"We're Awful Aesthetes": Dennis Cooper and Zac Farley Discuss Room Temperature, Domestic Spirits, and the Life of an Artist.

      Filmmakers Dennis Cooper and Zac Farley, based in Paris, return with their new film Room Temperature. Although both originally hail from California, this marks their third collaboration and their first project filmed in the United States. Set in the High Desert, the movie is an unconventional family drama that transforms into a ghost story, centering on the creation of a haunted house.

      Janitor Paul takes his first tour of a home renovation and meets the eclectic group that forms Cooper and Farley’s imagined family, which includes their enigmatic French live-in friend, Extra. While in the backyard, which is set to be a frightening swamp, Extra invites Paul to join him and rehearses his scripted lines to be delivered once the haunting is complete: “This house has evil vibes, and I’m scared to do it alone.”

      Dennis Cooper’s literary output has often faced similar accusations of “evil vibes” throughout his career, from the George Miles novels to his renowned blog, which was controversially restored by Google in 2016 after its deletion due to policy issues. Fortunately, Cooper hasn’t been alone in his endeavors. Teaming up with visual artist Zac Farley, they first collaborated on the 2015 short anthology Like Cattle Towards Glow, followed by their 2018 feature Permanent Green Light.

      John Waters included Room Temperature in his top 10 films of 2025, describing it as “a purposely tedious and tender poetic head-scratcher focusing on a family preparing their home for a Halloween haunted house. Just when you think you dislike this film, you’ll find yourself thinking—huh? I love it. It’s strange, unsettling, and maybe … just maybe, brilliant.”

      In anticipation of its premiere at Roxy Cinema in New York on Friday, December 12, I spoke with the filmmakers about their enduring passion for home haunts.

      The Film Stage: I understand that both of you are fond of haunted houses, and that inspired the making of your film. Can you share a bit about this common interest?

      Zac Farley: Home haunts involve people transforming their houses into spooky attractions for Halloween. Dennis has been visiting them for much longer than I have. We were really disappointed this year that we couldn't go, as we usually embark on a kind of marathon to see as many as possible. We take them seriously and view them as an outsider art form.

      Dennis Cooper: For us, it’s akin to experiencing art. They resemble a theatrical event where we navigate through various scary scenes. I made haunted houses when I was a kid, so I’ve been a fan for a long time and have watched the phenomenon evolve. In my youth, we built them for trick-or-treaters; it wasn’t commercialized like it is now, with lengthy lines for entry.

      We aimed to create a film about a haunted house, but we decided to focus on one that is fundamentally disappointing. Thus, we couldn't execute all the grand ideas we initially envisioned because it had to revolve around failure.

      The film chronicles the conversion of a family home into a haunted house, and in many respects, it helped me visualize what filmmaking entails. How did the process of creating the haunted house parallel the making of your film?

      Farley: When people create home haunts, they typically gather their friends and neighbors to organize into a little art collective. They construct the attraction, rehearse it, and then dismantle it afterward. Often, they end up disappointed, which mirrors the filmmaking process in many aspects—particularly on lower budgets. Our projects operate on a pretty DIY level.

      At one point in the film, someone suggests that the house is all the family has, which is indeed true. They have to make do with what's available, like searching for the plastic alligators intended for the swamp. They must genuinely exist.

      Farley: Those plastic alligators were the most significant expense of the film in terms of props. Each one cost around $65, which felt exorbitant relative to their purpose and how dismal they were meant to appear.

      There’s substantial discussion in the film regarding whether the house will be sufficiently frightening and how it can be made scarier. Although Room Temperature isn’t a traditional horror piece, it certainly explores themes of horror.

      Cooper: We don’t get scared, so we’re not the best judges of that.

      What do you think is the reason for that?

      Cooper: We’re terrible esthetes, always examining things and asking, “How is this made? How can we adapt this for our work?” The aim wasn't to evoke fear but to showcase the mechanics of what could be terrifying. No one in the film seems scared; they mostly appear puzzled. The film begins with this false start: you see the house lit up with chaotic music, suggesting a frightening experience, but once inside, it turns out to be a very unconvincing haunted house.

      Reflecting on the opening scene, I want to discuss the film’s atmosphere