Originally from Herndon, actor and filmmaker Andy Hoff has appeared in a number of small roles on popular TV shows like Mad Men, Prison Break, NCIS and How I Met Your Mother, plus voice-acting roles in the video games L.A Noire and Tomb Raider. More recently, however, Hoff teamed up with director Alex Drummond to produce and star in their horror-comedy film Killer Party.
Hoff started his acting career in theater, founding his own company, BrokenWatch, in 2001. After a number of years on stage, Hoff shifted gears to television. He soon found himself in L.A., juggling acting roles with a restaurant gig where he worked alongside fellow aspiring filmmakers. That’s where he met Drummond. “We got tired of waiting for the phone to ring [and] decided to put something together ourselves,” says Hoff.
In 2014, Drummond and Hoff enlisted their coworkers from the restaurant with movie and TV experience for the production of Killer Party. With the help of cast and crew, Hoff and Drummond pooled enough money to begin filming. “We had scheduled to get all the filming done in just eight days, which is something unheard of in the industry,” says Hoff.
In addition to a rigorous filming schedule, Hoff and Drummond also had to rework the script to incorporate lead actress and Drummond’s wife, Rachael Drummond’s pregnancy. To accommodate, the movie’s setting shifted to a baby shower, however, several days into production, Drummond’s water broke. “On the seventh day of filming, Rachael stood from her makeup chair and realized that her water had broken—five weeks earlier than expected,” says Hoff.
Filming was of course interrupted so the Drummonds could rush to the hospital (Hoff notes both mother and baby are doing well), but the team was still able to pull it all off and complete filming.
Killer Party showed at film festivals across the country and won nine awards along the way, including Best Feature Film at Nevermore Film Festival, Best Director at Macabre Faire Film Festival and Best Comedy at Louisville Fright Night Film Fest. The film was officially released this past August and it’s available now on demand at iTunes, Google Play, Vudu, Vimeo, Direct TV and Amazon Video.
