“A found footage horror stand-up comedy special” is the tagline for the new feature film 119.MP4 produced by Gonzoriffic, Athens’ only underground filmmaking collective that leans into experimental and feminist works. It debuts with a free screening at Ciné on Sunday, Jan. 19, followed by a Q&A with Gonzoriffic founder and producer Andrew Shearer and director, writer and actor Florence Ugh.
Largely improvised by Ugh, the events of the film center around the idea of filming inside a haunted hotel room—specifically the real-life haunted room 119 at the Hotel Abacus, formerly Graduate Athens, on Dougherty Street downtown. Shearer and Ugh had learned the details of this haunting from Tracy Adkins’ Ghosts of Athens book about local history. They scheduled a Zoom meeting with Adkins for background information and to go over the plan for the film to ensure they were going about it respectfully before shooting.
“We came there to check in, and they don’t let you pick the room. So I was like, ‘Oh no, this is about to suck,’ right? And I said, ‘Well, could we get room 119?’ And the lady looked at me like, that one’s definitely available,” says Shearer.
As a fan of history and the paranormal, Ugh is no stranger to exploring and staying at supposedly haunted locations. It’s a space she finds comfort in, and along with being accompanied by her friend Shearer, that provided a cathartic and therapeutic experience to let loose through improv. Neither of them knew exactly what was going to happen or what the end result would look like.
Among Ugh’s many creative talents, she’s a comedian, which she uses as the foundation of her character in 119.MP4. The premise of the found-footage film is that Ugh checks into a hotel overnight to work on her stand-up comedy, and she’s recording the process of practicing and riffing on her jokes to look back on later. She gets on Instagram Live to share her process, and that’s when she finds out the history of the room from one of her followers. The comedy aspect of the film comes to an abrupt halt as the haunting and eventual possession amps up.
It’s important to clarify that this is not comedy horror, but stand-up comedy that turns into a horror movie.
“But are they really horrific?” Ugh asks of the events that unravel. “Because I start to like, you know, you’ll see at the end I go a little off the rails. And that was really cathartic for me at the point in time when I was dealing with something personal.”

Although Gonzoriffic has produced a few feature-length films, Ugh had previously only starred in short films. Fully embracing letting improv lead the way, Ugh says the experience was a lot of fun.
“There’s a lot of expectations of what women should look like on screen. What they should wear, what is acceptable comedy, what is funny, what is appropriate. It’s not this X-rated thing. It’s just not exactly what you would think of; it’s not a glamour shot,” says Ugh. “I feel extremely vulnerable, but I also feel very safe with the people that are coming that love me. There’s a safety in being vulnerable that I just want to continue to do with films.”
“I have a 100% confidence in Florence because I was a fan before I even really met her. I knew what she was capable of doing, and I was just like, what will she do if it’s just all her? So that’s why when you tell people you got a feature film, it’s only one camera shot and only one person, you think that’s not a feature. I don’t know what that is, but that’s not it,” says Shearer. “But that’s what a stand-up comedy special is: You’re watching one person in one space. I knew that she could confidently do that.”
Ugh and Shearer ask that the audience leave their expectations and preconceived notions of what a feature film is outside the theater for this wacky, gory, out-of-the-box experience. Ugh says that everything lined up just right for a nicely packaged premiere with the film 119.MP4 shot in room 119 to debut Jan. 19 (1/19).
WHO: 119.MP4 Film Screening
WHEN: Sunday, Jan. 19, 3 p.m.
WHERE: Ciné
HOW MUCH: FREE!
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