Interview with ‘THEY CALL HER DEATH’ Director Austin Snell

I came across They Call Her Death on Shudder recently and it was a fun bloody Western (my review). Afterwards I sought out director Austin Snell’s previous films Exposure and had a lot of fun with it. I reached out to Austin and asked if he would be interested in doing an interview. Thankfully he was up for it.

Read on to check out my interview with Austin Snell.

PopHorror: What inspired you to want to become a filmmaker? What directors inspired you?

Austin Snell: I’ve been making movies as far back as my memory goes. I was the stereotypical kid with a video camera making movies with his friends. But it wasn’t until I discovered the existence of the independent film world as I got into high school that I began to take it more seriously as a viable avenue for self expression. And Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead was my gateway into that world. So I’d definitely say Raimi was an inspiration, as were guys like Lloyd Kaufman, Tobe Hooper, Don Dohler, and Charles B. Pierce. Guys who just went out and did it on their own.

PopHorror: Your film Exposure is a unique take on a cabin in the woods story. Where did the idea come from?

Austin Snell: That film was co-written by Jake Jackson and me, and the story mostly came out of knowing we would have limited resources and time. Cabin in the woods stories with few characters can be done cheap and quickly. So we engineered the story out of that. The slow destruction of a couple’s relationship seemed like an interesting story to juxtapose against such a beautiful and pleasant landscape.

PopHorror: What was the shoot for Exposure like?

Austin Snell: Grueling and brief. We were up in the mountains for about two weeks, working nonstop. It was a lot of fun but not much time to breathe or reflect on creative choices. It was go, go, go. But seeing the full creature suit in motion with fog machines rolling and lit in that hyper-saturated Bava-esque lighting was a lot of fun. The goopy, bloody days are always the most fun to film.

PopHorror: There was 6 year ago between Exposure and Her Name Was Death. Why such a long wait?

Austin Snell: After Exposure I wrote a handful of scripts, none of which I loved enough to really commit to filming. Then we had a pandemic that made doing anything impossible. So I used that downtime during lockdown to reassess what it was I liked about filmmaking, and that was celluloid. I had shot a bit of 16mm film in high school, but couldn’t afford to for the longest time after that. So in the summer of 2020 I started collecting 16mm film prints and dug out my old 16mm film cameras with the intention that whatever I did next would be shot on film. Which also meant filming took a very long time. We started filming They Call Her Death in August of 2021. The movie was finished in 2024. So it was certainly a long time between films, but I was pretty steadily working most of that time.

PopHorror: What was your inspiration for They Call Her Death?

Austin Snell: Obviously Euro-westerns and Euro-horror are paid tribute heavily all over the place. I was thinking of slightly lower budget Euro-westerns in particular, not so much Leone. Corbucci and Fulci were discussed a lot during production. Fulci made some really interesting westerns in addition to his horror films, but they didn’t really ever crossover fully. My target was like what if Four of the Apocalypse had a supernatural streak in it on par with The Beyond? Johnny Colt, Cut Throats Nine, and Cemetery Without Crosses were all on my mind a lot too.

PopHorror: Sheri Rippel is fantastic as Molly. How did you go about casting her for the part and what was it like working with her?

Austin Snell: Sheri is part of the community of civic theater actors in the Topeka region that I frequently collaborate with. I had never worked with her before this film, but she came highly recommended by Devan (Diego the bounty hunter) and Dané (Deputy Turner). And she was a joy to work with, just the sweetest person and very game. I’ll always appreciate that she really went after the “recommended viewing” list I handed out with the scripts. It was just a list of movies to watch if you wanted to get familiar with my inspirations and the tone of the film. She watched a lot of them and would hit me up about them afterwards. Her desire to really understand this project and execute it properly was very strong. I liked that a lot. And she’s a grade school teacher when she isn’t getting roped into acting in films.

PopHorror: They Call Her Death has a lot more action than Exposure. What was it like shooting all the action scenes?

Austin Snell: I love filming action, it was a pleasure to do. I’m not a huge fan of my own writing often times, so I’m eager to just get to a good fist fight or shoot-out. The script had even more shoot-outs, actually. But we planned the fights extensively. Filming action is not very exciting in person, it’s very slow and deliberate. Lots of little shots. There’s few things more cinematic than two people punching each other in the face, though.

PopHorror: What’s next for you?

Austin Snell: Definitely another film.

PopHorror: To end things off I want to ask a fun little question. What are some of your favorite horror films?

Austin Snell: Oh man, so many. I love the big ones like The Thing, Dawn of the Dead, Evil Dead, and The Hills Have Eyes. That stuff was my gateway. Really grimy DIY stuff like Last House on Dead End Street, Henry and Basket Case. I watch a good amount of Cat III Hong Kong horror films too, like Devil Fetus. And of course so many things from Italy in the 70’s and 80’s like Tenebrae, Deep Red, and City of the Living Dead. Lately I’ve been kind of obsessed with Sweet Home the Japanese film from 1989 that partly inspired Resident Evil.