Interview: Ashley C. Williams Talks Sexuality, Violence and the Primal Power of JULIA

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Interview: Ashley C. Williams Talks Sexuality, Violence and the Primal Power of JULIA

Actress Ashley C. Williams discusses her blistering turn in the dark psychodrama JULIA.

Currently in US theaters and VOD is writer/director Matthew A. Brown’s darker-than-pitch female-centric psychodrama JULIA, a disturbing, violent and elegantly perverse study of a young woman who finds salvation and redemption via severe transgression.

JULIA is an immaculate indie film; thoughtful and intelligent, it plays with tropes and clichés and creates from them. a work of stylized art. But as good as the film is (and it is very, very good), it relies extensively on the woman at its core, the central presence of the character whose name graces the title, played by the beautiful, articulate actress Ashley C. Williams.

Horror fans will of course forever cite Williams as one of the unfortunate living links in the chain that made up Tom Six’s original THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE and, although she exhibited decent range in that, um, cheeky and extreme work, it’s nothing compared to the performance she delivers here.

JULIA calls on Williams to delve deep into the dark to help etch a portrait of a meek, victimized young woman who, after surviving a sexual assault, finds both solace and empowerment in the grip of a secret cabal of women who, spurred by a more-than-a-bit-sinister doctor, are rebuilt as angels of death. And though Julia does indeed begin her road to repair by bloodily righting wrongs, she cannot be controlled for long.

To give away more would be to wreck the joys of watching Williams’ carefully controlled performance uncoil like the figurative serpent it is. So affected were we by the film and its star, that we had to reach out to Williams and ask her a few questions.

Here are those questions. And although Williams answers them with authority, the only real way to have your own questions answered about JULIA is to find it and see it…

SHOCK: You shot the film in early 2013; when you talk about the movie and the character now, do you feel somewhat distanced?

WILLIAMS: I think I feel outside of it as far as being the character is concerned. When I talk about it, it’s like I’m speaking about someone else and the same thing happens when I watch the movie, I feel like I’m watching Julia, not me being Julia. But even though it’s been a few years since we shot the movie, the film has constantly been in my life We’ve played festivals all over the world, I’ve done countless Q&A’s; but it’s exciting now that it’s been released and I’m still very happy that it’s in my life.

SHOCK: The character is like a timid mouse, initially. She’s a victim who, even when she turns the tables, still seems somewhat “off”. Your personality is far removed from this, or at least appears to be. Did you have to fully immerse yourself in the character and was it emotionally difficult to do?

WILLIAMS: Julia goes on a transformative journey and that’s what intrigued me about her story when I read the script. In fact, there are, believe it or not, many similarities between us. We were jumping all over the place when we shot and I had to check in with myself every scene; I had to ask myself “where is she emotionally? Is she now the victim or the vengeful goddess?” So on that level, it was difficult to navigate where she was at any given point. But playing her as a victim was easier. It was harder to do the powerful, determined strong woman. Ultimately, I learned a lot from her and I absorbed some of her personality into my own life.

SHOCK: Many critics will try to paint JULIA as a political film. And granted, men are not presented in a positive light but then again, neither are women, particularly. Do you think this a gender political film?

WILLIAMS: It definitely wasn’t the director’s intention to make a movie about how women are treated by making men these hateful creatures. It’s not an empowerment film. He wasn’t trying to make a film about empowering women. It’s a story about a girl who goes on a journey and awakens to her most primal, evil self.

SHOCK: I see plenty of indie horror and much of it isn’t very good. JULIA is such a sophisticated piece of work; I just hope it doesn’t get ghettoized with much of the genre slop that’s being pumped out. In fact, I can imagine if a name like Lars Von Trier’s name was on the poster, the movie would be celebrated as a an audacious work of art. Do you even consider JULIA a horror film?

WILLIAMS: I don’t. And I was really excited when I read the script because of the depth of the piece. Ever since THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE, I’ve been offered horror film after horror film and I’ve turned most of them down because, if the right people aren’t behind something like JULIA for instance, it becomes distasteful and I didn’t want to get trapped in that cycle of making subpar films. So, this film is revenge story first, a psychological film with some horror elements like the amount of blood an violence. But it’s a very dark, moody, noir is how I see it; a stylized piece of stunning visual work that sets it apart from many indie horror films.

SHOCK: I know shooting scenes involving sexuality on-set is often a lark. But how about watching yourself on-screen, especially during sequences of sexual violence?

