\n\t\u201cThe Face of Horror\u201d comes a decade after Biller\u2019s previous film, cult favorite \u201cThe Love Witch<\/a>,\u201d and like its predecessor tackles themes of courtship, power and traditional gender roles through a female lens. It\u2019s also bursting with color and gleefully fun performances, whilst showcasing Biller\u2019s unique command of mise-en-sc\u00e8ne, from its sumptuous sets and dazzling costumes to the jewelry she says she spent two years sourcing.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI\u2019m so fascistic about my sets and location,\u201d she tells Variety. To capture the vintage look she wanted, Biller opted for sets with high ceilings in order to bathe her troupe in soft overhead lighting, and no wide-angle shots. The result is an old-school epic that still feels refreshingly modern.<\/p>\n \n\tBiller spoke with Variety about \u201cThe Face of Horror\u201d and so much more head of its TIFF<\/a> debut.<\/p>\n \t\t\u201cThe Love Witch\u201d was a feminist twist on serial killer films. What do you see \u201cThe Face of Horror\u201d as?\t<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe Face of Horror\u201d is still a twist on contemporary horror films. I always try to think about how we talk about this stuff without women objectified and without it being a spectacle of women\u2019s suffering. The movie could have been a lot scarier, but it was a choice to make this movie not about Eleanor\u2019s monstrosity, but a lot about her relationship with her sister. We don\u2019t get to watch the spectacle of an abject, suffering woman for the majority of the screen time, as that\u2019s something I refused to do. I\u2019m such a huge fan of noir films. What changed? The spectacle of a powerful, disruptive woman changed into the spectacle of a woman running, crying and screaming, and the woman isn\u2019t self-possessed in beautiful makeup and clothing but falling down in the mud. Why didn\u2019t we continue with the strong, dangerous woman that was powerful? Why do we have these women who are either cartoonishly evil or weak and suffering? As a fan of classic movies, I miss all those characters that we don\u2019t have anymore.<\/p>\n \t\tI was picturing Barbara Stanwyck in \u201cDouble Indemnity\u201d while listening to you.\t<\/p>\n \n\tExactly. Barbara Stanwyck would never be dragged through the mud looking awful. You could never do that to her. So, Eleanor is a monster, but she\u2019s a powerful monster. It\u2019s always, \u201cLet\u2019s punish all these \u2018bad\u2019 women for their sexual power and reward the one woman who\u2019s a tomboy,\u201d which is a slasher trope. I always think, \u201cWhat are we looking at? What is the fantasy onscreen? Who\u2019s watching it and who\u2019s it benefiting?\u201d People don\u2019t like to imagine themselves being murdered or dragged through the mud, so these slasher films that would otherwise be enjoyable are hard to stomach sometimes. I wanted to make a horror film that I could watch over and over again that wouldn\u2019t turn my stomach.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\tWhat inspired you to adapt the Japanese ghost story \u201cYotsuya Kaidan?\u201d\t<\/p>\n \n\tA tragedy happened to a friend of mine, and I wrote my last script, \u201cBluebeard,\u201d about it. It wasn\u2019t a murder, but her life was destroyed by a man, and she will be confined to a hospital bed in a near coma for the rest of her life. I couldn\u2019t get the \u201cBluebeard\u201d script made, so I wanted to come up with a similar story that would be more marketable. \u201cBluebeard\u201d was a Gothic romance with some horror, but I felt the new script should be more of a straight horror film. While I was casting about for ideas, I watched the movie \u201cKuroneko,\u201d which is about a mother and a daughter who are raped and murdered by group of roving samurai. They return as ghosts and haunt the forest, killing every samurai who comes by. I thought, that\u2019s great, I want to do a Japanese ghost story like that. So I did some research and I found \u201cYotsuya Kaidan,\u201d and I moved it to feudal England instead of feudal Japan.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cYotsuya Kaidan\u201d is similar to \u201cBluebeard\u201d in that it\u2019s about how women\u2019s lives are carelessly thrown away by selfish or thoughtless men. I think a lot about horror films where women are killed for entertainment. And I think back to earlier eras where movie murders were scarier and sadder because they emphasized human elements above special effects and gore. So, my project for both \u201cBluebeard\u201d and for this film was to have the audience really feel the murder and grieve as if it was happening to someone they know, the way I felt it with my friend. I love Greek tragedy, Shakespearian tragedy, psychological realism in filmmakers like Pasolini, and I wanted to make a horror film with that kind of weight.<\/p>\n \t\tThe performances in both \u201cThe Love Witch\u201d and \u201cThe Face of Horror\u201d are all pitched at the same heightened tone, and I\u2019m curious how you capture that harmony?\t<\/p>\n \n\tThe actors tell me it comes from the script \u2014 either that or I\u2019m a spirit medium who\u2019s pulling these performances out of them and they\u2019re intuiting what I want. Nobody is trying to do anything stylized or performative; everyone is trying to get at the truth of the character. I encourage them to not be self-conscious or campy; and, interestingly enough, when the actors are fully committed to roles that are so incredibly dramatic with stakes so incredibly high and aren\u2019t trying to be cool or detached but are fully immersed, that\u2019s what creates the quality. Jonah Hauer-King, especially, gives a very modern performance. He depicts the knight as a spoiled, modern man-baby. He\u2019s giving it full drama and putting it to a high pitch, and that\u2019s what creates the comedy. And it is very funny, I have to admit. But that\u2019s never the intent.