be uncomfortable watching the movie because they see something in Caleb and they don't necessarily like that much,” explains Kasher, “They don't want him to hurt others and they don't want him to hurt himself. You want him to do better, or that's the hope anyway.”
As Kasher embarks upon the screening tour, the September 18 VOD release date is fast approaching. Dark Sky is distributing the film and has released iconic lower budget horror classics such as Victor Crowley, Deathgasm, House of the Devil and Camp.
“I'm really glad and proud to be working with Dark Sky Films for distribution. I think they're the right fit for this movie,” says Kasher. “I get to take a sigh of relief that we were going to be released through proper channels.”
When asked how he feels about finally releasing the film to the world, Kasher’s reaction is an understandable mixed bag of feelings, “Certainly I'm excited about it, but also it's all really daunting. My anxiety doesn't really want to go through all of this, but I also am excited about people seeing it. I just want to get through it and then I look forward to looking back upon it.”
The current cinematic tour Kasher is taking the film on came from a marketing meeting Dark Sky, “I guess I could just take it to every city and see how many people I can get into seats to get them to pay attention to it.”
“I'm a door-to-door salesman,” Kasher continues, “That's how I make a living is I go from city to city and I hawk my wares and so to speak. I don't even know if it's really the best approach or not, but it's the one I've chosen.”
“I think there's a lot of theaters out there that are just kind of taking a chance on me. ‘Oh, Tim's a touring guy. He plays through here a lot. So let's see how it goes,’ you know? And I appreciate the opportunity.”
Kasher explains, “The main emphasis of this release from Dark Sky is VOD, but for me, I'm trying to max out how many people I can get to see it on screen. I want everyone to see it in a theater, you know? I'm just such a huge believer in being a captive audience in a movie theater. It's just to me, that’s the way movies are shown. That's the way those stories are told.”
“The plan is that even after it comes after it's released, I'd like to continue showing in theaters and doing little weekends and stuff like that, just to give more people the opportunity to see it on a big screen.”
Tim Kasher is currently in the middle of his promotional tour for Who's Watching. Tour dates can be found here.
Who’s Watching will be screening at the Roxy as part of their CULT Film Series on Thursday August 27.
The CULT film series has been showing great horror/comedy and sci-fi repertory titles since 2012. Who’s Watching is a special event in partnership with Forever Midnight Podcast. Tickets are available at the Roxy website. Click “Our next scheduled performance is on Thursday, Aug 27 2026” at the bottom of the page to purchase tickets.
Can’t make the Santa Rosa screening? The film will also be screening in San Francisco at the 4-Star Theater Saturday August 29 at 2:30pm. Tickets are available from the 4-Star website.
For more information on Who’s Watching and Tim Kasher, please follow Kasher on his instagram page at: @timkasher.
Special thanks to my dear friend and filmmaker Jon Nix for helping facilitate this chat with Kasher.