WILLIAMS: I think when we shot the film I was actually a bit worried, wondering if I was going to look okay as this was my first really sexual scene that I’d ever shot in a movie so, yeah, I was concerned on set. But it was easier than I thought because it’s technical and you stop and start and stuff. But when I saw the sexual scenes, I was in awe about what the director did with it. None of it is gratuitous and it’s beautifully shot; if anything, watching it I was like, “hmmm…so that’s what I look like when I, um (laughs), am in a situation like that!” But then I go back into the movie and I can enjoy it without thinking of myself.

SHOCK: You’re still a gigging actress. But after making such a sophisticated piece of work like JULIA, are you going to try to keep on this path, making these more European flavored, elevated genre films?

WILLIAMS: Yes. That is my goal and JULIA is a good start. Moving on up is my goal as an actress and I’m really only attracted to a good script and finding a director who has a vision. These days such things are rare and sometimes, I do get the need to take a project just because I want to work, of course. But I am gaining more patience as I age. And if that means not working all the time just to find quality projects, so be it.

SHOCK: But you know, THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE is actually a very clever, sophisticated film too…

WILLIAMS: It is. People think its just exploitation but it’s beautifully shot and stylized and a black comedy. Tom Six did an incredible job. Some may disagree. But the fact is that some people can only see the surface sometimes…

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Interview: Sam Raimi on ASH VS. EVIL DEAD, DARKMAN and THE LAST OF US

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Interview: Sam Raimi on ASH VS. EVIL DEAD, DARKMAN and THE LAST OF US

Sam Raimi talks about the new Starz series ASH VS. EVIL DEAD, classic “DEAD” films, gives us a progress report on THE LAST OF US and shares his thoughts on bringing back DARKMAN.

Back in 1981, long before he directed the billion dollar SPIDERMAN trilogy, director Sam Raimi’s career as a filmmaker began with a low-budget horror movie called THE EVIL DEAD, which would become a huge influence on decades of horror filmmakers as it began his long-standing working relationship with Bruce Campbell. 

After two sequels and a 2013 remake, EVIL DEAD fans are finally getting their wish with Bruce Campbell returning to the role of Ash for a new STARZ series, ASH VS.EVIL DEAD, the pilot for which Raimi co-wrote with his brother and directed, just like the previous movies.

As the buzz surrounding the show has been growing, SHOCK had a chance to sit down for a quick interview with Raimi while he was in New York City for the show’s debut at New York Comic-Con where three years earlier, the crowd had gone just as wild for THE EVIL DEAD remake.

While we mainly talked about his return to the world of Bruce Cambell’s Ash Williams and his battle with the “deadites,” we also got a brief update on Raimi’s involvement with bringing the Playstation game THE LAST OF US to the big screen and his thoughts on possibly bringing back his early superhero DARKMAN.

SHOCK: First of all, congratulations on coming back to this. I know you’ve literally been hearing for two decades from people wanting you to do more EVIL DEAD…

SAM RAIMI: Yeah, thank you.

SHOCK: What convinced you to come back? I know Bruce has been really gung-ho about doing this.

RAIMI: I guess I finally opened up my ears to a lot of the fans’ requests. I would make a SPIDERMAN movie and they’d say, “That’s fine, but can you please make EVIL DEAD 4?’” They didn’t care. I’d make SPIDERMAN 2,” they’d go, “Enough of this. Make EVIL DEAD with Bruce Campbell.” So we tried to sate that fan request. I said to Bruce and Rob, “Let’s remake ‘EVIL DEAD’ with Fede Alvarez, my friend. He’s super-talented and that will finally give the fans what they want.” So we did that and they really loved his movie and I loved it, but afterwards, I still heard that, “Now we want your EVIL DEAD with Bruce in addition to Fede’s movie.” So I went, “Oh my God. There’s no quieting them. Why am I running from it anyways?” I mean, maybe it was out of fear a little bit. They seemed to like these movies and I didn’t want to make one that they didn’t like. I didn’t know if I had much to gain, but they were so insistent we finally said, “Alright, let’s just do it.” So my brother and I sat down and we started to write a feature. Then that’s a long story, but it eventually turned into a TV show.

SHOCK: What’s interesting about doing it as a show is that if you put together the three previous EVIL DEAD movies, that’s four and a half hours but with a TV show, you’re going to have that much just in the first season, although you also have other writers and directors. You’re basically handing your baby over in some ways.

RAIMI: Exactly.

SHOCK: So how has that been? Do you still keep in touch with the dailies and all that stuff?

RAIMI: It’s a learning experience. I have to learn to let go and let other creators work with the material that I wrote originally. They’re bringing their own great ideas and their own visuals and their own concepts and it’s exciting to watch.

