Traumatic Cinematic Talks to the Twisted Twins

"AL: What does Women in Horror Month mean to you ladies personally? Does it hit close to home for you? 

SS: WiH is a celebration for the under-recognized heroes that have pioneered and changed the industry in so many ways. There is a misconception that horror doesn’t appeal to women, the roles within it are misogynistic, and that women are not working behind the scenes to tell these stories. If we can change that viewpoint in horror, where we have this huge uphill battle for reassessment on gender equality, then there is hope for the rest of the industry.

JS: I feel it is about equality, celebration, and recognition. We should be well versed about the history of our industry and I was surprised how little I knew, initially, about the women who were our earliest trail blazers. It’s because they are simply not celebrated nor recognized to the level that they should. It’s also important to recognize that sexism is not a male against female issue as some of the most derogatory, sexist remarks out there come from girls being hateful of other women. And there are some phenomenal male feminists out there."

Read the article right here!

-Sylv

We Live Film Talks to the Twisted Twins

"1. February is ‘Women In Horror’ Recognition Month. Who are your favorite female film directors? 

Sylvia: Mary Harron is the reason why I went into directing, she’s phenomenal. Alice Guy-Blache pioneered early cinema and the industry wouldn’t be what it is today without her contributions. Dorothy Arzner is hugely inspirational as the only female director during Hollywood’s golden age. I’m a big Punisher fan and loved Lexi Alexander’s vision and she’s got real balls, I really admire her. I’m really looking forward to Tammi Sutton’s Isle of Dogs this year! Also, Kathryn Bigelow is brilliant.

Jen: That’s tough. There are so many women that inspire us and our work. Jennifer Chambers Lynch is amazing. I love her body horror. She’s so unique and original. BOXING HELENA is one of our favorite films. I am so honored to be working with her and Mary Harron, Jovanka Vuckovic, and Karyn Kusama on XX. We also had the amazing opportunity to work with a collection of phenomenal female filmmakers for this year’s WiHM Massive Blood Drive. Maude Michaud, Patricia Chica, Isabel Peppard, Jessica Cameron, and WiHM founder herself, Hannah Neurotica."

Read the entire interview here!

-Sylv

Scream Kingdom Talks Women In Horror

                     

"The inaugural episode of my new podcast "The Scream Kingdom" is live-with news about Chainsaw Sally, Alexis Iacono, Time To Kill, Deidre Stephens Cemetery Temple and the kingdom becomes a "Queendom" when Canada invades in the form of Actress Jessica Cameron, Jen Soska and Sylvia Soska who discuss sex bias issues for Women In Horror Recognition Month! Sponsored by horrormerch.com!"

-Sylv

Search My Trash Talks to the Twisted Twins

"See No Evil 2 stars wrestler Kane - so what was it like working with him, and are you into wrestling in your private lives? 

Sylvia: Here's the funny thing. Jen and I started watching WWF when Kane's character was just being set up for anintroduction. It was a heated rivalry between Jen and me because she is a diehard Undertaker fan and I was pretty in love with the Heartbreak Kid and they were feuding. I will never forget Shawn Michaels getting his ass handed to him and then in comes Paul Bearer with Kane - that must be KANE!!! - at Hell in a Cell. We were so nervous to meet Glenn. We are fan directors and it's how we approach our work - what do we, the audience, want to see happen. I will say I was a hug fan of Kane when we got this project, now I am an even bigger fan of Glenn Jacobs. I learned so much from working with him, the film was important and he brought the calibre to an entirely different level, and he was cool enough to even show me some wrestling moves. So, be afraid, I have minor wrestling skills from Kane. I'm a force to be reckoned with now!

Jen: We LOVE it! Admittedly we don't get much down time doing what we do and we rarely watch TV. I can now tell you that we've gotten back into watching Monday Night RAW, 3 hours of WWE bliss, and let me tell you, it's only gotten better. It was like coming home after being away for so long. At some point in everyone's life, they have been a WWE fan and let me tell you, that never goes away. We are all WWE fans and if you haven't treated yourself to a watch for a while, it's time to come back. It was absolutely incredible working with Glenn. Let me tell you, going in, I was a Kane fan. Coming out, I was and am a Glenn Jacobs fan."

Read the whole interview here!

