The Re-education Of Molly Singer, co-written with Todd Friedman (Collection) and Kevin Haskins (Last Call), writer/ director Andy Palmer (Camp Cold Brook) mainly has a history in the horror/ thriller film landscape – but secretly, he had a hankering to make people laugh. And laugh they did in his hilarious college comedy starring Britt Robertson, Jaime Pressly, Ty Simpkins, and Nico Santos. Palmer shared his thoughts on his intention for Molly Singer and his transition from making scary to funny movies.

From Horror To Comedy

“I love comedy. Comedy is my genre. I wanted to be a comedy director when I had the opportunity to make my first film which was a horror. It was a situation where making a horror film was something we could make really inexpensively with no name actors and you could sell it with the hopes of making another film,” declares the filmmaker.

The Re-education Of Molly Singer wasn’t a quantum leap departure from Palmer’s established resume. “I made a scary movie, I made a thriller, and then we made a horror comedy,” he clarifies. His genre transition happened in steps.

Despite his love of comedy, Andy Palmer has the utmost respect for the horror community. Horror isn’t a stepping stone to comedy. “The horror community is the most forgiving because all they ask is for a good movie. They don’t ask for big names as is often the case in comedies,” he adds.

Andy Palmer

When Molly Singer came along, the director jumped at the chance to work on it. Palmer had previously worked with producer Warner Davis on most of his produced films. Palmer is also a film and television editor – including editing Todd Friedman’s film, Collection. When that project ended, Todd asked Andy what he wanted to do next, naturally assuming it would be another horror movie.

Palmer replied, “No, I really want to do like a throwback comedy, like a Weird Science or something like that.” Todd quickly sorted through his files and asked him to read a script he’d written a few years back with Kevin Haskin called The Re-education of David Singer. It was a male-driven sex comedy and Palmer loved its premise. He wanted to “freshen it up” and started with switching the gender of the protagonist from male to a female.

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“The comedy in the original script felt very American Pie or Road Trip and stuff like that,” explains Palmer. So team Friedman, Haskin, and Palmer got to work to tighten the script and make it Molly Singer’s story.

Apart from generating big belly laughs, Andy Palmer is mindful of creating rich characters that drive the theme. “Every character in the movie is going through some form of self-discovery. For Molly, it’s the discovery that everybody’s better when Molly’s around them in college. She makes people happier, but ironically, she’s trapped in a job where people are at their absolute worst. She’s a divorce lawyer.” It’s the job that she’s fighting to win back.

Her bestie Ollie is rebelling against familial pressure to pursue a certain life path. Molly advises him to do what feels right to him not what’s right for others. Hopefully, his family will approve, but if not, that’s okay. There’s no need to rebel. Just be true to yourself.

“Both Elliot and Brenda are coming off of a bit of trauma. Elliot is getting over being in the shadow of his father and breaking off on his own, and Brenda not being able to let go of her son after the loss of her husband. So, everything is about self discovery in of different ways,” says Palmer.

Brenda (Jaime Pressly) Photo courtesy of Lionsgate Pictures

The Molly/ Elliot dynamic doesn’t strictly lean into the sex comedy template typical of R-rated comedies. Molly is Elliot’s mentor to help make him less shy rather than becoming his love interest. “I equate it to Weird Science in a way where Lisa stops being the object of their affection and she becomes that den mom,” clarifies Palmer.

The Rise Of R-Rated Comedies

Broad comedies took the limelight for many years, but R-rated comedies are having a resurgence of late. We asked Andy Palmer how these movies have evolved from seminal sex romps like American Pie.

“What makes the humor different now is that there’s more of a self-awareness. Great humor is always about questioning authority and breaking rules. You’re always punching up at the man. But I think that certain groups have also become more marginalized,” states the director. Divisions include social, political, popularity, and the anxieties of fitting in and finding your place in the world.

“You see it in 90s comedies. You’re poking fun at a certain group. What I tried to do with Molly is make the humor pretty inclusive. Not funny to everybody, but inclusive in a way where we’re poking fun at the ridiculousness of everything and everyone,” says Palmer.

“Brenda [Eliott’s mom] takes her son to a strip club the night before his first day of college. On its premise, it looks like she only wants teach him how to become a man. But really, it becomes this lesson in consent. On the surface it’s this raunchy comedy, but we’re really circling it around to something that’s very serious.” The comedy works on a range of levels – from the preposterousness of its premise, to titillating sight gags, to thematic richness to give the audience a range of experiences.

Andy Palmer came to the writing table later in the process. Todd Friedman and Kevin Haskins did the bulk of the heavy lifting with the original scripts and Palmer helped with the garnish.

“I think the script was always really good. I just wanted to bring the humor a bit more into the now. There were a lot of scenes where I said, ‘This is how I see the scene going.’ And they would go and then write it.”

Palmer is more than a note-giver. He creates storylines in his own right. “The Boozecathlon was my baby. I thought that was a really fun premise. It reminded me of Revenge of the Nerds, where they do the Frat Olympics.” The director knew that he didn’t have the resources to film scenes of that magnitude, so the Boozecathlon was his answer to that.