 | The Macabre Sports a Mortar Board: DEVI SNIVELY |
 
Written by Joshua Leseur, TCM Staff Writer
Milton. Yeats. Romero. The cult art of grave robbers and
gallows-haunters is now on the syllabus at Notre Dame U, taught by Devi
Snively, (The Chainsaw Mafia's current Viscera Woman) herself a purveyor of pagan fables and diabolical allegory.
For those who consider the teaching of terror little better than a
gallery show for graffiti, three words: Confederate. Zombie. Massacre.
Deep
as the spiral of Hell. Raw as a knee to the groin. The title tells all.
This cursed doubloon from the officially Viscera 2008 selected films shows that horror is the purest
of genres--Morality plays about mortality, majestic cave frescoes in
human blood.
TCM: If Hitchcock were to watch "Confederate Zombie Massacre!" what do you think his critique would be? How about Dario Argento?
DS:
Hitchcock would inevitably like our blond nurse zombie character but,
alas, I fear his interest would end there. Argento would want to see
our zombie chick slowly mutilated with a sharp, household item filmed
with far more fancy tracking shots. Personally, I think a young Peter
Jackson and John Landis might be a better suited audience for "CZM".
TCM: Since most horror films function as allegory or cautionary fable, what was the symbolic/thematic inspiration for "CZM"?
DS:
"CZM" is an anti-war film. The two tap-dancing, "lovers not fighters"
prevail in the end. The violence-mongers all die horrible deaths. May
this be a lesson to us all.
TCM:
Horror films are often reflections of the times. During the '50s, we
had the monstrous beasts from over the Pacific ravaging our fair
country. In the '80s, there was the Cold War. In the '90s, the general
theme was "The Horrors Of the Society That Watches Itself". What is it
about the modern climate that's produced such glorious homages to '70s
sickos as "CZM"?
DS: Throughout cinematic history we seem to
always turn to either the horror genre or escapist spectacles, like
musicals, during times of war and fear. Since 9/11, we've been seeing
more and more hardcore horror--torture porn and the like. While that
can be cathartic, I feel we already get enough of that from Fox News.
"CZM" has its fair share of gore, I suppose, but it's "gore with
heart," if you will. I see it as a throwback to a more innocent era of
super-8 movies we made as kids in our backyards. The gore is essential
to those of us who enjoy such sickness, but it's happy gore. Audiences
of "CZM" laugh and cheer, they don't hide their eyes or feel fear.
They're in on the joke. I figure we can all use a good laugh in these
hard times.
TCM: "CZM" is clearly a hybrid film, coupling the
historical reimagination genre with the zombie invasion subgenre. What
inspired this bizarre pastiche?
DS: I myself am an anachronistic
mess of contradictions, which is reflected in pretty much every film we
make. I was raised on the early silent classics (like Buster Keaton),
the Marx Bros., kitsch TV (like the old Batman series) and I grew up in
the '80s with the advent of MTV. So, most of my films borrow from a
wide range of pop culture eras. I was also a dancer the first 19 years
of my life, so I borrow a lot from the stage, as well. Basically, I
like to be entertained and hate to be confined to one niche. I would
have loved to have been around for Vaudeville and the Grand Guignol
Theater in Paris. For me, this is the next best thing.
TCM:
What, for you, is the ultimate model of zombie? Are you a fan of the
somnambulists of the '70s, the feral ragers of the present day, or some
entirely different strain? What elements of "zombie" did you borrow and
what was original?
DS: I'm not what one would call a zombie
"purist". I think there's room for both fast and slow zombies. How can
one compare "I Walk With a Zombie," "Night of the Living Dead,"
"Dead/Alive", "28 Days Later" and the hundreds of other great entries
in this broad subgenre and possibly declare one better than another?
