WWE – Bitch Flicks

Stephanie McMahon Helmsley: The Real Power in the Realm

She’s proven herself to be as diabolical as she is brilliant, manipulating wrestlers against one another and circumventing any and all rules to reach the ends of her choosing. She’s pit wrestlers in matches with their jobs on the line, or the jobs of their spouses (in the case of a short-lived feud with ‘Total Divas’ darling Brie Bella), added heinous stipulations to matches, or just flat-out fired anyone who disagreed with her.

This guest post by Robert Aldrich appears as part of our theme week on Unlikable Women.

Stephanie McMahon Helmsley is the most powerful person in the WWE.

A fourth-generation wrestling promoter, Stephanie McMahon is the current Chief Brand Officer of the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and one-half of the power couple (with her husband Triple H) that make up the heart of the Authority, the on-screen powers-that-be which attempt to steer the company down the path that is “best for business.” And while her father, Vince McMahon, may have more family/corporate power, or the rarely mentioned Board of Directors might have more business power, all control in the WWE flows from one of these two places and the person who commands the most of both forms of power is none other than Stephanie.

Not quite following? Don’t feel left out. The world of professional wrestling is confusing, and the monolithic WWE – the world’s largest and most successful wrestling promotion – it’s even more confusing. The story of the WWE is that of a giant, on-going tournament to determine and crown the best performers in the wrestling/sports entertainment business. The reality is that it’s a colorful pageant of athleticism and grandiose drama, of brutality and silliness, of action that is as fake as it is real.

To understand pro-wrestling, you really have to understand the concept of “kayfabe” (rhymes with “hey babe”). Kayfabe is the fictional reality in which the WWE (and all pro-wrestling) takes place. It’s a world where all matters are solved in the squared circle, where a person’s value is determined by the championship belt they wear, and where a contract signed under duress is a perfectly legal and binding affair. It’s a world that utilizes the most cutting-edge of technology (except the instant replay for referee to review), and also settles matters in the most barbaric and ancient manner there is (action).

Everybody knows kayfabe is “fake,” but then, you know the ballet is fake too, right? Live theater and television? They’re fake. Wrestling is just as fake…except for maybe the action, because while the punches may be pulled, the slams may be practiced, and the action is choreographed, there really isn’t any way to fake jumping off a ladder onto another person in front of a live audience of hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands. Wrestling may be different from theater and television because we buy into the larger-than-life personas, the over-the-type melodrama a little more fully than other forms of entertainment. Perhaps the best description was writer-poet Gabriel Ricard describing kayfabe as “self-aware suspension of disbelief”; you know it’s fake and yet you knowingly and willingly buy into it for the fun of.

Back to Stephanie McMahon Helmsley. In the 1970s and 1980s, Vince McMahon cobbled together the WWE by systematically buying out rival promoters. Vince’s daughter, Stephanie, got involved in the stories in the late 1990s. Initially, she was a victim of kidnapping by the malevolent forces of evil threatening to take over the WWE, known as the Ministry. After a subsequent rescue, she turned into the object of affection for two rival wrestlers (one of which would become her future husband, Triple H). She got married, then divorced. She competed in the WWE Women’s Division for a brief period (and even held the Women’s Championship) before she turned up again a few years later as a corporate figure and remarried (the WWE has an on-again/off-again relationship with narrative consistency).

At the turn of the millennium, Stephanie brokered a deal to usurp her father’s power by buying a rival wrestling company (Extreme Championship Wrestling, or ECW) and having those wrestlers “invade” the WWE, leading to a long series of matches and feuds over control and ownership of the WWE. While Stephanie did not prevail, this established her to be just as cutthroat as her father and perhaps even more resourceful.

Stephanie disappeared from the story’s eye for a little while, only to return as the general manager (a sort of catch-all boss) of the WWE’s late-week Smackdown, and then later for their flagship show, Monday Night Raw. As the boss, she would either be a voice of reason and ambitious sanity, or a draconian witch who would punish any that got in her way. She would continue in this role for a long time, then disappear for a bit, only to return most recently where she confronted fan-favorite Daniel Bryan about his ineligibility to compete for the title. It’s at about this point that the Authority storyline (currently going) would begin, with the Authority overtly taking control of competition. Stephanie, along with her husband Triple H, would try to guide the active roster of wrestlers towards their preferred ideals, by hand-selecting the champions rather than letting the fans decide, or letting the matches play out. She’s proven herself to be as diabolical as she is brilliant, manipulating wrestlers against one another and circumventing any and all rules to reach the ends of her choosing. She’s pit wrestlers in matches with their jobs on the line, or the jobs of their spouses (in the case of a short-lived feud with Total Divas darling Brie Bella), added heinous stipulations to matches, or just flat-out fired anyone who disagreed with her.