-Sylv

Picking Brains Talks to Katharine Isabelle

"Her latest starring role in ‘American Mary’ really provides a showcase for her immense talent. I urge you to go and see ‘American Mary’ it is one of the best horror films to come out in the past few years. I only had 10 minutes with Katharine but it was put to good use as we discuss her roles of Ginger, Mary, her experiences on ‘Freddy V.S. Jason’ and her views on on-screen nudity."

Here it all HERE!

-Sylv

List Film Talks to the Twisted Twins

Can you briefly explain the plot of American Mary? 

Sylvia Soska: American Mary follows the story of Mary Mason, played by Katharine Isabelle, as she grows increasingly disenchanted by her medical school and the surgeons teaching her and the allure of easy money and notoriety sends Mary into the messy world of underground surgery and body modification which leaves more marks on her psyche than her freakish clientele.

Jen Soska: I love it when she does that.

What interested you about the world of body modification?

Sylvia Soska: I was looking on the internet one day and we found this April’s Fool’s prank, at the time we didn’t know it was an April Fool’s joke.

Jen Soska: We actually didn’t know it was a prank until we were filming and we mentioned it and our body mod consultant laughed in our faces.

Sylvia Soska: But the story goes there were two identical brothers and one of them had his arm sawn off and grafted onto his brother’s chest and the other had his ring finger removed and grafted onto his brother’s hand to have an elongated finger, because they were genetically identical you can do limb swaps with twins without rejection. That didn’t disturb me, or even the photos, as much as these big long love letters about being one half and having this connection and I thought it was very creepy and felt very scared and thought what is wrong with the world? But every time something scares me I become obsessed with it so went online, onto message boards and I would pretend I was going for all this surgery, it was just for shits and giggles.

Jen Soska: It was not originally intended for a film, it was just something that fascinated us, we’ve seen a lot of things in our lives and we’re not really phased by much, we were raised in a very open way. I mean when we were 12 we watched Hellraiser and it wasn’t a big deal, our mom would watch horror movies because she loved horror movies and she didn’t want to watch shitty kid’s shows so we watched them with her and she would explain them to us.

Sylvia Soska: Then later we were trying to sell our first film, Dead Hooker in a Trunk, and we had no money for food or rent and we were going down to LA to try and get into mainstream filmmaking and every time we did we’d meet these horrendously awful human beings.

Jen Soska: As you do when you are in Hollywood.

Sylvia Soska: I blame Penthouse, people take identical twins in the worst way possible, [laughs] anyway we met a great producer and he said 'why don’t you focus on your next script what else do you have?' At the time we had nothing so I lied, I was like ‘I have so many scripts I don’t even know what you want to read.’ And I made up a bunch of things I knew we could make up in a couple of weeks so I went ‘this one and this one and this one about a medical student’ and he goes ‘yeah the medical student one, I just want to look it over,’ so we wrote it in two weeks and everything we had been through accidentally went into the script. I didn’t even realise how personal it was until people were pointing it out and I started getting very uncomfortable.

Jen Soska: It’s very much an analogy of our own misadventures in the film industry, we used mainstream medicine instead of Hollywood and the body mod community in place of independent film and the horror community. We were always so embraced by the horror community our first film, Dead Hooker in a Trunk, most people said a title like that it’s got to be a shit film but the fans loved it so much that it became this online cult phenomenon so we managed to get distribution.

Sylvia Soska: And that led to the opportunity to make this one.

READ THE WHOLE INTERVIEW HERE!

-Sylv

NYCC Talks to the Twisted Twins about See No Evil 2

Jen and I chat about See No Evil 2 at NYCC. Please enjoy!

-Sylv

Rue Morgue Chats Up The Twisted Twins

Jen and me chatting with the incredibly rad Rue Morgue in this fourth and final installment, please enjoy!

-Sylv

Roundtable Interviews at NYCC with WWE Studios

Roundtable interviews for SEE NO EVIL 2 and LEPRECHAUN: ORIGINS at New York Comic Con 2013 featuring WWE Studios' Michael Luisi, Director Zach Lipovsky, Directresses Jen and Sylvia Soska, and WWE Superstars Hornswoggle and Kane.

CraveOnline Talks to the Twisted Twins

CraveOnline: How are you handling the Summer Slam Kane debacle? 

Sylvia Soska: [Laughs] 

Jennifer Soska: I’m upset. Everyone thinks, “Oh, he went off to shoot the movie.” I have not even seen him yet. 

