Josh Ruben | |
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 Ruben in 2012 | |
| Born | Joshua Benjamin Ruben June 30, 1983 Washington, D.C., U.S. |
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| Website | www |
Joshua Benjamin Ruben (born June 30, 1983) [1] is an American actor, comedian, director, and producer. He has directed the comedy horror films Scare Me (2020) and Werewolves Within (2021), both of which were filmed near his hometown in the Hudson Valley in New York. He formerly worked for CollegeHumor and continues to appear in Dropout original shows.
Ruben was born in Washington, D.C. [2] He grew up in Woodstock, New York, with two half-siblings, one of whom is the singer-songwriter Rachael Yamagata. [2] [3] He acted in youth theatre and aspired to become a comic actor. [3] He graduated from Onteora High School in 2001. [3] He worked at a gas station before being accepted into the New Actors Workshop in New York City at age 19. [3] [4]
Unable to get an agent in his first years in New York City, Ruben worked as a film extra and at Best Buy. [3] With childhood friend Sam Reich and others, he formed the comedy group Dutch West, which made sketch comedy videos for the internet. [3] [4] Thanks to his work with the group, CollegeHumor hired him as a staffer, and he wrote and directed hundreds of its "Originals" short videos. [3] [4] He has appeared on the Dropout game show Game Changer and its spinoff Make Some Noise, both hosted by Reich, and is credited as an executive producer on the latter series. [5]
Ruben moved to Los Angeles in 2016. [3] He drew from his CollegeHumor 401(k) to write, produce, and direct Scare Me , a comedy horror film shot at Cooper Lake outside of Woodstock. [3] [4] Starring Ruben as an aspiring writer staying in a cabin in the woods, it premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. [4] His next film, Werewolves Within , based on the video game, was also shot in the area in the Hudson Valley. [3] [4] It premiered to critical acclaim at the Tribeca Festival in June 2021. [6] [7] He is set to direct the sci-fi horror film Green Bank. [8] [7]
Bruce Lorne Campbell is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known best for his role as Ash Williams in Sam Raimi's Evil Dead horror series, beginning with the short movie Within the Woods (1978). He has also featured in many low-budget cult movies such as Crimewave (1985), Maniac Cop (1988), Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat (1989), and Bubba Ho-Tep (2002).
CH Media, doing business as Dropout, is an Internet comedy company based in Los Angeles which produces content for release on its streaming service, Dropout, and on YouTube. It was originally founded as the CollegeHumor website, created by Josh Abramson and Ricky Van Veen in 1999, and was owned by InterActiveCorp (IAC) from 2006 until January 2020, when IAC withdrew funding and the website shut down. The current CEO of CH Media is Sam Reich, a veteran performer and former Chief Creative Officer of CollegeHumor, who purchased the company in 2020 from IAC. In September 2023, the company formally dropped the CollegeHumor branding in favor of its Dropout branding, which originated with its streaming service.
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The CollegeHumor Show is an American television sitcom that premiered on MTV on February 8, 2009 and also aired on MuchMusic. The show was a scripted sitcom with sketch comedy elements written by, and starring, nine CollegeHumor editorial staff members, who play fictionalized versions of themselves. The show was an adaptation of the style of the long-running Hardly Working short film series created for the CollegeHumor site, made more suitable for the longer, televised format.
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A jump scare is a scaring technique used in media, particularly in films such as horror films and video games such as horror games, intended to scare the viewer by surprising them with an abrupt change in image or event, usually co-occurring with a loud, jarring sound. The jump scare has been described as "one of the most basic building blocks of horror movies". Jump scares can startle the viewer by appearing at a point in the film where the soundtrack is quiet and the viewer is not expecting anything alarming to happen, or can be the sudden payoff to a long period of suspense.
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Dropout is an American subscription streaming service run by the production company of the same name, founded in September 2018. Dropout streams original programming, and does not run advertisements. Their content is mainly composed of live play and improv comedy, such as Dimension 20, hosted by Brennan Lee Mulligan, and Game Changer, hosted by Dropout owner Sam Reich.
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Werewolves Within is a 2021 American mystery comedy horror film directed by Josh Ruben from a screenplay by Mishna Wolff, based on the video game of the same name from Red Storm Entertainment. It stars Sam Richardson, Milana Vayntrub, George Basil, Sarah Burns, Michael Chernus, Catherine Curtin, Wayne Duvall, Harvey Guillén, Rebecca Henderson, Cheyenne Jackson, Michaela Watkins, and Glenn Fleshler, and follows a group of people in a small Vermont town who get trapped in a snowstorm only to suspect one of them is a werewolf.
Scare Me is an 2020 American comedy horror film written, directed, and produced by Josh Ruben. It stars Aya Cash, Ruben, Rebecca Drysdale and Chris Redd.
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Game Changer is a comedy panel game show on Dropout created and hosted by Sam Reich. The show follows players, typically three comedians, who participate in a new game every episode, with the players usually kept unaware of the premise and rules of the game beforehand. According to Polygon, the show "combines improv comedy, puzzle solving, fierce competition, and a prankster ethos." Game Changer episodes have led to three spinoff shows on Dropout.
