The Soska Sisters (Jen and Sylvia) are almost certainly the most dominant female force in genre movies right now. Surrounded by buzz ever since their grindhouse debut DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK, they followed that lovely number up with the disturbing AMERICAN MARY; already a cult classic. Now they've got two October releases in the books: a freaky segment in THE ABCS OF DEATH 2 and the WWE-Produced SEE NO EVIL 2, the sequel to the guilty pleasure slasher flick starring professional wrestler Kane. It's good to be a Soska now.
The girls already have their SEE NO EVIL 2 follow-ups set: VENDETTA, which was also made for WWE and is already in the can, and PAINKILLER JANE, based on the 1990s comic book about a former police officer who gains incredible super powers and becomes a vigilante. The latter is surely their highest profile project to date, one that will break them out of the horror/action realm (even if it will offer plenty of both). I recently spoke to Jen and Sylvia about SEE NO EVIL 2, but also got them talking about their PAINKILLER JANE film, which they promise will be R-rated and uncompromising.
Here are a few quotes regarding the adaptation:
Right now, we are on the search for the perfect Jane. We can't have a little waif actress, she's got to be buff, she's got to have a six-pack, she has to have tough-as-nails attitude. She has to give off this attitude that if you spilled her drink in a bar, you'd immediately buy her another one because you're pretty sure she'd sock you in the face.
It's so important for us to have a character that especially little girls can look up to – I mean, I started reading Marvel comics before I could read, I'd just flip through the pages and I'd see that there were more chicks in the X-Men than in all of DC combined. So we're so excited for that. We really think women deserve somebody to look up to, some badass, kickass chick, and not some chick who is looked at from a totally male point-of-view, just this super sweet supermodel girl who for some reason can kick all that ass. Jane is going to look like, before she even gets her super powers, you do not want to fuck with her."
She's so crude and so flawed and so unapologetic about it. It's going to be such a hard-R movie. We hope that when it gets out there, studios will look at all of their other female superhero characters and say, 'Whoa, if that made money, this can definitely make money.'
Sounds pretty good to me. Now all we need is for the Soskas to find their Jane, and away we go.
Look for the full interview with Jen and Sylvia Soska – in which they discuss SEE NO EVIL 2, VENDETTA and the potential future of AMERICAN MARY – later this week.