SHOCK: I think Fede did a great job capturing the spirit of what was so great about the original movie when you made it back in 1981.

RAIMI: Me, too.

SHOCK: I just re-watched the original movie and it was interesting to see what you could do in 1981, with no budget and still have amazing practical effects.

RAIMI: Oh thank you.

SHOCK How has that changed with doing it for the TV show? I’m assuming you can do a lot more these days?

RAIMI: Well, back then, we were on a really tight budget, like no budget. This one, we actually had department heads, a makeup department and a mechanical effects department. So I would liken this budget more to the budget of EVIL DEAD 2. So we didn’t have to do everything from scratch and we got to hire professionals to do an excellent job in each of their specific departments. That’s about where it was budget range.

SHOCK: You have a lot more people who know how to do this stuff now then back when you made the first movie, because they’re studying the movies you and John Carpenter and Peter Jackson made, and you now have experts doing this sort of stuff.

RAIMI: Yes, and especially in New Zealand, there’s so many great crews there. We worked with a top-notch crew that worked on a lot of Peter Jackson’s films and some of the LORD OF THE RINGS people and people that worked on SPARTACUS. So they’re really top-notch professionals.

SHOCK: The movies in the EVIL DEAD trilogy change tone drastically from one movie to the next. The first one is very much a dark, horror movie. The second one became more of a comedy and Bruce got to play with the Ash persona and the third one was a big, epic fantasy thing. For the show, you’ve mixed the tone of the first two movies, so how much of that third movie mythos did you want to bring onto the show? Where did you want to start?

RAIMI: Well, that’s a question we had to ask ourselves, “Which EVIL DEAD are we going to make the sequel to?” That was part of the confusing thing. It’s like, the fans want another EVIL DEAD, but which one do they want? Because they’re as different as you say. I think we thought, “Well, we don’t know, but here’s what we’d like to see. We’d like to see something that had a little bit of the humor of EVIL DEAD 2and Ash’s character of EVIL DEAD 2 but the horror of EVIL DEAD 1, the more serious, intense stuff that scared the audience. So we tried for kind of a blend of those. So Ash’s character is big and funny, but the evil is taken seriously and hopefully, it’s intense.

SHOCK: Last night, I saw Bruce tape an NPR trivia show, and he talked about your relationship, how you first met and how you love throwing blood on him, which I guess is a good reason to come back to it right there, to be able to toss a bucket of blood on Bruce.

RAIMI: That’s a pretty good reason, a pretty good incentive for me. It’s great to be working with him again because we grew up together. We were in high school together, did high school plays, made Super 8 movies together as kids, and that’s where our careers started. We went on to make our first feature film together and many features beyond that, so this is a return to the character that was in our first feature film, so it’s very exciting to come back to it.

SHOCK: When I re-watched the original movie, it was also a little strange seeing Bruce 35 years ago.

RAIMI: Yeah, it’s really weird for us and cool.

SHOCK: You brought back Joe LoDuca to do the music. I know he’s been working with Rob and Bruce on other things for some time, but this is the first time you’ve been back with him since ARMY OF DARKNESS, I think.

RAIMI: Correct. Joe was the sound of “Evil Dead.” We had a great time working on this, too.

SHOCK: I was curious about that and the show’s editor is also someone you’ve worked with.

RAIMI: Bob Murawski. Yeah, he cut the SPIDERMAN pictures and DRAG ME TO HELLand he co-edited ARMY OF DARKNESS.

SHOCK: How important was to keep that part of the sound and feel from the movies?

RAIMI: Yeah, this way, Joe can stay and the other episodes will have his signature sound on them, but also, I only did the first episode and now it’s a little bit like handing off the torch to other writers and directors, not a little bit, it’s definitely that. They’re coming up with their own versions of the EVIL DEAD stories and their own visions of it.

SHOCK: So what are you doing after this? I assume you’re overseeing this as much as you can. Have you started developing other things?

RAIMI: Well, right now, no. It’s really in the hands of the showrunner, Craig DiGregario, who’s here, and his staff of writers. In fact, there is a team of writers working right now. I don’t know what they’re up to, but they’ve got things on the board, ideas for season two up. Really, even though my brother and I started with a concept for the series, I had to leave and do pre-production on this pilot and then I had to be away for weeks and weeks while the writers were writing, so really, you do have to hand that torch off and hopefully, they’ll come up with something great as the season goes forward

SHOCK: You’ve been working on developing the video game THE LAST OF US into a movie and that’s one of the video games that people consider cinematic due to how much it’s like a movie already.