<\/p>\n \t\tSpeaking of casting, I know it took you a long time to find your \u201cLove Witch\u201d in Samantha Robinson. What was the casting process like for \u201cThe Face of Horror?\u201d\t<\/p>\n \n\tKristine [Froseth] came in at the very last minute right before filming because we had another actress that dropped out at the last minute. Kristine was still shooting \u201cHer Private Hell,\u201d<\/a> so we had to push our schedule a couple of weeks for her to come on. She was filming that movie in Copenhagen on a Friday and then came to us in Prague on a Monday. And then she stayed in Prague to film \u201cThe Age of Innocence\u201d<\/a> with Ben Radcliffe, another actor in this film, which is interesting.<\/p>\n \t\tWho dropped out?\t<\/p>\n \n\tI don\u2019t really want to say who dropped out because that doesn\u2019t make her look great\u2026 She was committed to us for a year and then took a bigger movie about five weeks before shooting. But Kristine was so perfect for the role that once we got her, I didn\u2019t care anymore about losing the other actress. It was scary before we found Kristine because it was very difficult to get the right person that was also available, and we couldn\u2019t afford to postpone it because we\u2019d already built the sets. But it all worked out in the end; I met Kristine and fell in love with her. And she was really funny because she went through the script very meticulously with me and picked out about 40 places where she wanted the dialogue to be changed. I\u2019ve never had an actor do that with me before and I agreed with everything she said.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tSamantha Robinson and Jeffrey Vincent Parise in \u201cThe Love Witch.\u201d <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n \t\tYou are so heavily involved in the construction of your films. I read that you were in pre-production on \u201cThe Love Witch\u201d for five years because you sewed all the costumes and sourced the materials.\t<\/p>\n \n\tI was sewing for two years on that, so I didn\u2019t have to sew for this! I designed the costumes but I wasn\u2019t sewing and just doing sketches, which was incredible. I sourced over 100 pieces of jewelry for this film and was gathering the jewelry for a couple of years. We started getting the cast together for \u201cThe Face of Horror\u201d in 2022 and then started shooting in 2025, so two and a half years of prep. Everything felt really cohesive and everyone caught on to some magical wavelength, and that usually happens for me. I think when I create an atmosphere with sets, costumes, lighting and dialogue, it creates a world in and of itself that\u2019s so powerful that everybody fits into it. Everything is so intense that if you don\u2019t rise to the occasion then you\u2019re being drab. All the actors came in a bit timid and I had to say, \u201cDo it as big as you want and I\u2019ll pull you back if I need to,\u201d and I never pulled them back. They loved doing it big.<\/p>\n \t\tYou put so much care into crafting your films and they\u2019re so handmade, so I\u2019m curious what your thoughts are on AI, which is very much the opposite of that.\t<\/p>\n \n\tIt is absolutely, one hundred percent the opposite. One reason it looks so handmade is I hand-draw every storyboard and I do them over and over and over again because I want to make sure that things can be cut together. I\u2019m an editor, so I know when scenes don\u2019t do that. We had no reshoots for this \u2014 not even ADR \u2014 because it was storyboarded. The graphic designer was watching the opening battle scene and said, \u201cThis looks just like your storyboards.\u201d It\u2019s almost like my mind created what\u2019s there.<\/p>\n \n\tI use AI for legal questions and contracts. I use my lawyer, don\u2019t get me wrong, but I use AI for clarification because I get confused about things. Sometimes it can be a psychotherapist, although it\u2019s weird because it\u2019s a bit like a psychopathic therapist. If I ever give it a prompt to write something \u2014 just for fun \u2014 that\u2019s where it fails so radically for me. It\u2019s so bad. I don\u2019t see how people can use AI to write because it\u2019s so awful. I\u2019m very into originality. A friend of mine uses AI to create art and I just never like it. It feels oppressive on some level \u2014 and demonic.<\/p>\n \t\tWhat made you so fascinated with witchcraft?\t<\/p>\n \n\tA witch is a metaphor for a woman. When you\u2019re a woman you always feel like an outsider or different in some way \u2014 abnormal \u2014 because the male is seen as the standard human being. That can be good or bad, like you can bewitch a man or curse a man, you can be put on a pedestal or burned at the stake. But I think men essentially see us as witches, and I wanted to go into how that feels, that experience of being treated like a dangerous outsider with every little thing you do. I feel like that especially when I\u2019m directing, like people are looking at me askance because there\u2019s a right way to make a film and I\u2019m doing it wrong, and some more normal, reasonable person needs to step in and save me.<\/p>\n \t\tHow did you become interested in vibrant Technicolor films from the \u201860s?