This is, of course, Stephanie McMahon Helmsley. Stephanie McMahon Levesque is quite a different woman.

Who is Stephanie McMahon Levesque? Well, she’s the real-world woman who plays Stephanie McMahon Helmsley in the WWE. She is the real daughter of Vince McMahon and she is a real fourth-generation wrestling promoter. And she is the real Chief Brand Officer for the WWE, responsible for promoting and growing the WWE’s brand through every avenue, be it reading challenges at local schools to embracing the first-ever content-specific streaming service (the WWE Channel). And she is really is married to Paul Levesque (the wrestler who goes by Triple H, or Hunter Hearst Helmsley)

The difference is that Stephanie McMahon Levesque is a decorated business woman, named four times by Cable magazine “One of the Most Powerful Women in Cable TV.” She is an Eisenhower fellow, chairperson for the Connecticut Special Olympics, and even has her own workout DVD. She also has three daughters with Paul Levesque.

Stephanie McMahon Levesque’s career has been a little more traditional than her on-screen persona. A communications degree from Boston University (along with probably at least a little nepotism) enabled her to work for the WWE as an accounts executive. She would work primarily behind the scenes and in the corporate office, until 2002 when she would make the switch to working on the creative side of the WWE, working as a writer and then head writer to develop the talent and storylines that would play out before audiences and before the cameras.

In 2007, she became the Executive Vice-President of Creative, which allowed her to spearhead multiple initiatives, not the least of which was the WWE app, which helped to pave the way to the WWE Channel. In 2013, she was promoted to Chief Brand Officer, making her more or less the face of the company’s business side.

So, Stephanie McMahon Levesque isn’t quite as dynamic as Stephanie McMahon Helmsley. But then, few actors are ever as dynamic as those they play on TV or on stage. In reality, Stephanie McMahon Levesque is the public face for a multi-million dollar, International Corporation. Within the kayfabe of the story, Stephanie McMahon Helmsley is not only this but also heiress to the entire kingdom, both family-wise and corporately. She is a woman who rules with intelligence and conviction, as well as brutal sincerity. When she speaks, the mightiest of men falls silent, listen, and then do as she says. Or they challenge her at their own peril.

Hail to the queen.

Robert V Aldrich is a novelist and speaker based out of North Carolina. His most recent book, Rhest for the Wicked, is now available, and he publishes a blog and serials at his website, TeachTheSky.com. You can follow him there, or on Twitter @rvaldrich.

Body Image on ‘Total Divas’

As you can see from the image above, there’s nothing wrong with the way either of the women in the sketches look. And as reality shows are wont to do, everything is tied up in a nice little bow by episode’s end, with Eva realizing she has issues that she needs to work on. “I’m a normal girl who has her own insecurities,” she says.

This is a guest post by Scarlett Harris.

Sunday night’s episode of Total Divas centered around Eva Marie’s recovery from breast augmentation after her previous implants started leaking, her subsequent Muscle & Fitness Hers magazine shoot, and her body image issues.

The irony here is that Muscle & Fitness Hers is a magazine that I assume is promoting the “strong not skinny” ideal that permeates the health and fitness industry. As we saw on Sunday, Eva Marie’s mindset is anything but. After her surgery, she’d been unable to exercise so when she found out the magazine wanted her to shoot for them, the pressure was on to get back into shape. Throughout the show, Eva has made stray comments about her body, saying she’s too fat or looks ugly, and in this episode, she sees her visage on the side of a WWE trailer and says the same. This all comes to a head when Eva and Ariane are shopping and Eva nearly collapses in the change room because she hasn’t eaten for a day.

Ariane is concerned for her friend and worried about the message Eva’s poor body image is sending to their fans. “We’re WWE Divas. That means we’re empowering women who are role models and WWE wouldn’t even think about putting her on, like, three trailers if she wasn’t TheBomb.com [one of Ariane’s myriad catchphrases],” she says.

Putting aside Ariane’s correlation between being hot = being empowered, she takes Eva to a sketch artist similar to the one used by Dove in their infamous viral campaign featuring women describing how ugly they are vs. how beautiful strangers think they are. Because all that matters is how other people think you look, right?

The sketch artist’s assistant’s description of Eva results in a more accurate drawing whereas the way she describes herself produces a sketch of a more “normal”-looking woman. As you can see from the image above, there’s nothing wrong with the way either of the women in the sketches look. And as reality shows are wont to do, everything is tied up in a nice little bow by episode’s end, with Eva realizing she has issues that she needs to work on. “I’m a normal girl who has her own insecurities,” she says.

The thing is, the Divas aren’t normal women. Like models, they work in an industry that trades primarily on how they look. Sure, they need their bodies to be strong but if they don’t look good while taking a bulldog or delivering a dropkick, fuhgedaboutit.

And as Nattie says on the episode, “It’s part of our job to look great and feel great.”