RAIMI: It’s great.

SHOCK: Are you working very closely with Neil (Druckman) to develop it?

RAIMI: Neil did a great job writing a first draft screenplay and I now he’s writing another draft right now and I can’t wait to read it.

SHOCK: Do you think you’ll be able to get into that fairly soon?

RAIMI: I don’t know what his time schedule is right now. I think he’s working on another videogame right now, so I think that’s where most of his time is going at this moment, the commitments he’s made, but I’ll just wait and see if he delivers a new draft. It’d be great.

SHOCK: Would you be interested in directing that?

RAIMI: I don’t know.

SHOCK: When you return to horror, it’s always something really special and a treat to the fans. I know that not every director that starts in horror wants to do it forever.

RAIMI: Oh, thank you. I love the field. I didn’t at first because horror movies scared me too much, but I really do love the genre and it’s a playground where you can really be artistic and create ideas in the minds of the audience and portray the unreal. It’s very cool experimentation ground for a filmmaker.

SHOCK: I don’t know how much you’ve seen of the upcoming season, but being that it’s Bruce and lot of your collaborators, do you think you’ll just be able to watch it as a fan?

RAIMI: No, I’m too involved. I wish I could. That would be fascinating. I’d love that opportunity to be completely divorced from it and just enjoy it as a thing apart for me. I wish I could. I don’t think that’s ever going to be possible.

SHOCK: What about other things, like DARKMAN? Have you ever thought about revisiting that?

RAIMI: Yes, but not personally, not as a director, maybe as a producer, to bring that character back. I’ve always wanted to. Maybe one day we will.

SHOCK: Liam Neeson’s a bigger action star now, but I doubt he would want to do another DARKMAN movie, but it was such a great premise. I saw it in theaters three times.

RAIMI: Oh, you did?

SHOCK: Yeah, I was such a huge fan of that movie, because I was into comics but that was a cool twist on the concept.

RAIMI: Oh cool, thank you for that. It was a strange mix, yeah. I remember working with Liam, too.

SHOCK: Have you been approached about doing something more with DARKMAN or do you think television might be the way to go with that, too?

RAIMI: I never thought about it for TV. But I like the character and it is an interesting mix of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and THE SHADOW and whatever else, and I’d love to get back into that.

SHOCK: I love THE SHADOW but was bummed by THE SHADOW movie.

RAIMI: I never saw it. I never saw it.

SHOCK: I was a big fan of the old stories and comics.

RAIMI: The pulp magazines? Yeah, me too, Maxwell Grant.

Shock: What have you watched lately that you’ve liked?

Raimi: I love BREAKING BAD. I’m not caught up on it yet. I’m a little behind. My kids and I just finished the last season, we’ve seen them all, of FALLING SKIES. That was awesome.

SHOCK: Congratulations for getting this thing out. Hopefully you can move on and you won’t get asked about EVIL DEAD for the rest of your life.

RAIMI: I can’t make another one(Laughs).

ASH VS. EVIL DEAD Season 1 will air on STARZ starting on Saturday, October 31. Look for our interviews with Bruce Campbell and the rest of the cast over the coming days.

Ash vs Evil Dead

Ash vs Evil Dead poster

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TV Recap: THE WALKING DEAD Season 6, Episode 3, “Thank You”

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TV Recap: THE WALKING DEAD Season 6, Episode 3, “Thank You”

SHOCK is in shock after the death of a major THE WALKING DEAD character.

After the ballistic blood orgy that marked last week’s peripheral cast-culling episode, THE WALKING DEAD, episode three shifts its attention from the ruins of the wolves-battered Alexandria to the central super-heroes of Rick, Michonne and Daryl, as they lead a gaggle of dead-weight Alexandrian’s to help sway the herd away from the city.

Of course…there’s that damned horn. The same horn that we heard at the climax of episode 1 and whose origins were explained in the middle of episode 2.

As the zombie pack starts making its way toward the sound, the heroes splinter off into groups, with Michonne, Glenn, Nicholas, Heath and other assorted zombie-fodder Alexandrian extras along for the ride.

Daryl continues to rampage down the highway to the pulsing strains of Bear McCreary’s music, and Rick makes a sprint back to the slaughtered-ghoul wall where they left the RV.

The dead are everywhere. And we mean EVERYWHERE. This season is in fact the most zombie-heavy round of them all and it gives us a chance to pause and really admire just how bloody (literally) miraculous KNB’s work here is. It’s an embarrassment of amazing design and nightmarish application. Truly, no matter your take on the show, no filmed entertainment has ever shown us the living dead as expertly, imaginatively realized as TWD. We’re actually rather spoiled by how good this show is…

I digress.