Sylvia Soska: We haven’t even met him, we haven’t anything. So we were watching “RAW” last night and we’re like, “Okay, here comes Bray. We’re going to find out where Kane is, what happened to him.” And nothing. Not a single thing. And he goes into the corner and does that crazy Regan Exorcist upside down thing. This guy is a freak! Tell me what you did with Kane. Somebody at least ask where Kane is. 

Jennifer Soska: I have to say, I love Bray Wyatt’s theme music. It’s just creepily growing on me.

READ THE WHOLE THING HERE!

-Sylv

Dread Central Sees Some Evil 2

""I think a lot of people are surprised that See No Evil 2 is our next film, but if you knew us during our teens, it would make perfect sense," say the Soskas. "It wasn't even a match that initially caught our attention; it was The Undertaker in the ring talking about this dark secret and his brother. It was so engrossing that we were instantly hooked. The excitement continued for weeks as we were planted in front of the television every week leading up to Bad Blood/Hell in a Cell, where the buried past brother made his debut to the announcer's screams, 'This must be Kane!'"  

"There is no show on earth like what you see in the WWE and it only makes sense that they would translate that high level of entertainment to film, starting with See No Evil starring our personal favorite, Kane. Many years have past since then. We never became the first female twin tag team wrestlers that we dreamed of - the beautiful Bellas hold that honor - and we went on to become horror directors."" 

Read the whole rad piece HERE!

-Sylv

LIVE Skype Date from Winnipeg with Love

What up, WINNIPEG??????

What're you doing tonight? Coming to Winnipeg Film Group's Cinematheque for #AmericanMary, right?

Tonight, at 9pm, followed by a LIVE SKYPE DATE Q and A with me and Sylvia Soska!! BE THERE!!!!

Entrevista: Jen e Sylvia Soska, as irmãs Diretoras de Filmes Macabros

"Diretoras já são poucas. Diretoras de filmes terror são ainda mais raras. E irmãs gêmeas diretoras de filme de terror? Em uma cena onde o machismo ainda é muito presente, as diretoras e roteiristas canadenses Jen e Sylvia Soska entraram com tudo. O longa de estréia Dead Hooker in a Trunk fez sucesso na cena de terror independente e abriu as portas para que as irmãs trouxessem uma visão única e moderna com sua segunda fita, American Mary.

Nesta entrevista à colaboradora Luciana dos Anjos, Jen e Sylvia discutem sua abordagem para produções, detalham suas influências e dão algumas dicas para cineastas iniciantes. Quais diretores tem a maior influência sobre vocês, considerando o estilo e aspectos estéticos da direção? 

Sylvia: Nós não estaríamos fazendo filmes se não fossemos extremamente influenciadas por Robert Rodriguez. Lars Von Trier está entre meus diretores favoritos, eu adoro a abordagem artística e macabra de sua narração. Mas existem outros cineastas cujo trabalho me influenciou, como Cronenberg, Lynch, Narron, Roth, Baker, Miike, Craven, Argento, Eisener – provavelmente está faltando alguns grandes. Gosto de diretores que fazem belos filmes com uma filosofia.  

Jen: Para Dead Hooker In a Trunk foi muito do Robert Rodriguez. Ele é a razão pela qual nós – e muitas outras pessoas – decidiram pegar uma câmera a principio. O “Ten Minutes Film School” e o livro “Rebel Without a Crew” inspiraram uma legião de cineastas. Joss Whedon é uma grande inspiração pra mim também. Tanto a narrativa quanto os personagens são cuidadosamente pensados e executados."  

Read the whole interview here.

-Sylv

MTV Geek Talks to Mary

MTV Geek: What attracted you to the role? What made you want to be Mary? 

Katharine Isabelle: I was sent the script and was given a just a very brief—like oh, it’s from identical twin sister writer-director horror filmmakers--I ended up reading the whole script, the whole 180 pages, on my Blackberry twice. I immediately got sucked in. Being Mary is a very unique character especially, you know, in film and as a female. You don’t often see women in film portrayed the way that Mary is. She has some redeemable qualities, like she’s not ever really nice to everybody, but you still really like her. You know, I think she smiled once. [Laughs]. She’s not the typical charming, sweet character—she’s dark, she’s weird, she’s funny. I don’t think they try at any point in the movie to force you to like her—you either do or you don’t. Without her having to be all sunshine-y and that was something that I found intriguing because as a woman, and a woman in film, there’s often a few stereotypes that you can fit into. To have a character that’s that unique and also with the script itself being so original and well-written and of course once I met the girls, we became instant best friends. So there’s no way I couldn’t [Laughs].