Total Divas’ other main storyline this week was that of Rosa’s infatuation with Paige, resulting in an awkward kiss. We’ve seen Rosa struggle with her own insecurities throughout the season and she continuously says she just wants the other Divas to like her. Rosa is recovering from a bad breakup, a stint in rehab for alcoholism and, upon her return to the WWE and her Total Divas debut, she underwent breast augmentation herself. On Sunday night she also revealed that she uses injectables such as Botox in her face.

I don’t want to perpetuate the harmful stereotype that those with body image issues turn to surgery, or that surgery perpetuates those issues, because there are plenty of people who love and hate themselves and their bodies who have and haven’t turned to surgery as a remedy. But it is telling that both Eva and Rosa struggle with their self worth and the way they look, have both had substance abuse problems and have both had cosmetic surgery.

On the other hand, many of the Total Divas (and WWE Divas who aren’t involved with the show) have also had surgery but seem to have pretty healthy self-esteem. (Or, more accurately, any body image woes they do have aren’t aired on E! to further the show’s storylines.) To reiterate Nattie’s sentiment, there’s a certain ideal Divas have to subscribe to. I also work sporadically in television, so I can relate. However I don’t think the correlation the Total Divas make between being role models and looking hot is the healthiest mindset to have. Eva touches on this somewhat in the trademark reality TV voiceover:

“I think it’s the pressure of being a role model and having so much on your shoulders. I think there’s a massive amount of pressure on any woman. All of us are striving for some type of perfection.”

Until being a Total Diva—nay, a women’s wrestler—is more about what they can do in the ring that what they look like, that perfection is going to remain outward rather than turning inward.

Scarlett Harris is a Melbourne, Australia-based freelance writer and blogger at The Scarlett Woman, where she writes about femin- and other -isms. You can follow her on Twitter.

The Choice to Be a Total Diva

So while Nikki is a successful wrestler (she’s the current Divas Champion in real time), actress (she’s been in outwardly scripted productions as well as “scripted reality” TV), real estate agent and businesswoman in general, she apparently can’t be trusted to make choices that are best for her personal life at the age of 31.

This is a guest post by Scarlett Harris.

For those unfamiliar with the E! reality show Total Divas, it follows the lives of eight female professional wrestlers—or Divas as they are better known—under the employ of World Wrestling Entertainment as they navigate through their personal lives, work, travel and health.

The first season delved into the machinations of the daily lives of twins Nikki and Brie Bella, veteran and wrestling family royalty Nattie, tag team partners Trinity and Ariane, and rookies Eva Marie and JoJo. By season end JoJo had decided to leave the show (but still ring announces on the WWE Network’s developmental program, NXT) for reasons that are unclear, but her absence was felt long before.

Bad girl Summer Rae replaced her in season two, also taking the title of the show’s villainess from Eva Marie who became perceived by the other Divas as one of them. And by season three, Rosa Mendes had joined the ranks, fresh from a bad breakup, cosmetic surgery and a stay in rehab for alcoholism.

Last Sunday marked the mid-season return of Total Divas and with it the departure of Summer Rae and Trinity, who was barely getting airtime before it was announced last year that newbie Diva Paige and Alicia Fox would be coming on board. Again, just because these Divas aren’t on Total Divas doesn’t mean they’re not continuing on with the WWE: Trinity (known in WWE as Naomi) is in a storyline with her husband, Jimmy Uso, while Summer Rae is now hosting the Total Divas aftershow on WWE.com.

Plenty of Divas make their mark on WWE programming without being involved in the reality show. For example, Paige won the Divas Championship on her very first day on the “main roster,” which was long before she signed on to the show, and the Slammy award (kind of like a Grammy but for wrestling) for Diva of the Year 2014 went to AJ Lee, the longest reigning Divas champion who, to the best of my knowledge, has never appeared in even a backstage shot on Total Divas.

It’s great that Total Divas is promoting women as athletes in a male dominated sport (or sports entertainment, rather), a portrayal that is rarely seen on reality television, but the women on the show are hardly the be all and end all of women in wrestling.

A.J. Lee has said that she “could” be on Total Divas, “but I wouldn’t do it. I’m just happy being who I am on TV two days a week and on live events and then going into my private life, and into my little hole in the middle of nowhere and having no one talk to me about my private life.”

The choice to be a Total Diva is vastly different from being a regular Diva.

The mid-season return of Total Divas saw the fallout between Nikki Bella and her partner, WWE Superstar John Cena, and their trial separation, the wheels of which were put in motion by her sister Brie and the rest of her family at the October finale.

Here’s the gist of the drama: before meeting John, Nikki was sure she was going to be a wife and mother. John’s been married before and doesn’t want to go down that road again. He also doesn’t want children. Nikki sacrificed her dreams to be with the man of them and she seemed happy (as happy as can be gleaned from a reality show, anyway) which her family can’t understand. Brie and the rest of Nikki’s family butted in and sat John down with an ultimatum: if he’s not going to give their sister what they believe she wants, let her go.

