Scooter McCrae

McCrae was born in Brooklyn, New York and spent most of his formative years in Middletown, New York. As a kid, he made Super 8 films and was a fan of science fiction. He attended SUNY Purchase after being turned down for NYU, which he said was fortuitous. With the money saved from his tuition at a state college, he was able to finance his early films.^[1]

McCrae says that he enjoys working with low-budget films, as the details in which he is interested are more suitable for those kinds of films.^[2] His first work was with Frank Henenlotter, whom he cited as a mentor. McCrae worked as a production assistant on Frankenhooker and Basket Case 2.^[3] McCrae's directorial debut was Shatter Dead, a zombie film. He was inspired to make his own film after watching low-budget films with his friends, after which he thought to himself that he could make a better film than the ones he was renting from the video store.^[4] The film received a positive review by Joe Bob Briggs.^[5] His second feature was Sixteen Tongues, a film that writer Mike Watt described as "Blade Runner meets Salo".^[6] Watt wrote that a major studio would never make the film, as it explores themes that are totally alien outside of independent filmmaking.^[6] He later worked again with Henenlotter as an editor on Bad Biology.^[3]