A chat with director Heidi Martinuzzi
Filmmaker Heidi Martinuzzi is no stranger when it comes to the horror genre, especially considering she created, runs and edits the Pretty-Scary website, which primarily focuses on women in horror. So it’s no surprise that she’s taking her journalistic skills one step further with an intriguing new documentary project tentatively titled Brides of Horror.
Directing the doc, as well as producing it alongside cinematographer Jessica Gallant, Brides of Horror focuses not just on horror filmmakers, but specifically on their wives, fiances and long term girlfriends. The feature explores what the daily lives of women who’s spouses’ day-jobs are making scary movies is really like. “It mainly focuses on the women, but the men are in it too,” she says. “We go into their past and history and childhoods and their relationships and talk about the day to day stuff.”
As far as the origins of the doc, Heidi explains “I really enjoyed American Movie, which Iâm sure a lot of horror fans enjoyed as well. Next I watched Christopher Garetano’s documentary Horror Business, which I loved even more because not only did we get to revisit Mark Borchardt, but it showed all these different aspects of these filmmakers lives. Thereâs one scene in particular where Markâs sitting at his computer having a beer and his wife comes in and he yells at her. And he says, “Well with my wife I can cut right to the point.” It got me thinking, whatâs his regular life like? What kind of a dad is he? That and the Ron Atkins segments inspired this.”
“I did a movie for Ron Atkins (another subject of Horror Business) called The Cuckoo Clocks Of Hell,” she continues. “I got to know him and his lovely wife Jennifer very well. The choices that these men make to be independent filmmakers and specifically independent horror filmmakers very radically affects the life style that their entire families live. I thought that was really, really interesting and worth exploring. The idea of ‘what if your husband makes horror movies for a living?'”
While the documentary showcases several different couples including Joe Dante (Gremlins, The Howling) and his long term girlfriend Elizabeth Stanley, Mick and Cynthia Garris, Saw sequel helmer Darren Lynn Bousman and his wife Laura Bosserman, there are three particular couples that are the primarily focus of Brides of Horror. Writer/director Adam Green (Hatchet, Frozen) and Rileah Vanderbilt, Spooky Dan Walker and Tammy Sutton and Creep Creepersin and Nikki Wall. (Roger and Julie Corman, as well as Wes Craven and his wife, Iya Labunka are also scheduled for interviews.)
Green is currently lensing his fourth feature length film Hatchet 2 and his fiance Vanderbilt has appeared briefly in all his movies. “Adam Greenâs a really nice guy, extremely accessible, and heâs in that mid-range in terms of his career,” explains Martinuzzi. “Heâs not making super low budget movies, but heâs also not making the huge studio movies. He does make a living at it doing these horror movies and he and Rileah have a great dynamic.”
Most genre fans recognize Spooky Dan from his stints as a journalist for Bloody-Disgusting and Icons Of Fright. His wife, Tammy Sutton is a visual FX artist and supervisor who has worked on everything from G.I. Joe and Avatar to genre projects such as Wrong Turn 2 and I Sell The Dead. “Spooky Dan and his lovely wife Tammy, theyâre probably my favorite couple in it for numerous reasons,” says Heidi. “Dan definitely has a very big personality, which shines through on everything he does, so that makes following them a lot of fun.”
“The other couple weâre following closely is Creep Creepersin and Nikki Wall. Theyâve done O.C. Babes and the Slasher Zombietown and Vaginal Holocaust. I was in one of their films too. I got to know them from working on one of their films and Nikki is the sweetest, nicest, most supportive wife in the universe. They have two kids and a house and she home schools the kids and they make these movies. Theyâre very low budget and with some really questionable taste, but thatâs all they do. They donât have other jobs, this is how they support themselves.”
Since this is an independent low-budget project for Martinuzzi, she tells us that she’s currently about half way through the process, having shot for about six months with the intention of shooting for another six months. We’ll keep you posted on her progress as the production continues.
Source: Robg.