In the Michonne/Glenn gang, one Alexandrian gets his throat ripped out, the other gets his back bitten. After the offending ghouls are dispatched, the unfortunate bitee acknowledges his impending fate but opts to soldier on anyway an help the gang. As they walk, we get to explore some of Michonne’s softer, human side as she tenderly discusses the soon-to-be zombified man’s wife. It’s a mildly affecting passage that further exemplifies the emotional core that has always been essential to TWD’s success.

Meanwhile, Rick continues his mad dash, finds a slaughtered survivor now a hot mess of guts and parts all torn asunder that Rick has to gruesomely pick through to raid needed supplies.

Glenn and the increasingly distracted Nicolas split from their team, with the intent of letting off a smoke signal when they reach their destination, leaving Michonne and Heath and a recently shot Alexandrian (as well as the chomped lad) in a pet store. Nicolas is breaking down, a condition realized by having the sound drop and a tinnitus-esque ringing take over the audio. Glenn tries to bring him back down to earth (“you’re not that guy anymore!” he says).

We know Nicolas will die soon. What we don’t know is how and what the consequences will be.

Rick makes it to the RV and is off.

Back in the pet store, Michonne hears a banging behind a puppy poster and suddenly ghouls spill out from behind a hidden door. The noise from the zombie’s groaning attracts the herd and in seconds thousands of zombies are at the store’s door. The gang escapes, people die.

At the same time, Glenn and Nicolas get trapped on a dumpster by the herd, who come at them from every which way in an intense, terrifying sequence. Nicolas goes deeper into his daze, turns to face his panic-stricken partner and blows his own brains out, dragging a shocked Glenn in to the crowd of zombies.

And Glenn is promptly ripped to shreds in slow motion.

There are those who swear that it was Nicolas’ body getting consumed by the dead and that Glenn may have rolled under the dumpster and will live to fight another die.

We don’t buy it. Glenn is dead. And it sucks. In fact, it’s going to be hard to forgive THE WALKING DEAD for a while. I feel like I did at the tail of Frank Darabont’s adaption of King’s THE MIST. Cheated. Like the show has contempt for me, the devoted audience.

With 10 minutes left to go, Rick is attacked in the RV by members of The Wolves, which he quickly lays waste to. But then, the RV won’t start. And the zombies move in…and move in…and…

See you next week!

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Event Report: When Ron Became Lon Chaney in Hollywood

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Event Report: When Ron Became Lon Chaney in Hollywood

Hollywood horror film historian David Del Valle reports on a very special screening of the Lon Chaney classic THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA.

Ron Chaney is the great grandson of Lon Chaney Sr. and the grandson of Lon Chaney Jr. and it has long been one of his goals in life to honor the legacy these two men have left in the world of show business and especially the Horror genre. I first met Ron in the late 1990’s at Forrest J Ackerman’s house in Hollywood and then, later, we became good friends when I moved to Palm Springs where Ron maintains a residence with his wife and daughters. At the time I hosted a radio program down there and Ron was my special guest for nearly three hours we talked about both of his famous relatives and the amazing roles they created in their careers. We mainly focused on a book started by his grandfather Lon Chaney Jr. who was also dedicated to preserving his father’s legacy and that of his family.

A few weeks ago, Ron appeared for the 90th anniversary of his great grandfather’s most famous role that of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA at the Egyptian theater as part of Beyond Fest, now in its third year at the American Cinematheque. Ron addressed a full house that afternoon dressed in period complete with a top hat. The print screened was a 16mm Blackhawk chosen so they could match the score to the live musicians Ron had been working with to try and replicate the experience audiences had back in 1925. After the screening, Ron, with the help of make-up wizard Casey Wong, recreated the Phantom makeup designs Lon Chaney Sr. had gone to such lengths to disfigure his own face with in that cinematic nightmare that still haunts the imagination of movie goers around the world.

I wish the print for Phantom had been better since the theater was packed with fans of all ages and some, of course, might not have had an opportunity to see a silent film on the big screen with live musicians. However, sadly, the print was terrible and actually stopped at least twice during the performance. I have seen such films as THE MAN WHO LAUGHS and BELOVED in a theater with the great late Gaylord Carter at the organ, so I do know the difference it can make to showcase these rare silent films with an audience and I’ve seen the joy these wonderful films can bring to the 21st Century.