And so he did.

The thing that bugged me about this storyline—sorry, development in Nikki’s life—is that Nikki is a grown woman: if she decides to be with a man who won’t give her marriage and children, then that’s her choice. No one else is in the position to decide what makes her happy now, and what she’ll regret later. I get the same crap when I tell people I don’t want kids: but what if you regret it later? So what? That’s my regret to have.

Nikki pretty much echoed these sentiments when she found out that John “letting her go” was actually the doing of her family.

“You told my boyfriend what I want without me being there? You had no right to tell anyone how I feel. Who the hell do you think you are to make my decisions for me?”

Speaking of marriage and kids, fellow Total Diva Eva Marie is facing the repercussions of having lied to her husband about wanting children. Eva has been plagued by reproductive health issues which saw her coming to terms with the possibility of not being able to conceive. In the second episode of the mid-season return, Eva is told that a medical procedure could cure her infertility but she’s scared of pregnancy and is okay with it just being her and her husband Jonathan for the rest of their lives. Jonathan has always been clear about his intention to have a lot of children, so he’s pissed that Eva hid this potentially life-changing choice from him. As the episode draws to a close the couples’ dilemma is tied up in a nice little bow as reality show storylines are wont to do: Jonathan tells Eva that when she eventually decides to have children she’ll make the best mother, and they agree not to discuss children again for the time being while they focus on their careers. Because all women want to be mothers eventually: they just don’t know it yet. And all women who are apprehensive about motherhood will love their children and make great moms once they inevitably make that choice.

Despite his insistence that Eva will one day want children, Jonathan brings up a good point: in not telling him that she didn’t want kids before they got married, Eva took away his choice not to marry her because of this. He says would have married her regardless because he’s madly in love with her, but he would have liked to have had that choice. Presumably Eva would also like the choice whether or not to have kids.

So whether it’s having the independence from your family and your partner to make the choices that are best for you or being confident enough in your athletic abilities to opt out of a reality show many of your peers are involved in a the potential detriment to your career, being a Total Diva—and, indeed, a regular Diva—is all about choice. Isn’t that why women, be they wrestlers or no, are called divas in the first place?

Scarlett Harris is a Melbourne, Australia-based freelance writer and blogger at The Scarlett Woman, where she writes about femin- and other -isms. You can follow her on Twitter.

Talking with Horror’s Twisted Twins: An Interview with the Soska Sisters

To get an idea of the Soska sisters, picture ‘The Shining’s Grady twins, only all grown up and in control of their destinies. Just in time for Halloween, Jen and Sylvia Soska spoke with us about their favorite horror movies, the hardships of working as female directors in masculine genre, their work on ‘See No Evil 2’ and what’s next for their careers.

To get an idea of the Soska sisters, picture The Shining’s Grady twins, only all grown up and in control of their destinies.

As kids, Jen and Sylvia Soska were drawn to horror movies, fascinated by the spectacle of the genre and the mystique of the Final Girl. When they grew up, they tried acting, only to find the roles they were offered as a set identical twin actresses, were either infantilizing or fetishistic.

Fed up, they wrote, directed and starred in Dead Hooker in a Trunk , a low-budget strike-out at the constraints they faced in film school. Next came cult favorite, American Mary, a dark journey through the world of body modification and the controversial rape-revenge genre. One of my personal favourite horror movies, American Mary features a fascinating central character in Mary Mason (Katherine Isabelle), who morphs from anxious med-student to a cold as ice antihero we can’t help but root for, even as she becomes a monster.

Their new film See No Evil 2, a sequel to the 2006 WWE Studios production, See No Evil, is an entertaining and well-thought out slasher flick that knows the genre conventions well enough to simultaneously play around with them and celebrate their fun. All the familiar elements from the sisters’ previous films are there: three dimensional female characters, gore and gleeful violence, splashes of humour, and a Hitchcock-style cameo, now paired with the terrifying figure of wrestler Glenn “Kane” Jacobs, a longtime favorite of the sisters, as the hulking serial killer, Jacob Goodnight.

Just in time for Halloween, the Soska sisters spoke with us about their favorite horror movies, the hardships of working as female directors in masculine genre, their work on See No Evil 2 and what’s next for their careers.

Bitch Flicks: What horror films do you remember scaring or affecting you as children?

Sylvia: Poltergeist– it was our first horror film that was the catalyst to our mum explaining how filmmaking really works and us falling deeply in love with the genre. I remember The Stand was the next thing to really scare the shit out of me. I saw Hellraiser at a very young age, but I was so into prosthetics that it was just beautiful to me.

