Interview With Samantha Scaffidi – Actor, Author, Filmmaker

For fans of the Terrifier movie franchise, Samantha Scaffidi is no stranger to them because of her portrayal of Victoria, the brutalized sister of Tara who was left for dead by Art the Clown. Victoria would then pop-up again in 2022’s Terrifier 2 before being promoted to a main character in this year’s Terrifier 3. But what a lot of people might now know about Samantha is that she is not only an actress, she’s also an author, filmmaker, and most importantly and awe-inspiring, a domestic violence survivor.

I don’t usually have to issue a content warning for my interviews, but I wanted to for this one because of the depth of our conversation. We talk about domestic violence and sexual assault, among other things like Samantha’s new short film, her new book, working with RAINN, and of course, Terrifier.

PopHorror: I’m really excited to speak with you. I watched your short, I read your book, and of course, I’ve seen Terrifier. Let’s talk about your short, Open Your Eyes. I loved it; it’s so good. What sparked the idea for it?

Samantha Scaffidi: I had a dream a very long time ago. It was similar to the opening in the short film except I tightened and shortened it because I couldn’t have a 10-minute opening. In the dream I was walking passively through a corridor looking into different rooms and witnessing really horrific things happening within those rooms. By the end of the dream, a little girl came up to me and said, “It’s going to come for you, but you have to look it in the eyes,” and at that moment she said, “Open your eyes,” I actually in real life opened my eyes into the room. It was a very disturbing dream, and I didn’t know what it meant but all of a sudden it just kind of opened this flow of subconscious writing. Okay, that’s the opening but what does it mean and where does it go? It was really an exploration of what that dream meant for me at that point in my life, because it was obviously telling me something.

PopHorror: I’m excited to see what you have coming up because I was super impressed.

Samantha Scaffidi: Thank you.

PopHorror: I feel like I’ve been gravitating towards more things about grief lately and different tellings of it and how people experience it. What I got from your short is how she was processing her grief, if I interpreted it correctly.

Samantha Scaffidi: One hundred percent. If there’s any throughline in my work, it’s trauma and how we process it. At the time that I was writing Open Your Eyes, I had come out of an abusive relationship, and I hadn’t processed my own trauma or even the grief that came with that. When I made Open Your Eyes, that was also my subconscious way of processing without knowing. That’s always that throughline through my work, which is how we handle the things that have happened or been done to us. That’s why the little girl at the beginning of the movie says, “Look it in the eyes when it comes to you,” when it comes for you, when it finally resurfaces or when you’re at that breaking point. If we just face these things, we’re stronger than we imagine we are and I think that’s the tale of what happens when you don’t actually face those, when you’re too afraid or if the grief or the trauma is too much to bear. It manifests tragically. 

PopHorror: Everybody experiences it and deals with it differently, and I think that’s what I’ve been looking for. I lost my father and then my dog all within the last six months.

Samantha Scaffidi: I’m sorry.

PopHorror: Thank you. But I felt like I was grieving wrong or that I was too into my grief but then watching movies or reading things online or reading books, it’s a nasty bitch and everybody does it differently. And that’s okay. However you choose to grieve or not grieve, or deal with whatever you’re going through, it’s okay what works for you. Nothing is wrong.

Samantha Scaffidi: Exactly.

PopHorror: There’s no wrong way to do it. No one can tell you you’re doing it incorrectly. It sounds like this was cathartic for you. You said that you were dealing with it but not really realizing it.

Samantha Scaffidi: Yeah, definitely. That’s the beauty of coming into the horror genre. I’m from a New York Italian family and we watched Scorsese and all of these types of genre thrillers and comedies, so I never was introduced to horror early on. But then when I started doing Terrifier, I was introduced to the horror genre and the beauty of the genre, specifically in how it can help people process trauma, and grief. 

PopHorror: I agree. I read your book, I Didn’t Know How to Tell You.

Samantha Scaffidi: It’s a light read, haha.

PopHorror: It’s a very intimate look into what you were going through at the time as a domestic violence survivor. Was there anything that you were hesitant to share?

Samantha Scaffidi: You know, shame is the thing that imprisons you, isolates you, holding these things close to the vest because you’re afraid of how people will see you or afraid that you should have handled it differently. Shame was the thing that imprisoned me in the relationship and what prevented me from seeking help. When I was finally out of it, there was this realization that that was the thing that almost killed me and so I did the opposite. I was like, I’m going to tell my story. I’m going to share. We’re going to talk about it. There’s no reason why we should ever feel ashamed about what’s been done to us. I really felt a strong sense of shifting the discussion around that, and I think that was also a part of processing what had happened to me, and also taking control back. When I was writing this book, I had family members and really good friends who love me and were always there for me be like, “We don’t think you should put this out there. The world’s brutal. They’re going to judge you. Please don’t.” And I remember being like, “Okay, I love you but that’s the thing that kept me in that relationship. Shame.” As scary as it is and I know that once the book comes out, people are always going to have opinions, and some are going to be really great and beautiful – which I’ve received a lot of positive notes whenever I’ve shared my experience – but I also know there will always be another side to it. But I’m willing, to a degree, to go through that just because. I make the joke, “Light reading,” because it exposes you. 

PopHorror: I loved it. I think it’s important for other people to know they’re not alone and that what they’ve gone through may not be the same situation or circumstances, but that other people have gone through it too, and that there are people willing to talk about it. You can’t judge someone for what they did or how they handled it because you don’t know what was happening.

