Post by petrolino on May 3, 2019 21:36:28 GMT
Representing a bright future for American low budget horror is talented young filmmaker Emily Hagins who's been directing feature-length genre movies since the age of 14. Hagins was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania but her family moved to Austin, Texas when she was still a baby. She now stands at the centre of an emerging horror city that's being tipped to be a major production player in the next decade. Texas' state capital has pedigree too - Tobe Hooper was born in Austin, the spiritual home of psychedelia.
"With all the brouhaha about Austin becoming the third coast of film production over the past 20-odd years, it's easy to forget that 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre', Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel's 1974 paean to rural family values, was one of the very first regional, totally independent, expectation-defying genre films of the modern age of horror. Floridian Herschell Gordon Lewis may have beaten Hooper to the punch by more than a decade in terms of drive-in tickets sold and viscera splattered onscreen, but his 1963 cri de Grand Guignol, 'Blood Feast', while defiantly vile and generically very much of its place and time, today plays like the amateurish hack job it is compared to Leatherface's squealing nightmare antics.
Hooper's film, however, altered the course of Austin-based indie filmmaking in its own unique way. It not only got under the skin (before flaying it and wearing it, that is) of the collective zeitgeist, both in the city and out, but also set a template that practically defines all Austin filmmaking (and indeed all indie filmmaking, everywhere) today: Do what you can with whatever's at hand, get everyone you know involved, and aim for the audience's gut. Whatever the cost, get a reaction. And get it done.
In the Austin of here and now, with (relatively) inexpensive gear readily available to anyone with the means to snatch up a camera and point it at a squib-laden deadite, it's easier than ever to shoot/chop/rock your own dark dream. Add to that the hyperliterate world of genre cinephiles fostered by what has increasingly become a nearly year-round film festival schedule and the presence of core gore special-effects crews like Hawgfly Productions Inc., edutopian idealists like the Austin School of Film, and, yes, the undeniably influential, genre-edifying Alamo Drafthouse (and the increasingly vast empire that name now signifies), and it's a wonder the long-simmering horror film community took this long to boil over in the first place."
Hooper's film, however, altered the course of Austin-based indie filmmaking in its own unique way. It not only got under the skin (before flaying it and wearing it, that is) of the collective zeitgeist, both in the city and out, but also set a template that practically defines all Austin filmmaking (and indeed all indie filmmaking, everywhere) today: Do what you can with whatever's at hand, get everyone you know involved, and aim for the audience's gut. Whatever the cost, get a reaction. And get it done.
In the Austin of here and now, with (relatively) inexpensive gear readily available to anyone with the means to snatch up a camera and point it at a squib-laden deadite, it's easier than ever to shoot/chop/rock your own dark dream. Add to that the hyperliterate world of genre cinephiles fostered by what has increasingly become a nearly year-round film festival schedule and the presence of core gore special-effects crews like Hawgfly Productions Inc., edutopian idealists like the Austin School of Film, and, yes, the undeniably influential, genre-edifying Alamo Drafthouse (and the increasingly vast empire that name now signifies), and it's a wonder the long-simmering horror film community took this long to boil over in the first place."
- Marc Savlov, The Austin Chronicle
"At just 12 years old, Emily Hagins made her first feature film, the 2006 zombie flick 'Pathogen'. She's amassed a five-feature oeuvre now, all at just 25 years old. Her latest effort, a six-part digital series called 'Hold to Your Best Self', debuted at SXSW and while it is a departure from her childhood horror roots, Hagins has no trouble finding the terror in everyday life. Zombies or not, adulthood is rough."
- Courtney Enlow, SyFy Wire
"What's so cool about Texas and Austin in particular is that no other place has such a concentration of both horror fans and filmmakers who either want to work or are already working in the genres. And that's the thing. Austin has this independent market and an indie filmmaker can actually survive here, as opposed to L.A. or New York or wherever. Now we have the crew base to help support that indie filmmaker. A lot of the Austin horror scene has been about people toiling away in the darkness, doing their own thing, on their own, for a long time. This blossoming of the scene that we're seeing now mirrors the fact that we're all maturing together and our projects are beginning to mature and shine right along with us. Everybody's work has become a lot more professional, and as a result, that's attracting bigger films and bigger filmmakers."
- Meredith Johns, co-founder of Hawgfly Productions Incorporated
"Just this summer I spoke at a teen girl filmmaking camp which I thought was the coolest thing. We workshopped a scene together and talked about directing and really spent some time together. They were all so intelligent and had a lot of insight and halfway through the time I was there I was sitting back and thinking, “Oh I just realized these are all girls.” I didn't even think about it. They were a group of really intelligent, enthusiastic kids that I was learning from, and I hope that I was helping them. It's just really cool that they have programs like this where the girls feel empowered and get to express themselves. I think that's what the camp was called. I think it was called Express Yourself."
- Emily Hagins, SyFy Wire
Emily Hagins
'Baby When I Close My Eyes' - Sweet Spirit
Do you enjoy any movies directed by Emily Hagins?
Thanks.
Thanks.