Jen: Alien, too. I remember being so scared at the end and my mum telling me not to worry because Ripley always wins. I was witnessing the evolution of the final girl without even knowing it.

BF: How did you realize you could create your own films?

S: By being pushed to the point where we made a punk rock FU in the form of a short film faux trailer called Dead Hooker in a Trunk. We are life long failed actresses that wanted to use our martial arts experience to get into stunt work that ended up in a crappy film school which was for us the last straw. They took away our budget for our final project, so we decided to write, direct, produce, star in, and do the stunt work for our own project. We were annoyed so we made sure to make it as batshit insane and offensive as possible. And come graduation night, it played to half the audience walking out and the other half cheering so loud you could barely hear the crass dialogue. That was what started it.

J: Robert Rodriguez and his book Rebel Without a Crew was a huge influence, too. Rodriguez has his epic Ten Minute Film School segments where he shows filmmakers how to do what he does in his films. I used to think I wanted to be an actor before I realized how much more fulfilling directing and writing is. You get to create this whole world, and stories, and characters. As an actor you’re usually chasing work you don’t even want just to be working.

BF: Can you tell me about the change from being actresses to filmmakers in charge of your own productions? Was the change empowering?

S: It was so empowering. Neither of us are fans of labeling, but being twins – people just put you in this box. As kids, it was cutesy, talk at the same time stuff, as we grew older it became overtly sexual, talk at the same time stuff. As we got into our twenties, we knew we wanted to do something different. I love watching films and always fantasized about what I would do if I could make films, I never thought it could be a reality. To have the job of creating the characters that we do and making the films that we do is an amazing opportunity.

J: It felt like coming home. In a weird way all the skills we had that we didn’t think had anything to do with one another just came together. I love filmmaking. We’re natural story tellers so being able to turn our ideas, concepts, and characters to the big screen is the most unbelievable feeling.

BF: Why are you drawn to horror? What came first, an interest in filmmaking or in horror? Did you seek out horror or fall into the genre due to its accessibility to low budget production?

S:I never even realized the effect horror films had on me until I went into filmmaking. I see all of my interests like horror films, comic books, video games, and wrestling reflected in what I do now because I grew up on that stuff and it moulded me into the strange individual I am today. The reason why DHIAT was low budget was because we didn’t know how hard or expensive making a movie would be. We read Rebel Without a Crew, we saw Grindhouse in the theaters a million times and thought, yup, we gotta make a feature film called Dead Hooker in a Trunk. We have to do that.

J: I’ve loved horror movies as far back as I can remember. It’s definitely not because it can be done inexpensively at even a low level. Surely documentaries and dramas are even easier to do on a small budget. Horror is just so much fun. You go to horror film festivals or conventions and you find the happiest, most out going people in the world. People who are into horror just seem to be happier, nicer people. Maybe it’s because we get out all our aggression on the screen, ha ha

BF: Have you ever wanted to experiment with a different genre?

S: Absolutely. It started with us wanting to tackle every sub genre within horror – so far we have body horror and slasher, maybe grindhouse if you really want to stretch the genre, and I don’t know what our ABCs of Death 2 segment, T is for Torture Porn, would be categorized as. We are just in post production on our first action film, part of the WWE Studios and Lionsgate Film Action Six Pack Series, called Vendetta, starring Dean Cain, Paul “Big Show” Wight, and Michael Eklund. It’s the macho-est thing we have ever done – it’s very gritty and super violent.

J: We definitely want to tackle each and every sub genre in horror. I wouldn’t say there’s really any genre we wouldn’t want to take on. It all depends on the project. We’d even make a kids movie if they’d ever let us, ha ha. I’d really love to make a Western. We’ll be doing our first comic book adaptation when we bring Jimmy Palmiotti’s Painkiller Jane to the big screen.

BF: Can you tell me a bit about some of your influences?

S: I adore Lars Von Trier’s work, it’s so unforgivingly bleak yet beautiful what he does. Takeshi Miike is just a master of tone and gore. Mary Harron is my hero, seeing her speak was the reason why I wanted to be a director – she’s so eloquent and her films deliver such a punch. We learned how films got made from Robert Rodriguez – we adore his work!

J: I love Joss Whedon. His writing, humor, characters, and story arcs are just incredible. I’ve loved him since he worked on Roseanne, but it was Buffy that really made me fall for him and his stereotype breaking, unconventional characters. And his out of nowhere, heart breaking favorite character deaths.

BF: Do you ever experience any prejudice or roadblocks as women in horror? Has that effected your sensibility? Difficulty getting funding?

S: Always and I think it might be forever. No matter how many cool people are out there, there will be hateful people that are bigoted, cruel, and disrespectful. We paid for our first film, my parents – who are the most wonderful and supportive people on the planet – re-mortgaged their home to invest in American Mary so it could happen, and then there came Lionsgate and WWE Studios who loved our stuff and wanted to team up to make some cool films. Getting funding is difficult, there are some misogynistic pricks out there but there are also a lot of cool people who don’t suck at life; with our time working with these studios – we got cool people who were funding the projects.