Samantha Scaffidi: The domestic violence conversation is such a visceral, hard conversation to have because people have a very specific view of what a survivor looks like, or a victim/survivor looks like. You realize that it’s something that affects… It crosses gender lines, it crosses races, it’s in every single pocket of the world and so many people experience it more than we imagine. The reason why I wanted to bring people into my own mind was because I wanted to break the barrier down of someone who is helpless or didn’t know what was going on and try to show different aspects of what that can look like. My hope was that if someone was reading the first 10 pages and they were like, “Oh, I connect with this person. I felt that way about my partner. I felt those things,” and then when they turn the page and get to the page about the abuse, they go, “Wait, who is this person? That’s not… How did I connect in one moment and now I’m reading this?” I wanted that inner conflict.

PopHorror: When is it coming out?

Samantha Scaffidi: It’s on Amazon. It’s just gone online now so people can download it. There are also 100 books that I’ve printed. I’ve given some away. The point of the book was, it’s a book that when you read it, if it does what you needed it to do for you, it’s a book you can give to other people if they need it in that time, whether it’s someone who’s in a relationship or trying to understand someone in a relationship.

PopHorror: I also read that you’ve done some work with RAINN (Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network). Can you tell us about the work you’ve done with them?

Samantha Scaffidi: I started off as an actor, got into producing, and then there’s a whole story on how I got into directing but to keep it short, I got involved with a commercial production company, and they had seen a music video I had done and said, “We really believe in you. We want to start working with you. We just need to find the right project to work on and we’ll start to develop you as the director.” I had a few things written and one of those was this script that I had written, which was based on an experience I had witnessed in my 20s. A friend of mine had called me and said, “Hey, I need you to come to the hospital. I have been raped.” I went with my mom and we ended up sitting with her for 10 hours, waiting for her to be seen by medical staff to do a rape kit.

PopHorror: Wow!

Samantha Scaffidi: I was in my early 20s, so I didn’t understand a lot about a lot of things, but I was really angry. All those years later, I had written this thing, and I brought it to this company, and said, “Here are a few projects,” and they had seen this script and said, “Let’s do this one; it’s really important.” We made the film and then RAINN, which is an amazing organization, got involved and they taught me through the process of us making it, the hospitals are understaffed, underfunded, and that there’s specific nurses that are needed to do a rape kit, which is an SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner) nurse and it’s so expensive to take the course to become an SANE nurse, that there are people that would love to be that nurse, but they can’t afford it.

PopHorror: Wow.

Samantha Scaffidi: We found out that people sometimes waited 10 hours or sometimes were never seen because they weren’t able to get the person there on the day. It was just a world that opened up. With RAINN, I got involved that way and it was one of the first projects we had done together.

PopHorror: Wow, that’s insane. Ten hours is insane.

Samantha Scaffidi: It’s crazy and sad.

PopHorror: So, it wouldn’t be a conversation with you if we didn’t talk about Terrifier for a little bit.

Samantha Scaffidi: Of course! I love Terrifier.

PopHorror: I was really excited to talk to you today and not focus solely on Terrifier, as much as I love the franchise.

Samantha Scaffidi: But there’s a way that we could talk about it that’s actually really beautiful and kind of aligns with all the things we’re talking about. 

PopHorror: From the very beginning up until now, and the major success that it’s had… I wanted to know what your thoughts are after opening weekend and seeing how Terrifier 3 did at the box office and how the fans rallied around the release.

Samantha Scaffidi: It’s kind of surreal because I don’t feel like I’ve processed it fully, because I don’t know how one processes how big it’s gotten. It’s not even like, “Oh, it did well!” It’s broken records so I’m still in shock. For 10 years since the original, it’s had this slow building success like you mentioned, because of the brilliance of Damien Leone (read our interview with him HERE) and also because Damien and David (read our interview with him HERE) have been on the ground, at conventions, where they’ve been able to meet people in person and have conversations. David and Damien are such wonderful people that they love talking about horror, the films, and meeting people. From that kind of grassroots… It just built and built over a decade, and then Terrifier 2 wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for the fans and the fundraising. I guess I’ve been witnessing it slowly building so you would think that by now, I’d be like, oh, of course, we’re here, we’ve arrived. It’s still very strange to me. I’m very happy for all the artists involved. They’ve really put in so much energy and effort and time, and they’re great people. It’s well deserved.

PopHorror: Agreed! For an indie horror franchise to start so small, I mean when we saw the first Terrifier, it played here for one night in a bar with a movie screen and maybe 40-50 seats. With Terrifier 2 and 3, we watched those in a sold-out movie theater with over 100 seats.

Samantha Scaffidi: It’s crazy! I hate to date it, but it’s been a decade. A decade of that build. We were in Barcelona recently at the Sitges festival, one of the biggest fantasy/horror festivals. It was such an unbelievable experience. We were in a theater as one of the event films with 1200 people, and during the most violent kills, they were cheering and clapping. By the end of it, we were walking out, and people were smiling and laughing. There were definitely walk-outs for sure, but that changed a lot for me too because I was like, I want to keep doing that. I want to keep seeing that smile and that kind of energy. It was just insatiable. It was contagious. I want to keep doing it, I want to keep making people smile and laugh.

PopHorror: I love that! I have just one last question for you today. What is your favorite scary movie?

Samantha Scaffidi: I was actually talking to someone about this recently and I was thinking, is this horror? I love The Silence of the Lambs.

PopHorror: It’s horror.

Samantha Scaffidi: It’s horror, yeah. The Silence of the Lambs is the perfect film.

Thank you so much to Samantha for taking the time to chat with us. Her short, Open Your Eyes, is currently on the festival circuit, but her book is now available on Amazon!