Some are scary, some are funny, some are thought-provoking and others
are so bad they're good. I'd like to think that what we "borrow" is the
celebration and heart that goes into an enjoyable zombie flick. Zombie
fans are fun-loving, life-loving folks, I've found, and we wanted to
celebrate that life and fun with them in our film. I think at the time
we made it the tap dancing was fairly original, though it seems "song
and dance zombies" are a lot more common these days. A personal
favorite moment of mine is when an African-American, Uni0n soldier
impales a Rebel in the gut with a Confederate Flag. I love the idea of
vigilante zombies.
TCM:
I noticed one of your previous films has the rather provocative title,
"I Spit On Eli Roth". Care to share the impetus behind it?
DS:
Absolutely! First off, let me say that it is no way an attack on Eli
Roth, personally. I don't even know the guy. It all started when I was
hanging out with Jane Rose and Paula Haifley, two female horror
filmmakers, whom I'd befriended at Genghis Con, in Pittsburgh. We were
lamenting the direction of mainstream horror and all agreed that "Cabin
Fever" and "Hostel" were not helping to raise the bar, any, in an
already maligned genre. Jane then told us about a terrible DVD feature
on "Cabin Fever" called "Chick Vision," which essentially plays the
entire film with hands coming up to block any scene that was deemed too
"scary" for the delicate sensibilities of a mere female. How sexist!
Bad enough the film already features this carboard, Barbie-doll female
character so stupid she decides to shave her legs when her skin's
peeling off, but to add this insult to injury to the female audience,
as well? For shame! Anyhoo, I wrote a script about how we decide we
have to torture and kill Roth in order to save the horror genre, only
there's a twist at the end where an important lesson is learned. It's
not nearly as mean-spirited as the title might indicate. In fact, we
ultimately forgive Roth and put the responsibility of raising the
horror bar on all fans and filmmakers alike.
TCM: What about "Raven Gets a Life"? Catchy handle. Care to elaborate?
DS:
I was teaching my course on horror films at the University of Notre
Dame and had just covered the Universal Monsters unit, ending class
with a clip of Bela Lugosi in "Dracula". Then I came home, turned on
the tube and saw a plethora of ads for prescription drugs. My mind put
the two together--what if a vampire were diagnosed with manic
depression? I think we rely far too quickly and heavily on drugs to
solve our problems these days, so this was a fun way to explore the
definition of what it means to "have a life".
TCM: "Death In Charge" has been described as a deepening of artfulness/craft for you. Do you think it's a new plateau?
DS:
I'm glad to hear that. I concur. I'm definitely in a new place with
filmmaking. I wrote the script for "Death" years ago, but knew I had
neither the resources nor the experience to pull it off, previously.
When I got invited to AFI's Directing Workshop for Women, I knew it was
the perfect venue for me to finally do justice to the script. I'd spent
three years on the fest circuit, studying literally thousands of indie
films, learning from my mistakes as well as from other filmmakers and
audience reactions. It's been an amazing journey and an invaluable
education. I hope that experience comes through in my work and
continues to grow with each film.
TCM: What, for you, was the most disturbing entry for the Viscera Film Fest?
DS:
That "I'm a Little Tea Cup" one! So twisted! That still haunts me. I'll
never be able to hear that song again. That rocked!
TCM: Did
you see anyone's work at the Festival (be it actors, directors,
behind-the-sceners) who simply cried out for collaboration?
DS:
Actually, I think the other directors all seemed very much into their
individual visions, which is even cooler than collaborating, really.
There is such a thing as "too many cooks" and I think it speaks volumes
that these artists know what kind of films they each want to make and
are out there making them on their own. I'd definitely be down with
doing, like, a trilogy or something, where each woman does her own
thing in a collective (sort of like a "Mistresses of Horror" series, I
guess), but I think it rocks that there are more and more women
exhibiting original, new voices in genre films and forging their own
paths. It's too fun to discover that, while I was off in Indiana making
indie horror, there were other women off in Texas, Pennsylvania, North
Carolina and all over also making horror films of their own initiative. That's sort of a collaboration unto itself, isn't it?
http://www.deviantpictures.com
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