Hansi Oppenheimer is the director of the recently released documentary on Joe R. Lansdale, All Hail the Popcorn Queen, which we reviewed earlier this year. In addition to her interview with Lansdale, reviewer Lizzy Walker had the opportunity to interview Oppenheimer about her experiences with Lansdale and with making the documentary.

LW: How did your All Hail the Popcorn King documentary project come about?

HO: I have been a fan of Joe’s work since the 1980s. I finally had the opportunity to meet him two years ago when I was invited to appear at a con in Houston. I reached out to him to see if he’d be available for an interview for my YouTube channel, and he invited me to Nacogdoches for lunch and the interview. After the interview, I reached out to him for a piece on a short about Joe Bob Briggs that I was working on, and he wrote me the most beautiful, touching, funny piece, and got back to me in a day.

I was so grateful that I promised him my next film would be about him, and I’m so glad I did. I’ve never worked with anyone who was more honest, generous and collaborative.

LW: Why did you decide on the title All Hail the Popcorn King for the documentary?

The title of the film All Hail The Popcorn King is a reference to Lansdale’s The Drive-In, in which a group of people get trapped by an inexplicable force and chaos quickly ensues. Two of the characters get fused together (it’s a crazy book), don a popcorn bucket as crown and are blindly worshipped as The Popcorn King. Additionally, Joe came up with the story after a series of nightmares he had after eating popcorn that his wife used to make cooked in Kroger grease. The book has inspired dozens of writers, including Joe Hill, who has said when he read it as a kid, he decided he wanted to be a writer.

LW: When and where will the documentary be available outside of the film circuit?

HO: We completed the film and are working on some bonus features for the DVD. Right now, we don’t have a formal distributor. I expect that will change once the world gets back to some kind of normal.

LW: What drew you to Joe’s work?

HO: Joe’s been compared to Mark Twain and William Faulkner, won an insane amount of awards (see bio in the Press Kit) and has helped so many young writers with his advice or including them in anthologies. He’s a true American Literary Treasure and yet many people don’t know about him and his work. In part that is because he has never stuck to one genre. Joe Lansdale is his own genre. He has a singular voice which comes through in everything he writes.

He is also an incredibly good human being and there’s far too many documentaries about temperamental tortured artists. Joe loves what he does, and that’s a valuable message for anyone who wants to write.

LW: What is your favourite work of Joe R. Lansdale’s?

HO: My favorite books of Joe’s are The Drive-In and The Magic Wagon.

Check out the documentary trailer: https://youtu.be/pSvnb_Hzijk