The Soska Sisters took a break from their heavy promotional schedule to answer a few questions with The Movie Sleuth. We thank Sylvia and Jen for taking the time to give us this excellent interview.
TMS: I could see some definite and varied influences
in American Mary. Can you tell us who inspires the two of you in making a new
project and who would be your main influence over all? It seems to me that
Asian horror could have been a definite influence on American Mary? Are my
assumptions correct?
S: AMERICAN MARY is very much a love letter to
Asian and European film making. I really like the art of horror and I feel it's
taken a backseat in Western film making to the advanced technology we have to
create the films, story keeps suffering. You're assumptions are very correct.
The work of directors like Takeshi Miike, Dario Argento, Lars Von Trier, Clive
Barker, David Cronenberg, Tomas Alfredson, Mary Harron, and Yoshihiro Nishimura
had a big influence on how we would make this film.
J: Everyone Sylv just mentioned. Asian and
European style horror, which are so much more broad than the slashers of North
America. Their films are so much more than horror. We're not into labels, but
it seems North American horror really follows a formula and it's gotten way
past being tired.
TMS: How did you get your start in the film
industry? From both of your IMDB pages, it looks like you've been involved in
writing, editing, production, direction and various other positions behind the
camera. Some of the world's greatest directors have had the same ambition. Are
your plans to stick with directing or will you continue playing the field with
varied roles behind the camera?
S: Jen and I started acting when we were seven
years old, not because of any talent, just because they were two of us and
having twins helped with child labor limitations. As we grew up the roles went
from cutesy with little substance to overtly sexualized with little substance.
I like sexuality explored in film, but when it has some purpose in the story. We
worked for years but never with anything that we were even remotely proud of,
by the time we were reaching our twenties we decided we needed a change. We
decided to use our extensive martial arts training to try our hand at stunt
work, we might still be in bikinis, but we'd be kicking ass. It led us to a
film school that was anything but - a sham to rip industry hopefuls off of
thousands. Highly influenced from watching Rodriguez our whole lives and the
multi-collaborative GRINDHOUSE, we decided to follow in his footsteps and
create our own film. Wearing multiple hats and creating the content had us
finally working on projects we were excited about. We're stepping back from
acting to focus on writing, directing, and producing now. We have a lot of
stories we have to tell.
J: We're really born story tellers. I don't think
enough young girls are told that they can grow up and be writers or directors
or producers or owners of their own production company. They're encouraged to
be actors or models or singers. As an actor, you're never really in control of
the roles you play. You struggle just to work and maybe you can one day get to
the Robert Downey Jr level where you can pick and choose your roles and have
input on your characters, but not everyone is RDJ. I love how as a
director/writer you get to create this whole world and fill it with real,
living characters, and then tell your story in that realm. There's nothing in
the world like it. When we finally discovered filmmaking, it felt like coming
home. Everything just fell into place.
TMS: American Mary is definitely a twisted film
that exists in the world of body modification. What made you decide to go that
route? For me, it was a welcomed departure from the standard American slasher
horror films. Also, I have to mention, Katharine Isabelle is great in this. Her
character will stick with me like the Jennifer Hills character in I Spit on
Your Grave. She's soft on the eyes with an extremely dynamic presence that
scared the shit out of me.
S: Thank you for saying that and especially about
Katie - she's my favorite actress, the thinking person's scream queen and it
was a fangirl dream come true to bring Mary to life through her. I am a big
horror fan, but it feels like there are so many soulless studio remakes or
paint-by-numbers horror that the genre has really suffered. We wanted to
explore what's so interesting about the genre, the fantastic elements based on
real life issues that we can all relate to. You also have all these iconic male
horror characters like Pinhead, Dracula, Michael Myers, Norman Bates, Freddy,
but very few female characters that really explore women's capacity for evil.
Mixing that with the final girl, we created Mary who is sexy, severe, and
scary.
J: Being horror fans ourselves, we found ourselves
so tired of the same predictable horror flicks. We grew up with so many cool,
cutting edge films with killer practical effects. But somewhere that got lost.
I'm not sure why, but I suspect it's because the wrong people are making these
films. They aren't fans. They don't have a love for what they're doing. They
approach it as a business and while I fully understand that business is a vital
part of this industry and the longevity of any filmmaker's career, it has to be
rooted in a love of what you're doing. Anything worth doing is worth doing
well. When you care, it shows. We wanted to make a film that was original while
paying tribute to all the films and filmmakers that have influenced us. We
wanted to make something different with AMERICAN MARY and I guess we over shot
a little.
TMS: Can you tell us about your next project? Will
you be sticking with horror or are you going to move in a new direction for
your next film?
S: It's funny, we never intend to make a horror
film, even when we try to, it becomes this very us thing. We have a lot of
scripts that we want to make, several of them I would not categorize as horror
even with the subject matter. Our goal is to shake things up with each new
project. There are two films, written by one of our favorite artists that we
cannot wait to make big screen adaptations of; the next film is shaping up to
be BOB which we are already in early prep work for. The tagline is: There's a
monster inside all of us, sometimes it gets out.
J: No matter what we do, it'll have horrific
aspects. I'm not into labels. I think a film, like any good art, really
transcends definition. And it's interpretive. Depending on the viewer, it
changes. It can be a lot of things, but, yes, there will always be bloody bits
of horror in anything and everything we do. We make everything we do personal
and there's just too much horror in us. It has to find a way out.
TMS: I was lucky enough to snag a UK copy of the
American Mary blu ray. When can U.S. audiences finally grab a copy of the disc?
Or will it possibly get a theatrical run here in the states?
S: Thank you for picking it up! AMERICAN MARY
hits VOD May 16th, theatrical on the 31st, and DVD/BD release on June 18th!
J: ha ha, what she said ;)
-CG