J: Oh, sure. But sexism is an issue much bigger than the film industry. I’ve encountered it everywhere I’ve worked and usually paired with ageism. We’ve never encountered it from someone who is actually successful and happy with their lives. It’s more often miserable people, often ones who somehow failed forward and are wanna be filmmakers themselves who end up just resenting us.

BF: Do you feel your films have a female sensibility? What other horror films do you feel might have a female sensibility? What would your dream film be?

S: Definitely, but it’s because Jen and I don’t believe in disposable characters. Everyone who exists in one of our films is important and unique. I think it comes from our acting days when we’d find ourselves going for roles that were lame just because we wanted to be working. Some awesome horror films with female sensibility would be Stoker, Excision , Spring , Martyrs, Inside, and Audition. You really get to see real, flawed female characters taking centre stage in these very amazing films. Being Hungarian, the dream project that we really want is Elizabeth Bathory, the Blood Countess.

J: You can kill a hundred people in a film and have it not connect at all with the audience or you can kill a single person in a very real and emotional way. I think women have more of an eye for suffering. I totally agree with Sylv. It would be such a thrill to bring the Hungarian Murderess, Elizabeth Bathory.

BF: Do you feel you have a certain responsibility as female directors working in horror? Why is it important to have a female voice in horror?

S: Yes, because there are so few of us working. Not because there is a lack of female directors, but a serious lack of female directors being hired. Thank God you have directors like Jovanka Vuckovic making Clive Barker’s Jacqueline Ess and Kathryn Bigelow kicking ass all kinds of ass, and this is the same filmmaker that made the amazingly bro-tastic Point Break. That said, I want to see more. When you don’t have the perspective of half your population weighing in artistically there is a problem. There are too many stories not being told.

J: I wish I had more female role models growing up. The directors I loved that had the biggest influence on me were all male directors. John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, Clive Barker, Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch… It’s really important for us to do well so that other little girls can be inspired to be filmmakers, too. We need to hear more female voices.

BF: You’ve set out to cast women in lead roles in your films. Dead Hooker in the Truck was originally intended for an all women cast. There are several prominent female characters in See No Evil 2. Why is this important to you? Why do you cast yourselves in your films?

S: I have watched too many two-dimensional throwaway female characters. I have read for too many of them. I think it’s time to see the modern woman reflected properly in our entertainment. I want to see as versatile and complicated characters as are traditionally given to leading men. We play a lot with gender stereotypes in our films. I think gender is a big issue right now, things are slowly starting to change, and I want to be a part of that. As for our own cameos in our films, it’s something we loved that Hitchcock used to do. That and kill blondes.

J: I spent too much of my acting days chasing after roles I didn’t really even want. The options out there for women, let alone identical twins, was incredibly limiting. I like to write the kind of roles I would have killed to play or even audition for. We don’t believe in throwaway characters. Everyone that’s there needs a purpose and to look hot isn’t enough of one. I love Joss Whedon’s answer to “why do you write strong women?” “Because you’re still asking me that.” Women are every bit as strong and complex and interesting as men, but that’s just not often reflected enough in the films we see coming out. Women have such a capacity for evil. Just check out David Fincher’s Gone Girl. It’s such a beautifully executed film.

BF: What is your process working together? Do you each tackle different things? How has working with a partner changed your approach or refined it?

S: Jen and I are born collaborators. We went to school together, we’ve always been roommates, we’ve shared the same jobs, we have collaboration down to a fine art in a creepy The Shining hive mind kind of way. We have similar interests, but we are very different people. We take different paths to get to the same place. It is definitely more refined now, we just know what needs to be done and just divide and conquer. Jen’s awesome to work with on set, I’m really lucky.

J: I’ve never not had a partner. I’m a twin. I’m very lucky to have been born with such a talented artist, best friend, and strong business partner. Sylv is awesome. She’s so darkly creative. We have the same sensibilities and humor, but we’re very different. We always arrive at the same goal, but the ways we get there are very different. We really do compliment each other.

BF: How has being twins shaped your careers? Twins are quite a horror trope in itself, has that influenced you in your lives and attraction to horror?

S: My whole life I’ve walked into rooms and hear people talk about us being twins. It’s cool, but I wanted to be something more than that and it’s proven to be a difficult task. We felt confidant that being filmmakers could be recognizable than being twins. I remember the first time I heard someone call us the Twisted Twins and I fucking loved it. We are definitely seen as a sideshow oddity, which doesn’t bother me. I’m a freak, I like freaks. I love being a twin. It seems sad to me to not have a twin.