The saving grace of this presentation was of course Ron Chaney himself, a very nice guy and unlike some of the other sons and daughters of horror stars of the past, very knowledgeable about both Chaney’s career’s and films. Lon Chaney Jr. began the initial work on the tome “Century of Chaney’s” and then Ron took up the slack writing in great detail about the life and times of both men so I am hopeful this proposed book, which has be decades in the making, will finally see the light of day in the next couple of years. Ron has also been busy trying to secure the rights to film a new version of LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT, the most famous of the lost silent films of the 20’s.

When I lived in Palm Springs in 2000, I performed for Ron in a presentation he called “Chaney’s Weekend House of Horrors” presenting different scenes with live actors from THE WOLF MAN and PHANTOM, a project he put together along with his brother Gary, who played the mummy. I played Sir John Talbot the Claude Rains role opposite Ron as Laurence Talbot/The Wolf Man. The late Jean Carson, who was an actress you may remember from I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE, as well as the original THE TWILIGHT TV show, played the gypsy Maleva. The show was attended by Bela Lugosi Jr who also attended this most recent screening of the PHANTOM.

At the end of that troubled but historically important screening, Ron presented himself in full make up and invited the sold out audience to come to the lobby for photos creating a huge line of fans waiting to get their photo taken with Erik the Phantom. I am pleased to say that as long as Ron Chaney is around the legacy of a Century of Chaney’s is secure…

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Interview with Horror Filmmaker Jill Sixx Gevargizian

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Interview with Horror Filmmaker Jill Sixx Gevargizian

From her first horror short CALL GIRL, to POLICE BRUTALITY and indie Kickstarter short THE STYLIST, Jill Sixx Gevargizian is killing it in horror and has become one of the front running faces of female horror directors. So I was excited to have the opportunity to catch up with horror director Gevargizian. We had a chance to discuss her new horror film short, GRAMMY, which will be debuting at Spooky Empire in Orlando this year, as well as giving us an update on THE STYLIST and she also lets us in on how much really goes into bringing a horror short to the screen. So, sit back, relax and enjoy the horror goodness of Jill Sixx Gevargizian.

filmmaker Jill Sixx Gevargizian

EvilQueenB: Congrats on the success of all of your short films! How do you balance the cons, screenings, filming and being a hairstylist?

Jill Sixx Gevargizian: Thank you! I’m not sure how I balance it honestly. I do hair full-time and spend almost all my free-time on filmmaking stuff. That is my only means for making a living–movies only cost me money! Every part of filmmaking costs–making it, submitting it to festivals, traveling to those festivals. It’s a never-ending money sucker.

Evil: THE STYLIST, which was successfully funded on Kickstarter is being completed, can you tell us about that and when we will be seeing it?

Jill: To be frank, our Kickstarter only funded 1/3 of that project. Another third came from a private investor and the rest from myself. I produced the film with director of photography Robert Patrick Stern and production designer Sarah Sharp. Thanks to their talent and experience I think we created something really special. We will soon start submitting to film festivals and hope to premiere somewhere exciting in the Spring. Najarra Townsend (CONTRACTED) stars in the film as Claire; a hairstylist obsessed with the notion of perfection. She was a true pleasure to work with and her performance brought this character to life in way I could have only dreamed. THE STYLIST is a very emotional film, which is a first for me. I have never felt so connected to something I’ve made and I want to continue to feel that way about my work.

Evil: How much pre-production goes into bringing a short film to the screen?

Jill: I, personally, spend a shit load of time in pre-production. Everyone is different. On THE STYLIST I spent 4-5 months on prepro and I think it shows. The less you prepare, the sloppier the final product is. Prepping is my thing and most important in filmmaking- or anything really!  It also depends on the project–THE STYLIST I knew was the film I wanted to change the game for me, so I hired an all-pro crew and spent a lot of time preparing with them. That film is 15 minutes long. And to give you an idea how long the entire process takes–we shot it in February and we’re just now doing the final assembly. That 8 months of post-production! It’s taken me over a year to complete THE STYLIST. It takes a lot of focus and passion to finish a film. It’s full of up and downs, but you just have to keep going. In comparison, GRAMMY is only 2 minutes long and it took only 2.5 months to complete from beginning to end.

Evil: Now that you have tackled short films will a full length horror film be in your future?

Jill: People ask this so often–it’s a matter of opportunity and money. I would LOVE to make a feature-length! It takes so much money just to make a short and it’s very hard to find the money. I just can’t see how one would find enough to make a feature, without a big company behind them forking out the money. One day, I hope!

Evil: Tell us about your newest short film, GRAMMY which will be screened at Spooky Empire.

