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 (Out today; Order it right here! ), the sequel to the guilty pleasure slasher flick starring professional wrestler Kane. It’s good to be a Soska now.
I was lucky enough to speak to the girls back in July during San Diego Comic-Con (watch that video here), and they were so damn cool I thought it would be worth a Round 2. Here we talk about SEE NO EVIL 2, working with Glen “Kane” Jacobs, their action thriller VENDETTA, their adaptation of the comic PAINKILLER JANE and the future of AMERICAN MARY!
How did you become involved with SEE NO EVIL 2? Was it something you were approached with, and what interested you about the project?
Sylvia: Jen and I first started wrestling when the Kane character was introduced and that was such a big part of us getting into it. After AMERICAN MARY, everyone wanted us to recreate that film, a movie starring Katherine [Isabelle] as a surgeon or doctor who tortures, and we did that already, we felt so pigeonholed. Our agent gave us a call one day and said, “I have a script for you, I need you to read it right away.” And I said, “Oh yeah, I bet I know what it’s about, same shit.” And he phones us back and says, “Did you read it yet?” And we said, “Oh shit, no. I guess it’s a real script emergency.” And we thought, “See No Evil 2? That’s not a sequel to the Kane movie, is it?” And we read through it and it was so cool, like, “They’re not going to hire us, I don’t know how we’re even getting interviewed for this” And the next day we had an interview and we just talked about the character, what we would do, all the different angles. Afterward, we were definitely sure we weren’t getting the job. And then they called us and said we were hired and we were like, “We’re such fangirls, we’d never work on something we weren’t passionate about. We love the WWE, so the opportunity to work with not only them but also one of our favorite superstars was just a dream come true.
When we were in San Diego, you mentioned how little time you actually had to shoot the film, like 12 days or something. Does that help fuel the creative process?
Jen: The nice thing is, the crew we had – it was like a bunch of gears working together. I don’t know how a single director would do it, because there’s the two of us and we’re always running around and making sure every angle is covered.
Aside from the first film, were you inspired by any other films in terms of look and tone?
Jen: This film is very much a love letter to 1980s slashers, those are our favorite. Everyone had different theme music, they had different ways of killing people, they had masks, they had a cosplay-able look. I felt like there were some missed opportunities with the first film, so when you watch SEE NO EVIL 2, you’re going to see that it’s very much like a 1980s slasher. This is really the first version of SEE NO EVIL, because the other one is more of a prequel. It’s not really Jacob who is killing everyone, it’s his crazy bitch mother.
The first movie is actually shot extremely well, I really enjoy the look of it. Did you try to recreate that at all, or were you just doing your own thing?
Sylvia: It felt to me like the first one was a very schlocky B-horror movie, there’s so much eye-gouging and it’s all so over-the-top. Jen and I were really inspired by European and Asian cinema; we wanted to have a very distinctive tone, a very definitive look. Oddly enough, we really wanted you to feel an attachment to these characters, because if you’re going to send a big psychopath out to murder them it’ll effect you way more if you care about them. So the first fifteen minutes is almost like a John Hughes movie, and then the lights go out and you’re like, “Oh no, they’re fucked!”
You’ve cast two modern day Scream Queens in the film – Danielle Harris and Katherine Isabelle, whom you’ve worked with before – was it important to you to get these two well-regarded horror actresses involved?
Sylvia: Definitely, I’ve always wanted to work with Danielle, I grew up watching her. She is such a cool human being. The coolest thing was, after it was announced we were making the film, Danielle got in touch with us, and I couldn’t even believe it. I was sitting across from her having lunch and I was like, “I’m sitting with Danielle fucking Harris, talking about horror movies.” And Danielle has such an interesting personality and she’s so strong, the more we talked with her the more of her went into the character of Amy.
Jen: The entire cast we wound up with is so strong. We don’t believe in throwaway characters; being proudly failed actresses, we were chasing after roles no human would want to play, it was just our desire to be working. So the cast we brought on was really special.
I talked to Glen [Kane] at San Diego, and he’s such a cool guy, what does he bring to the set; I’m sure the character means a lot to him.
Sylvia: He was the only resource we had from the first movie, because he created this character for it, so of course it was great to have him there. But also physically, every day he goes and he does these wrestling shows, so he’s very capable. It makes it a lot safer to do a lot of the stunts and murders that we have, you don’t have to worry as much. Glen can take a person and throw them across the room and they’ll be able to land and do it again six or seven more times, which you really need for something like this.
Speaking of the murders, were you able to do everything you wanted to do, or were there any instances of you having trouble getting something past the studio or the MPAA?
Jen: We wanted to kill a hobo, but they decided we should stick with the prosthetics. [Laughs] Absolutely, we got to do everything we wanted to. We had a huge influence in the kills, particularly one that I don’t want to spoil, but it’s one that has never been done in a film before. I don’t think people know how that kill works, but it shows the genius of the character who is doing the killing. I also don’t like the same scene again and again and again. If someone’s head is chopped off – I’ve seen a chopped off head, and I’ve seen the prosthetic head that follows the chopped off head. I want it to be more real feeling. Especially with these characters that we’ve tried to ground in a very real environment, so it could be any of your friends in just a horrible situation.
Sylvia: It was so different working with this studio, because with DEAD HOOKER and AMERICAN MARY, it just felt like there was a “no†every time we wanted to do something, it was a big battle. This time, we were like, let’s make it bigger, and WWE and Lionsgate were like, “Awesome, you can do this, also why don’t you try that?” It was like a psychopath’s Christmas morning.
And you’re working with WWE again on VENDETTA, so obviously the relationship between you and them is very strong.
Sylvia: I can’t thank the studio head Michael Louisi enough for the opportunities he’s given us. He was the one who hired us to direct SEE NO EVIL 2 and he wanted us to bring our sensibilities to the story. He had an action movie called VENDETTA that is absolutely hardcore, it’s just a dark, gritty prison revenge film. The cool thing about an action movie is, you can kill so many more people, it’s like 37 deaths that have been filmed. It stars The Big Show, Michael Eklund and Dean Cain, and if you were to tell me two weeks before I went to camera that Dean Cain is the baddest motherfucker I was to work with, I’d laugh in your face, because I’m just used to him being Superman and these wholesome roles, but when he goes into that dark, horrible place… He was really amazing, I think people are going to be really surprised, and really shocked.
Jen: We’re so grateful to WWE Studios for these opportunities. Being failed actresses and identical twins, after we made DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK and AMERICAN MARY, not a lot of people would give us an opportunity to do something that isn’t just straight horror. For us to have the opportunity to do an action movie – I mean, it really is like a PUNISHER movie set in a prison, it’s so awesome.
Is there a romantic comedy in your future?
Jen: God, I hope so.
Sylvia: I thought AMERICAN MARY was a romantic comedy!
Do you have any plans to revisit the AMERICAN MARY world, or was that a one-time thing?
Jen: When we made the film we always intended to do two sequels, one would be AMERICAN GRANT, where you would see the world of Doctor Grant, because you see them from Mary’s perspective, but there’s some really weird, fucked up shit going on there. It would happen during the same storyline, but just a different vision of the world. Then the third one would be AMERICAN DOLL, and it would focus on Beatrice and Ruby right before AMERICAN MARY, and you’d see them getting their surgeries to get to that point. It would be their world and their stories.
Sylvia: That story and those characters are really important to Jen and I and we’d love to revisit them in some way or form.
Finally, where are you with your adaptation of the PAINKILLER JANE comics?
Jen: 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.
Sylvia: 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.
Jen: 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.’
Thanks for your time, girls!
Jen and Sylvia: Thanks!