Geek: That’s kind of an interesting element to Mary. She’s in this weird place between being an exploitation character and also a victimized character, but she’s neither of those things really. She seems to own her experience pretty early on. What did you think about that? Just that ambiguity to her that’s not neither here nor there. She’s not out for revenge exactly, she’s not out for… 

Isabelle: Well exactly, she’s pissed that she allowed herself to be, sort of and somewhat, victimized. That’s why it’s hard to describe the movie in general. It’s being marketed simply as the horror movie, and I’m like “Well it’s not really a horror movie. There’s no scary scenes.” There’s nothing really all that gory and there are some horrific elements definitely to it—but it’s the same thing with Mary. It’s hard to describe her as as a revenge character, or the movie a revenge story or any of those things—and that’s what I think is really intriguing. She doesn’t easily fit into a box. It’s rare to find characters like that these days in film. So I mean obviously it was something that I was thrilled to find [Laughs].

Read the whole interview here.

-Sylv

Turkish Interview with the Twisted Twins

Wicked awesome and brand spanking new interview from me and Sylvia Soska!! In both Turkish and English! Please enjoy! Thank you, Tolga, for the interview :)

Tolga Demirtaş: You have a horror film intensive filmography? Will you keep going on directing horror movies and do you think making more mainstream films?

Sylvia Soska: I’m not very good with being mainstream. I think mainstream films in this era and this part of the world are far too safe and do not have any sort of reason to exist. I can’t create something that doesn’t have greater meaning, so there will be issues that we tackle in all of our films that we feel need a dialogue or that promote thought. I am a big prosthetics advocate, so you’ll see us continuing to collaborate with Masters FX even if the work isn’t a conventional horror or horror at all.

Jen Soska: No matter what we do, no matter what genre we work in, there will always be elements of horror in our work. It’s so much a part of who we are. Horror is also a genre with so many delicious sub genres. There’s monster movies, there’s sci-fi, there’s found footage, there’s serial killers, there’s paranormal, there’s demons, there’s horror musicals… the possibilities are just endless and I don’t know if we could ever be happy not making a film in each and every subgenre that horror has to offer.

Please enjoy the FULL INTERVIEW below…
http://iyikotufilm.com/soska-kardesler-roportaji/

-Jen

Horror Fix Talks to the Twisted Twins

HF: What inspirational words do you have for those trying to break into the industry? 

S: Do it. Never give up. Everyone will doubt you and say it can’t happen, but if you dedicate yourself wholly, sacrifice everything, keep a clear focus on your goal, learn like a motherfucking every aspect of filmmaking from shot composition to story telling philosophy, and keep your vision true and honest – you will find success. Make a film that you would pay to see in a theatre, but something that not only you would want to see. Have a reason for your film to exist. It’s not enough to just make a film. What benefit is there to your film existing, what are you trying to say? Stay true to yourself. A good start is to make something self-contained that you can fund yourself and make yourself. You will learn skills for your entire filmmaking life from that production. Rodriguez’s ‘Rebel Without A Crew’ is an invaluable resource. Focus on the donut, not the hole. The donut is the film that you are making and the stories you share; the hole is all the bullshit that comes with it that isn’t important. Use social media to your advantage – you don’t need a 20 million dollar marketing budget to get your work out there. Be yourself, market you as you to stand out. And treat people the way you want to be treated, the world is filled with assholes – don’t be another one. If you treat people with kindness and respect, the whole world opens up to you.

J: Be sure it’s what you have to do, not just what you want to do. If you could be just as happy being a teacher or a parent or a doctor, go do that. It’s such a rewarding business, but it’s hard. Very hard. It has the highest highs and the lowest lows. You will at times feel like total crap and regret ever getting into the industry. We all go through it. Some people, like me and Sylv, can’t be happy doing anything else. If you’re reading this, something inside you is telling you either you have to work in this business or you’ll never be happy doing anything else or you’re not sure. If you’re not sure, go do something else. But if you’re like us, buckle up. Stay true to yourself. Stay true to your word. You’re only as good as your word in this business. Never let anything stop you. So many people try, don’t succeed right away, and then give up. Most people give up, but you have to keep going. There’s this great quote from the DAREDEVIL comics, “the measure of a man isn’t in how man times he gets knocked to the mat, it’s how gets back up.” It’s very true for this business. Surround yourself with good people, legally protect yourself, don’t sign just anything, and make your own damn movie. Do it DIY style and make it so everyone can see what you can do with no budget. Don’t sit around and wait for someone to make your dreams happen for you. Make it happen for yourself."