J: I’ve gratefully never had to know what it’s like to not have a twin. It’s really the greatest thing ever. I feel sorry for anyone who doesn’t have a twin. Because we’re twins we have always stood out in a crowd and grew up with people staring at us. Being an identical twin is also like having a backstage pass to the greatest shit. You will definitely see duality in our films. We love symmetry, you can see it in our cinematography. We like to show two sides to each of our characters. We’ll repeat little things, lines, or actions. Often in foreshadowing.

BF: How do you feel about your reputation as cult favorites?

S: I feel like we showed up under-dressed and over-loud with these crazy films and some people totally got it and decided to support us; and other people just loathe our existence. I like that the people that do like our films really fucking like them, that’s more than you could ever ask for!

J: It’s an insane honor! I can’t believe it, it’s just so surreal. I’m so grateful. It’s so weird to me that all the stuff we were made fun of for liking and being into growing up are the things people really seem to like about us now. I think all us nerds just grew up and took over, ha ha.

BF: As horror films, your films feature a lot of violence against women, how do you feel about this? Is it empowering to shape these narratives yourselves with a female voice? For example, American Mary works as a rape revenge story and Dead Hooker in The Trunk features a prolonged flashback to the beating of a prostitute.

S: The prolonged death of the Hooker in DHIAT was made with the intention of being very difficult to watch. We didn’t create the term ‘Dead Hooker in a Trunk’, there is a society wide stigma on these women that devalue them as worthless human beings. When working girls go missing, people don’t really care. We wanted people to care about the Hooker, we wanted to show that yeah, there’s a lot of silly stuff in the film to laugh at, but when it comes to the physical destruction of this woman, it’s not a joke. We are at a point in time where we need to get a zero tolerance for horrendously vile acts against women. We put these moments in these films because we want to open up a dialogue about it and it’s a lot easier to do with a genre film than other platforms.

J: Mary had her morals compromised and her ideals of being one of the guys, one of the surgeons she so admired, destroyed steadily before the rape. That was just the last thing she believed in taken away from her. Her idol fallen in a big way. The reason we put violence against women in our films is because it is so common in real life. It’s so common that people just turn a blind eye to it. The amount of letters and emails we’ve received from women who’d been sexually assaulted and had their attacker go unpunished was disgusting. They were so happy to see Mary get her revenge because there is so little justice in the world.

BF: Can you tell me a bit about See No Evil 2 and how you got involved in it and working with WWE?

S: After American Mary, we took meeting after meeting to get to work on our next film, an original monster movie called BOB, but all they wanted to see was a watered down version of American Mary. It was getting depressing. People think after you have a critically acclaimed film everything just falls into place, it doesn’t. When we got the offer for See No Evil 2, we were super excited. We are huge WWE fangirls, we started watching when the Kane character was introduced, and it was a cool slasher – it was a dream project. Lionsgate and WWE have been incredibly supportive collaborative partners.

J: We really love horror and want to take on every sub genre in horror. Not too many directors get the opportunity to.

BF: What was it like approaching a story for a sequel rather than an original story and working with someone else’s script? How did you put your personal spin on the project?

S: It was really fun, but that’s in large part because of the writers, Nathan Brookes and Bobby Lee Darby, because they have very similar sensibilities to us. They are very rad Brits and that like to horribly murder people in their scripts. As soon as we got involved, we all got into the story, what we had, what we could do to push it more, it was a very collaborative process. Then you get Danielle Harris and Glenn ‘Kane’ Jacobs involved and the script evolves moreso. We got to put a lot of ourselves into the film – Tamara [Katherine Isabelle’s character] is Jen on a date.

J: Ha ha, only a good one. I’ve been known to take dates on Buffy~esque walks in the graveyard. I would be the first one to suggest going down to the morgue, especially to take a peek at Jacob Goodnight. It was important for all the characters to matter and be strong, but especially the girls. I like that we were able to continue on our signature of keeping our audiences guessing. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I won’t go into much more detail. You can definitely feel our humor and sensibilities in this one.

BF: What was it like working with Kane?

S: An amazing experience. As a fan, I had inhumanly high expectations on this hero I grew up watching. Somehow, he managed to be even better than that. Glenn is so professional, so hard working, and just a genuinely wonderful human being. He’s so smart, he brought so much to making this the next evolution of Jacob Goodnight, and he is so psychically capable that we could really show off his Hulk-strength in the film. I loved working with him. I actually cannot wait to work with him again, there’s a lot of roles someone like him can play.

J: Really a dream come true. A big part of why we were so excited to come onto the film was the opportunity to meet and work with Glenn. We started watching as he was introduced as Kane on WWE. To have our lives come so full circle is incredible. And so surreal. Glenn is an amazing performer as well as an athlete. He’s just fantastic to work with. I love him.

BF: How does See No Evil 2 fit in with your previous films?