Jill: GRAMMY is a micro short that I made for Crypt TV–which is a online distributor of horror content owned by Eli Roth. It should premiere on their platforms later this year. So, I thought I’d try to get it into a few festivals prior. I wrote GRAMMY with my good friend Jill Towerman and it was inspired by the pressure society places on women to wear makeup. The short itself is fun and bit silly. I can’t say too much without spoiling the film. It’s about a little girl (Hala Finley) who wakes up from an overnight at grandma’s house to discover there’s more to Grammy (Marilyn Hall) than meets the eye. I doubt people will pick up on my political subtext, but it’s there! HA!

Evil: So far, what has been one of your best moments working in the horror genre?

Jill: I’d have to say it was seeing my first film, CALL GIRL, adapted into a comic by Japanese artist Daiju Kurabayashi and producer Hiro Fujii. Not only is the the most flattering thing that can happen as an artist–to inspire more art–but it’s better than my film! And anyone can download it for free–in English or Japanese–here: http://callgirlcomic.curse.jp/

Evil: What’s your next project?

Jill: I do not have another project slated as of now. I will be focusing on submitting THE STYLIST to festivals all over the world and writing. Next year I plan to travel a lot with THE STYLIST. I think that is an important to enjoy all the work you put in. I also find that my work has a much bigger effect on people if I am at the screenings. Rather than just finishing a film, putting it out and moving onto a new project. It shows a whole other level of dedication. But I hope to be working on something new soon and am open to any possibilities! I would really love to work with Robert Patrick Stern and Sarah Sharp again.

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Filed under: Females in Horror, Guest Contributor, Horror Short Films, Independent Horror Scene, Interviews, New Posting

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Review: PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE GHOST DIMENSION

Shock Till You Drop

Review: PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE GHOST DIMENSION

Run, don’t walk, to catch this latest and last installment in the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY franchise…

While the last several PARANORMAL ACTIVITY films have been (let’s face it) a bit lackluster, this latest edition of the franchise surpasses all expectations and is frighteningly and intensely intelligent. Instead of a run-of-the-mill cheapie, found-footage grab for cash during the Halloween season, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE GHOST DIMENSION is a startling and visionary film that can only be described as a work of art worthy of modern savants such as Lars von Trier and Gasper Noë.

Much like Fritz Lang’s classic silent science fiction film METROPOLIS, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE GHOST DIMENSION is an allegory of Marxist alienation pitting the ruling classes against the proletariat while exploring the danger and horror of unbridled personal passion and mob rule. Most of this intellectual and artistic observation is due to input from prolific screenwriter Adam Robitel (his 2015 avant-garde horror film THE TAKING OF DEBORAH LOGAN is known as one of the most thoughtful meditations on denial of dialectic desituationism and affirmation of cultural post textual theory in the 21st Century).

Protagonists Ryan (Chris J. Murray) and Emily (Brit Shaw) are a happily married, heterosexual white bourgeois couple with a mentally disabled daughter named Leila (Ivy George, who does an impeccable job playing an eight year-old with the mental capacity of a three year-old). Isolated in their extremely large and sprawling house, and with no interaction with the outside world, they spend their days staring at blinking lights and at absurdly numerous television and computer screens. Ryan’s upper middle class employment as a gaming developer forces him to work remotely, estranged from not only his product but his fellow man, on a screen barely one foot across. Despite the absolute exploitation of his own creative spirit, the game (which never materializes) is interpolated into a post cultural paradigm of expression that includes art as a whole.

Ryan’s brother Mike (Dan Gill) randomly appears one day in the house and plans to stay with the family, to which they oddly don’t object. While Mike quips existential, Kafka-esque one-liners designed to question the validity of their subconceptualist rationalism and structural materialism, the two parents don’t seem to react and remain sequestered in their glass-walled, white, suffocating bourgeois interior. The beautiful Skyler (Olivia Taylor Dudley) is also trapped in the house, with no apparent relation to anyone. This surreal experiment soon makes Skyler the primary caregiver to tiny Leila while Emily is tasked with repetitively removing groceries from brown bags, over and over, despite the fact that she never leaves the house or goes grocery shopping. The family never eats the food she unpacks, indicating her own failure to connect to her fellow man as anything but a consumer and her inability to connect to her family as anything but an object of slave labor in the kitchen. This obviously Freudian deconstruction is a touchingly simple way to denote Emily’s dissatisfaction with her own role as Mother.