READ THE INTERVIEW HERE!

-Sylv

Horror Hot House Talks to the Twisted Twins

Twisted Twins Productions have also worked on some other great projects, including a PSA to raise awareness of blood duration during February’s Women in Horror Month and a few shorts films; The Hornet, Doppelganger and Bad Girls. Out of all of your projects, what have you been most proud of and why? 

S: I’m too self-loathing to like anything that is completed. The film I’m making is the one I’m most proud of, which in this case would be The ABCS of Death 2 and Bob.

J: Oh, that’s like a parent picking their favorite kid. I’m always growing as an artist and changing every single day and learning and striving to be a better version of me and that goes into our work. My favorite project is the one I’ll do next. It always will be.

We’ve read that you have another couple of projects in the pipeline The Man Who Kicked Ass and Bob. Can you tell us about them? 

S: Bob is our original monster movie that we will be partnering with the geniuses at Masters FX to make something like you’ve never seen before. The tagline is: “There’s a monster inside all of us, sometimes it gets out.”

J: Oh, The Man Who Kicked Ass! We wrote that at the same time as American Mary. It’s very bloody. It’s a love letter to westerns. I LOVE Westerns. It’s a horror action western with a little something I can’t say just yet. It’s very stylistic and likely pretty pricy as I am a practical girl over CGI girl. It has a lot of heart to it, too. It’s very special to me. I look forward to finally being able to make it.

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

-Sylv

Rue Morgue Radio Interview Part 2

Jen and me with the lovely Winston Smith on The Rue Morgue Podcast talking about my folks, Agnes and Marius, filmmaking, and the very lovely Laurence Harvey. Please enjoy!

-Sylv

Fake Shemp Talks to the Twisted Twins

What was your favourite film or television show as a child? 

Sylvia: DESPERADO, we would watch that non-stop, over and over again. I wanted to be El, then I grew up, I still want to be El. We watched Darkwing Duck, Beetlejuice, She-Ra, Gem, X-Men - you know, the usual suspects for kids that turn out like us.

Jen: ha ha, obviously we watched all the same shows. There were some films we watched a gratuitous amount of times. PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE, GHOSTBUSTERS, WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT, SCROOGED... oh! And LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS! If it was scary it didn't matter. Our parents talked to us about what we watched and watched with us. More parents really ought to these days.

Were you raised on genre films or was it a self discovery? 

Sylvia: Raised. Watching horror movies with my mom was a really special part of growing up. We always had an interest in it, so my mom encouraged us and would watch the films with us. If we had questions, we would talk about what we were watching. She was smart, she has a rule that if we read the book then we could watch the movie, which lead us to reading Stephen King novels in elementary school.

Jen: Very much raised. Our mum loved horror, so we inherited the horror loving gene. Genre films are just so cool. I fell in love with DESPERADO and how fucking cool it was before I even really got what made it so awesome.

READ THE WHOLE INTERVIEW HERE!

-Sylv

Twisted Twins DVD Forum Interview

DVD-Forum.at: "American Mary" is your second movie and the first one to be distributed worldwide and shown in the US-theatres - did you ever expect such a successful launch?

Sylvia: I feel really lucky to have had such a tremendous amount of support with the new film. We had a limited theatrical with HOOKER, so theatrical was always a goal with MARY. The only reason why the film has gotten to where it is is because of the people who have stood by the film from the teams that allowed it to be the film we set out to make and the people around the world that have watched it, shared their thoughts on it, and gotten the word out. A film is only successful if people watch it and this release is allowing just that. It's an honor for us as filmmakers to have this opportunity.

Jen: I had nothing but faith in the response from the fans. I knew they'd "get it", but their out pour of support has us floored. The tattoos, the cosplaying, the fan art, the tribute videos, the photos, the screenings they've held, the girls who have cut their hair to look like Mary... it's just so much more than we could have even dreamed for. Our fans are just the best people in the planet. They're just better than everyone else. I love them so much. They're the reason we do what we do and they're the reason we get to keep doing what we do.

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW BELOW

http://www.dvd-forum.at/news-details/35768-interview-an-interview-with-the-twisted-twins-about-american-mary-female-filmmakers-and-their-next-projects