I chose to stylize 'Among Friends' and add a dark comedic element because I didn't want to get pigeonholed as a genre director. I have a pretty dark sense of humor and knew that in order to get distribution, I had to do something in the genre for my first time out.

This quote means that the director wanted to make their film, Among Friends, stand out from other films in the same genre. They decided to make the film more stylized and add a dark comedic element in order to differentiate it from other films and avoid being limited in their future projects as a genre-specific director. The director also has a dark sense of humor, so they incorporated that into the project. The director believed that in order to get the film distributed, they had to make a film that fits into a specific genre for their first time out.