PopHorror Let's Get Scared
1000 Women In Horror (story) is a new documentary that is coming to Shudder soon. Directed by Donna Davies, it is based on a book by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. We had a chance recently to sit down and talk to Donna Davies and Alexandra Heller-Nicholas about the project.
PopHorror: I loved 1000 Women in Horror! I had so much fun watching it. It was so good so I’m super excited to talk to you about it today.
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas: Aw, yay!
PopHorror: My first question is for you, Alexandra. The documentary is based on your book. What sparked the idea for the book and how did the project come about?
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas: I had written quite a few books on horror and exploitation films by the time I got to that book. I’d written a couple of books on rape-revenge films in particular so my interest in gender and horror was pretty well established. I’d also co-edited a book on a very not horror filmmaker called Elaine May, so my interest in women’s filmmaking was also very strong in my non-horror work and research. The book really felt like those threads coming together. It almost felt inevitable.
I began as a music critic and then I pivoted to academia, and my earlier books are a bit more academic and I really wanted to write a book that wasn’t academic. Still smart, still switched on and with ideas, but that’s not really an audience that I’m always going to want to speak to. I had this saying that I’d rather speak to 15 year old boys about rape-revenge films than a 50 year old academic. I think it’s a more important person to have that conversation with so they don’t turn into Andrew Tate. Can I say that? I’m going to get sued. Gonna get doxxed!
So, the book really felt inevitable and even though the focus in both the documentary and the book is very much on women and femme-identifying artists and creators, Donna and I have sort of taken pains to say whenever we get the chance that there were cis men involved in the journey that are really important to us. These are really important allies and supporters and the book itself wouldn’t have existed without the late Australian film critic, Lee Gambin. He was the one who really championed the idea. He introduced me to his publisher. He was like, “We need this book. We have to have this book.” He was my main cheerleader and unfortunately, he died before the documentary came out. His presence is very much felt.
PopHorror: I’m so sorry. Donna, what compelled you to adapt the book into a documentary?
Donna Davies: I was approached by the team of producers that met Alex and knew the book would be a great film, and it was just sort of a fluke. I made several films on the horror genre – documentaries – and I had made a film in 2009 called Pretty Bloody: The Women of Horror, which was a look at the women who created horror. I was approached by the producers and I had already heard of Alex and the book and so it made a lot of sense to me as someone who loves this kind of film that is vast.
People often come to me with films that people think are hard to do because it’s a big subject. I love the giant jigsaw puzzle of how are you going to break this down? How many clips here, how many clips there? It’s fun! It’s really exciting so I was honored when they came to me and Alex and I got along fantastically from the beginning, and it became a partnership through a number of years where we worked really closely as a decision-making team. It was so nice for me because all the films I’ve ever made, I’ve done on my own. I’ve never had somebody that knew so much more than me. It was just so much smoother. I highly recommend getting a genius as a partner.
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas: I would add too, Donna’s actually in the book 1000 Women in Horror long before I even met her. I think she’s next to Bette Davis.
PopHorror: That’s so cool! I love how that all came together. You interviewed such an incredibly eclectic array of voices in horror. So many different perspectives from mainstream and indie creators. What was your selection process like and was there anyone that you really wish you could have but were unable to get?
Donna Davies: That’s a good one. The selection process was we broke the film down into stages of a woman’s life and then we broke it further down into what are the 10 films that fit into those stages of a woman’s life, and then there were a certain amount of films that everyone, even someone that’s not a film critic, would know that had to fit in those categories. Then it became a fun back and forth with the team of like, this is too obscure, this is perfect, this is great, we need an Easter egg of something that no one’s ever seen! We can’t have them all from North America, what about another one? And of course, because Alex is so well versed in every film that’s being made in the history of film, that was great. And then we had another partner – a producing partner on the film – Giles Edwards, who is a genius and knows a lot about horror films. Then it just became really fun. It was like populating a giant board of what makes sense. It was fun!
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas: There wasn’t anybody that I felt that we wanted that we couldn’t get. I was so thrilled with who we had, but I would say that it was a long process. We started this in 2019. COVID obviously really slowed things down. In retrospect, if I knew then what I know now, there’s a young Australian filmmaker called Alice Maio Mackay, a young transgender woman. She’s like 20, 21. She’s made six feature films, maybe seven now. They’re all on Shudder; they’re all incredible. Just these incredible queer punk masterpieces. She’s just this little underground goddess and I discovered Alice just as we were wrapping up the film so we were able to get a little clip of her film T Blockers in there, but if I was aware of Alice’s work earlier I think it would have been a no-brainer to interview her in the film. She’s charismatic, super intelligent, and a very kind person. I would have loved a little time machine to go back and to have discovered Alice a little earlier than I did.
Donna Davies: You always had these moments of ‘Oh God, I wish I had.”
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas: Right!
Donna Davies: It’s always sort of like what’s meant to be too, because you’ve got a certain period of time where you’ve got your crew and you’re in a certain city and you do your best to get the people that have agreed to be in it, but sometimes when you’re cruising in that city that person’s out of town, so we’re not going to say that there are people that aren’t in that we contacted because sometimes schedules just didn’t align. But for the most part, people were so graciously excited that we were doing something like this. I believe that a lot of it had to do with Alex’s reputation, so I think that when we reached out in our letters and said this is what we’re doing, that they knew it was a serious thing and they agreed. It was very kind of them all. They really moved their schedules around to oblige as much as possible.
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas: A lot of the filmmakers and creatives in the film, they also know each other as well so when they see the other people that they know are in, that was a really strong factor as well.
PopHorror: I believe it! I believe that Alex’s reputation had a part in it just because she’s just so well known in horror literature and the horror community in general. Speaking of horror, what ignited your love of horror?
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas: I often joke that I’m biological Catholic. I’m not a person of faith but I grew up with the iconography and much to my parents’ disappointment, what that left me with was a love for Dario Argento. Those images of Christ on the cross. These things did not inspire a religious kind of passion in me but they really inspired a love of really violent imagery, you know, stained glass windows!
Donna Davies: I’m a deeply dark person. I’ve always had a hard time with super happy things in general. Even in color and the way I like to decorate and stuff. Just from childhood in general, grew up in an eclectic, crazy neighborhood. Had a grandmother who was a fortune teller. Had a lot of crazy things happening like we lived in a bootlegger’s house and there was always crazy fighting and so my escape was to just imagine killing them all. No, not really killing! I’m just saying I like dark things and I think that a lot of people are able to exorcise their demons that way, so I think that horror films appealed to me from day one and I think it’s a great escape for people that need a little bit of escapism once in a while and want to see something that’s not always… For me, the real big scary films are the romantic comedies because what they’re doing is they’re pitching a false idea of what’s ever going to happen and making all these people believe it. So, it’s better to be prepared to defend yourself.
PopHorror: I also like dark things. I have just one last question for you both. What’s your favorite scary movie?
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas: It’s a good question because the films that scare me aren’t necessarily the films that I think are my favorite horror films. But in terms of that pure visceral, physical reaction, it’s an obvious one but the original Blair Witch Project still fucks me up. The ending of that film deeply fucks me up. And Brad Anderson’s Session 9 really, really upsets me. It really just gives me the howling fantods.
Donna Davies: For me, I am terrified of evil children. I find them everywhere when I look around so The Bad Seed freaks me out. That girl is so bad. They’re out there. I find it scarier than any kind of zombie or monster of any kind, just the innocence that’s not so innocent kind of thing.
PopHorror: Thank you both for your time!
1000 Women In Horror lands on Shudder starting March 20.