S: I think the characters in See No Evil 2 could easily exist in a world where Badass and Mary Mason also live – there are from that same universe in our heads. It’s an art house slasher homage that is also very self aware – not many studios would let you do something like that with such a profitable franchise.

J: There’s a running theme in our films where seemingly everyday characters, people who could be you, me, our friends, get thrown into something life changing and end up getting tough and evolving. It’s very much the same in See No Evil 2. If you pay attention, you can also see the big beats for each character that also results in their outfits transforming more and more final girl as they go. We like to put a lot of heart in our films and you will care for these people that you see brutally murdered.

BF: You worked with Katharine Isabelle for a second time in See No Evil 2. Is it important to you to create a stable of actors and reliable people to work with again and again? She’s getting to a bit of a horror icon herself, as is Danielle Harris. Chelan Simmons has also been in her share of slashers. Can you tell me a bit about how you work with actors and what qualities make an actor fun to work with? Were these people you sought out to work with? Did you look to people with a reputation as horror icons?

S: We build a bit of a film family on these things, we have such an amazing crew in Vancouver – they are so good at what they do and they’ve been with us through so much, you will definitely see lots of names repeating in our various films. The same goes for the cast – you keep collaborating because there’s this magic that can happen as you keep getting more comfortable about each other. I love actors and the more I get to know them as people, the more I’m like, oh, they would be perfect doing this. Working with Katie on Mary, I got to know how ridiculously funny she is. You never see the hot girl also being the funniest one. Tamara came from us wanting to see that.

I know a lot of the actresses in SNE2 have done a ton of horror movies, that was intentional in the casting. We wanted a pedigree to the whole thing. It was so cool to work with Danielle and Chelan – they are just so good at what they do. I can’t wait to be able to work on the next thing with them. I know Danielle is about to direct her second feature and I cannot wait to see that. Can you imagine the kinds of films a woman like that will create? Badass.

J: We try to hunt down the very best people. People who love film and love what we’re doing. Life’s too short to work with dicks and it’s crazy to think people who work in film aren’t always super grateful to be where they are. We become very close with our cast and crew. They’re the people we call friends, some even family, like Katie. We love working with our friends. And actors are so capable. Just look at Michael Eklund. I could work with him on every film I do for the rest of my life and I know he’ll just keep surprising me and blowing us away with his performances.

S: We strive to build up that core. You see a lot of directors team up with the same talent because you become friends and want to do more and more with them and give them chances to play a range of different characters. I’m really so blessed to have been able to work with so many amazing people.

BF: A spoiler question…

You played with the concept of the Final Girl with the ending of See No Evil 2. How do you feel about the idea of the Final Girl?

S: I love the final girl so much. I have cheered many a Final Girl on in my living room, but I always see the Final Girl. We like playing with gender stereotypes, so Seth is the final boy. If you rewatch the film, he does all the final girl moments – love interest willing to die for to save, has an encounter with Jacob but survives, throughout loses more clothing for sexed up/battle damaged look (this was an intentional transition look for all of the cast), gives ‘everything is going to be ok’ speech, everyone else is dead, and the final impossible showdown. I hope we get to make three — Seth has more to do and Jacob’s still not dead.

J: I loved killing the Final Girl. And we killed one of horror’s true icons, Danielle Harris. She is the perfect final girl. We wanted to set up both Danielle and Katie as being potential final girls all the while building up our final boy, Seth, played by the wonderful Kaj-Erik Eriksen. Seth is a mix between Ash (Evil Dead) and Seymour (Little Shop of Horrors). He’s the hot, really sweet, nerd who turns out to be as tough as nails. I loved having him go head to head with Jacob Goodnight and just take all that damage.

BF: What projects do you have in the works at the moments?

S: There are a few things in development that we’re really excited about. A huge one is Painkiller Jane, written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Craig Weeden, which is a big screen adaptation of the badass graphic novel heroine. It’s one of the best scripts I’ve ever read – which makes sense because Jimmy co-created the character. It’s an honest to goodness, straight from the comic, foul languaged, super sexy, hardcore violent, kickass chick cop buddy movie with a superhuman flair. It’s like The Heat on crack.

J: We just finished up Vendetta, our first action movie starring Dean Cain, Paul “The Big Show” White, and Michael Eklund. I’m so happy with it. It’s like a Punisher movie taking place in a men’s prison. And you’ve never seen Dean Cain be this much of a badass. It’ll be out sometime in 2015. We’ve got quite a few things in development, including our high concept, original monster movie called, BOB. Nothing would make me happier than to be doing BOB next. It’s so weird and heart felt and honest and brutal and hilarious. I cannot wait to be making it.

Sylvia and Jen’s new film See No Evil 2 is currently available DVD and Blu-Ray as well as On Demand and Digital HD.

Elizabeth Kiy is a Canadian writer and journalist living in Toronto, Ontario.