\t<\/p>\n \n\tI think I was born with it. Children love color and maybe I just never grew out of that. My father is also a painter who paints with lots of color. Eisenstein wrote in his book \u201cThe Film Sense\u201d that if cinema is going to use color, then it has to use it in a purposeful way, and when I was in film school I really, really thought about that a lot. You have to use all the tools to say something, and color is a tool. Most people don\u2019t think about the color and treat it as an afterthought; but for me, the color is like a lens through which to tell your story.<\/p>\n \t\tDid your time studying film at CalArts also inform how you want to depict women onscreen? I remember how Laura Mulvey\u2019s \u201cVisual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema\u201d opened up my eyes in film class.\t<\/p>\n \n\tThat was a key text for me as well. What I got from that text was that I should make movies the way the movies I like are. Laura Mulvey\u2019s argument held up well for modern movies, but it didn\u2019t hold up for classic movies because those films very much had a female gaze. So, I thought, \u201cYou know what? We\u2019ve already solved this problem. We\u2019ve just lost the art of respecting women and giving them a proper place in film. We\u2019ve lost the art of wanting to tell women\u2019s stories.\u201d I felt, I can\u2019t be as clever or I can\u2019t be as slick as other filmmakers, but I can be true to myself and what I like and what I want to see. I want to see movies like \u201cAll About Eve\u201d or \u201cVertigo.\u201d When I was starting out, I didn\u2019t have the budget, so people were comparing my films to Jack Smith because they were so crude.<\/p>\n \t\tWhat are some ways Hollywood can improve when it comes to its depictions of women?\t<\/p>\n \n\tEverything feels very packaged right now. I was getting scripts from my agent that were the \u201cfemale\u201d packaging, which I don\u2019t like any more than the \u201cmale\u201d packaging. There\u2019s a template. It would be \u201cfour badass girls with weapons\u201d or the pitches all say \u201c\u2018Gossip Girl\u2019 meets \u2018The Social Network\u2019 meets \u2018Mean Girls.\u2019\u201d They\u2019re referencing women\u2019s pictures from the \u201890s and wanting to still sell on those. We\u2019ve got a new \u201cLegally Blonde\u201d and a new \u201cPractical Magic.\u201d Everyone\u2019s trying to push franchises and vehicles that made a lot of money instead of original content. Everything is like a TV commercial. Everything is product. It\u2019s all product. I read these scripts and I\u2019m like, \u201cWhat is this even about?\u201d<\/p>\n \t\tHave you thought about the world you\u2019re releasing \u201cThe Face of Horror\u201d into as opposed to \u201cThe Love Witch,\u201d which hit theaters three days after Trump was elected but before he took office and a year before the #MeToo Movement?\t<\/p>\n \n\tIt is different, and not just because of those things you mentioned, but what\u2019s happened in cinema is different. This is going to sound egotistical, but before \u201cThe Love Witch\u201d came out, it didn\u2019t exist yet. I think \u201cThe Love Witch\u201d itself has changed cinema because now I\u2019m releasing \u201cThe Face of Horror\u201d into a world where not only have people accepted that kind of color and they\u2019ve accepted my work, but my work has become viral. In that atmosphere, I can release another movie and not feel like such a niche weirdo. Nobody else is making movies like me, but other directors have embraced color since then.<\/p>\n \t\tPeople have been very critical of the lack of color in superhero movies, which tend to look quite drab.\t<\/p>\n \n\tYeah. People are tired of that and people are embracing color. Directors like Ti West in \u201cPearl\u201d is using the same kinds of color ideas I have. When \u201cThe Love Witch\u201d came out, people were really afraid of color and upset about it, but now they\u2019re not saying that anymore. There are also many more women filmmakers and it doesn\u2019t feel as weird to be a female director who\u2019s creating a space for a female point of view. It feels like it could be commercial. There are a lot of independent horror films that are doing really well, particularly \u201cObsession<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\tWhat did you think of \u201cObsession?\u201d There are certain similarities to \u201cThe Love Witch.\u201d\t<\/p>\n \n\tWell, the thing is: I haven\u2019t seen it yet. And I\u2019m afraid to see it. From what I\u2019ve read about it, it sounds like it\u2019s a reversal of \u201cThe Love Witch\u201d about a woman who loves too much, but it\u2019s doing the thing I try not to do where, even though it\u2019s got a message that favors the woman at the end, as far as I understand, the actual spectacle you\u2019re watching is the objectification of the woman throughout almost the entire run time. I\u2019m a little afraid to see it because of that. It\u2019s almost like the male point of view of \u201cThe Love Witch,\u201d right? So, the question is: Why didn\u2019t \u201cThe Love Witch\u201d go that viral? The male point of view is always going to sell better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cJoan of Arc versus Jesus.\u201d That is how Anna Biller, the auteur behind \u201cThe Love Witch,\u201d describes the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":843082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[356932,88,206,85043,356933,356934,46686],"class_list":["post-843081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-anna-biller","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-obsession","tag-the-face-of-horror","tag-the-love-witch","tag-tiff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/themes\/pmc-variety-2020\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/p>\n