Eventually, Ryan finds a video camera from 1992 in a box in the garage, his only window to the outside world and to other people. In his desperation to connect with other human beings, he begins obsessively watching the video tapes left with the camera, drawing Emily and Mike, and eventually Leila and Skyler, into his demented and manic need to go back to 1992 and prevent his own class alienation under the guise of saving Leila from the inevitable downfall of capitalism. Unfortunately, the entire family is being stalked by the specter of Marxism in the form of a ghastly black entity seeking to steal Leila and force her back into 1992 where a coven of Marxist witches will enact a ritual designed to destroy the power of the bourgeoisie by giving political support to their revolutionary leader named Toby. To the upper-class family, this leader seems to be little more than a demon designed to point out the inherent immorality and inhumanity in their lifestyles; he seems to want to destroy everything they have in order to redistribute their wealth to the Marxist witches (their house is built upon the destroyed ruin of the coven’s original home, torn away from them by the fires of capitalism and trickle-down economics). However, the absurdity, and some would say the failure, of subconceptualist rationalism which is a central theme of Rushdie’s SATANIC VERSES emerges again in PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE GHOST DIMENSION when a portal to 1992 opens up in Leila’s bedroom, forcing the family to take drastic measures to protect her from the dark forces of the futility of class consciousness.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE GHOST DIMENSION’s filmmakers designed gorgeous natural lighting thoughtfully intended as homage to Stanley Kubrick’s BARRY LYNDON. The large house is various shades of pale light whites and grays polluted by the blackness of night when the family is under attack from Toby.

Just like the sans-culottes during their reign of terror in the French Revolution, the coven of witches and Toby assault the family and threaten to execute them physically and morally in order to restore a working-class Jacobin socialism in which witches can freely practice their demonic conjurations without fear of capitalists burning down their home.

Ultimately, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE GHOST DIMENSION is a Nietzsche-esque escalation between good and evil, a battle between Id and Superego, in which allegorical demons battle the soulless, amoral darkness of bourgeois identity. The filmmakers force the audience to choose between the post cultural paradigm of expression and cultural rationalism; this “ghost story” promotes the use of structural materialism to attack outdated, elitist perceptions of narrativity and denotes the role of the viewer as participant in this tale of terror rather than simply creator. Mainly it is the many 3-D jump scares that really accomplish this.

Run, don’t walk, to see this beautiful Camus-like example of modern existential and political art, which I suspect will be on many people’s short-list for the Oscars in March.

The post Review: PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE GHOST DIMENSION appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.

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5 Must See Subtitled Horror Films on Netflix

AnythingHorror Central

5 Must See Subtitled Horror Films on Netflix

by EvilQueenB

I have touted the greatest of subtitled horror films, although most people are quick to dismiss them. With reactions being no one wants to read and watch a horror film at the same time! Well these 5 films will help re-evaluate your thoughts on subtitled films by showing you horror comes in all different film forms!

Please note some of these trailers have been English dubbed, but these are subtitled on Netflix.

I SAW THE DEVIL (2010)

This Korean film tells the story of a secret agent whose fiancee is killed by a serial killer. Consumed with rage and grief, Kim Soo-Hyeon goes on a sadistic rampage in order to track down the killer. This film is bloody, gory, suspenseful and has one of the best endings I’ve seen in a long time.

THE HORDE (2009)

This French film tells the story of a group of less than lawful police officers looking for revenge against a gang who murdered their colleague. What starts out as a strategic plan turns into a bloody fight for survival against a horde of zombies. The film is fast paced, action packed and gives a new spin on zombies.

HIGH LANE (2009)

When a group of friends go rock climbing in a closed off part of Croatia they get more than they bargained for when their only way back home is destroyed and they end up being hunted in the forest. Although this is not a new concept in horror of stranded friends in a forest being hunted it is however one of the better done horror films on the subject.

DEAD SNOW (2009)

A group of friend’s snow getaway is interrupted by a group of Nazi zombies. This Norwegian film is a great installment in the zombie genre. It’s fun, it’s blood soaked and the sequel, DEAD SNOW: RED VS. DEAD is a rare example of sequel that is better than the first film (plus it isn’t subtitled).

[REC] 4 APOCALYPSE (2014)

The [REC] franchise to me is one of the best foreign subtitled series in the horror genre. If you haven’t watched the first 3 films I recommend watching those first and then moving on to this newest installment. Angela the reporter from the [REC] and [REC] 2 returns, but she is now quarantined on a boat, but she is not alone in this voyage. Even with a 4th installment, this series is still going strong and how many American horror films can say that!

Did EvilQueenB miss any great subtitled horror on Netflix? Let us know!!

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Filed under: Guest Contributor, Horror Lists, New Posting

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