Disturbing Cinema

Disturbing Cinema: SamHel you’re well-known for bringing audiences strong, boundary-pushing horror, erotic, and experimental short and feature length films in both digital and physical mediums. You've been working in Los Angeles' indie film industry for over a decade and have produced over 30 films, overseeing each stage of production from casting and scripting to distribution. Having said that, I'd want to begin our interview by asking you what your most craziest experience has been and what you may share with us all. One that stands out among the rest? SamHel: When said like that I feel like I’ve done a lot. I dont entirely have on crazy moment, I think its a grouping of a lot of interesting things that happen. Like filming for a year for I Cut Your Flesh. Seeing what someone like Miss Sox does out of personal enjoyment, and documenting things like being scalped, or pierced only to be removed right after. I had/have idk had… a blood phobia so seeing something as graphic...

Disturbing Cinema: I'd want to start this interview off by asking you how the concept of Romance-Post-Mortem came to life, and how the reception has been since its premiere. Are you happy with its outcome?    Tinam Bordage:   My  first  short film " Romance Post-Mortem”  was born from a literary short story  (a novel)  I wrote 15 years ago. It already presented this concept of two best friends buried alive, and one of them panics and then commits acts of necrophilia on her friend. I made a first version 10 years ago with my ex-girlfriend, but it was completely rubbish (even though we shot in a very strange location, the basement of a large house located in the middle of a forest where homosexuals and even pedophiles would meet to walk, talk, and... probably more). Years later, I developed my career in film and met many people who worked in the industry. I met the right people and acquired certain skills, so this time I decided to make a "real fil...

Disturbing Cinema:  I'd want to begin this interview by asking you what specific event or period in time inspired you to pursue a career as a filmmaker, particularly in the extreme horror sub-genre and what is one of the first ever experiences that you can recall that you had with the sub-genre?  Davar Villegas:  As cliché as it sounds, I’ve wanted to make horror and genre films since I was a kid. But my interest in extreme horror really took off when the   Saw   franchise stopped being enough to satisfy my bloodlust. That’s when I discovered “Horrible Reviews” on YouTube, which didn’t just fuel my love for (extreme) horror—it expanded my cinephilia as a whole. That’s where I first heard about   Martyrs ,   Audition , and   A Serbian Film —cornerstones of the sub-genre. I became obsessed, and honestly, I still am. Disturbing Cinema:  You've previously stated that real snuff films have always deeply disturbed you because of their violence and ...

Disturbing Cinema:  What were your first thoughts and impressions when you read the screenplay for Soft & Quiet, and what inspired you to be a part of it? Stefanie Estes:  Reading ‘Soft & Quiet’ felt like I was getting punched in my stomach with every page turn. I was horrified yet I could not stop reading. Beth, the writer/director, and I have been close friends for years. We really love each other as people and have a mutual respect for each other as artists. During the pandemic we would go on long walks and have lengthy deep conversations about our frustrations – about what was happening in the world around us and in how the pandemic had made us feel stagnant creatively. Beth floated the idea of shooting a feature together - keeping it small and safe given the health concerns at the time. She knew that it would be shot as a oneer, meaning that we would never cut. The entire film would be one take. Her initial idea was to have my character escaping an abusive relatio...

Disturbing Cinema: I would like to start off this interview by asking you what your fag awakening was and what  inspired you to combine blatantly pornographic portrayals of sex with more traditional narrative and filming  approaches, as well as an interest in extreme issues that mainstream viewers may disregard as shocking or  disturbing taboos? Bruce LaBruce: My fag awakening started with Dr. Smith from the original “Lost in Space.” He was my fag mother. But that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with a camp gay sensibility. And then collaterally I was turned on sexually as a kid by Dr. Smith’s arch-nemesis, Major Don West, the macho, can-do, single astronaut who was bewildered by Smith’s flamboyant Machiavellian machinations. (In one episode, in which an Amazonian female race tries to take over the universe, Smith refuses to help Don and his other male space mates fight the women, saying “I refuse to participate in this dreary masculine protest!”) In term...