Four years ago, Plexifilm, the production company behind Wilco’s critically acclaimed tour doc, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, approached the three members of Animal Collective with a proposition: make a Break Your Heart of your own. With some casual negotiation and the recruitment of longtime friend and collaborator Danny Perez, the group agreed and hit the road. The result is ODDSAC, 53 minutes of pure, psychedelic mindfuck. It’s not a concert film, and it’s definitely not a tour documentary. Rather, it occupies a space somewhere between acid-fueled video installation and crazed, abstract album. The film is structured around a series of blissfully bizarre visual vignettes (look for Geologist as an egg-washing blue man, Avey Tare as a fire spinning demon, Deakin a sad vampire, and Panda Bear as a drummer with a spaz attack) strung together by a made-for-the-movie score and the animated musings of Perez. The principal scenes, at once hilarious and disturbing, also make more than a few nods to the horror genre. This is no campfire sing-a-long. We caught up with Brian Weitz aka Geologist, to talk about the inspiration behind the film, his love of campy horror, and the darker side of Animal Collective.

I’d love to hear a little bit about how the film came about. I know Plexifilm approached you guys back in 2006. There was a guy who worked there named Chris Ronis, who we had known for a few years. I guess the idea was to originally do some kind of concert film or tour documentary like they had done with Wilco and Death Cab for Cutie. We weren’t that into the idea, definitely not into the idea of a tour documentary. The concert film was a little bit more interesting, but we didn’t want to just create a concert film. So, Danny came on the road with us. We talked about things that we could shoot in addition to the live footage, that we could maybe use as segways from one song to the other. Eventually, that just became more interesting to us than anything we thought we could get from Danny shooting us live. That was kind of the making of a film that wouldn’t necessarily be narrative, making a movie the way we would make a record. Luckily, Plexi went for it.

Where did the ideas for the live action sequences come from? Most of them came from Danny. The one that came from us was really the rowing scene with Dracula. That sequence was a video we had always wanted to do for that song “Fresh Canoe.” So, we asked Danny if we could do that with this one. He kind of finished the story with the cook-out and stuff.

It’s such a fantastical, comedic scene that quickly dissolves into something more horrific. Are you a big fan of the horror genre? Would even consider these scenes horrific? Yeah. I love horror films and they’re a huge inspiration on the music that we make and the things that I do in the band. Some people in the band don’t like horror movies. I do very much. You know, we didn’t think it would be very scary or dark or disturbing because to us it was kind of comedic in the process of making the film.

It’s playful, too. Totally. To me, horror films are always playful. I don’t watch them because I’m depressed or angry at the world. I just think they’re fun or entertainment. When we were making it, it was just so much fun and kind of ridiculous, watching Danny try and direct these two little kids who had too much sugar. We never thought anybody would take it seriously. We thought it might be taken the other way, like, “this is just some schlocky ‘B’ movie. This is so ridiculous. Why did they even take the time to do this?” I’m a bit surprised by how many people actually find it unsettling or think it’s too dark to enjoy.

Well, there’s a mix of really jubilant moments and darker elements. I read an interview with Danny where he was talking about you guys intentionally subverting fan’s expectations. Danny’s more into subversion than us. He knows us better than any of our fans do. He knows that we’re not these happy-go-lucky hippy guys that just hang out in the woods and play guitar in the campfire. He knows us from New York and he’s seen us struggle, being depressed here and there, and having shitty jobs. He’s been coming on the road with us from the very first tour. He’s just aware of a side of our music that I think a lot of our fans are not, and just the darker side of things. He takes issue with this view people have that our music is just this happy-go-lucky campfire kind of thing. That’s kind of why he took that campfire scene into a darker place.

What was the most fun part of making the film? I thought the most fun parts of the film were parts I wasn’t really involved in, like fire walking. Overall, we wanted to just approach it like a record. There is some pressure when you say, “We’re going to make a movie.” Is there a narrative? Is there one scene or one message?

There doesn’t have to be. Yeah. If we were making a record, we would never think about this question. Let’s just do this like we were making a record. Each little part will be its own part and that’s that.

Were there any films that you looked to as inspiration? The Shining and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Horror movies were definitely a big inspiration for me just in terms of how abstract sound and non-musical stuff like sound design is used in conjunction with musical scores to create tension. Those things have always been really big influences on me and one of the reasons why Animal Collective’s music has so many kinds of more abstract parts that aren’t necessarily linear musical ideas. There’s a movie called House that’s a really campy, Japanese horror movie from the ‘70s that we all found really inspiring. For a long time, they had the VHS of it from Kims. It was the bootleg from Japan and it didn’t have subtitles. You can kind of figure out the gist of the plot, but at the same time, you don’t really know what’s going on. You don’t necessarily need to hit the audience over the head with some kind of linear message or a plot or anything like that in order for it to be basically eye candy, something that you can watch without having to follow a story.

What do you have going on right now? Not too much. We’re keeping it pretty mellow this year. Our families have been, I wouldn’t say neglected, but missing us for the past few years. The whole Merriweather era was pretty intense. We don’t have plans other than hanging out with the wives and the kids.

What are your go-to places? Well, I live in D.C. Can I just say my house? I don’t like to go out. So, I’ll say H Street. It’s a part of Washington D.C., where I live now. I go to this place called Granville Moore's. They do mussels and fries. Mussels are one of the few seafood/meat things that I eat anymore. They have good bourbon. That’s kind of my go-to place, I suppose.

Anything else you want to add about the film? Just glad you enjoyed it. Hopefully other people do too.