April Wolfe makes her feature film screenwriting debut with the new remake of Black Christmas. Having recently written and directed a short film called Widower, she is more well known as a film critic for L.A. Weekly, among other publications.

LRM Online talked to her about the film’s whirlwind race to the screen, being involved in one of the rare female written and directed studio horror movies and socially relevant cinema.

Black Christmas hits theaters this Friday, December 13th.

LRM Online: I saw the movie last night, and I really enjoyed it. I’m a big fan of the original. I was wondering what your previous experience was with the original. Had you seen it or the remake from about a decade ago?

Wolfe: I f**king love the original. It’s one of the first horror movies that I watched way back when. I am a horror film fanatic. So, I’ve seen it multiple times. I’ve only seen the other remake from 2006 once, but I thought that it was underrated. I thought it was still fun and that was something I really appreciated about it. But I felt like we had the opportunity with this to really separate ourselves from the original and take this kernel of truth and this idea that Bob Clark and Roy Moore had, and really expand upon it and give it a reason to exist again in 2019.

LRM Online: Yeah, you guys just completely rewrote it and made it its own thing. I really did appreciate that because sometimes the only reason a remake exists is to make money, not to change anything or do anything different.

Wolfe: Yeah. You said it very correct.

LRM Online: So how did your involvement start with it? Were you brought on by Sophia or did you get hired together to write it? How exactly did you get involved?

Wolfe: Well, Sophia actually brought me on. She was asked to direct it before there was a script, and then she was given the task of developing and writing the script within like two months. And if you’ve seen the movie you can tell that there’s a lot of originality to it. And she wanted to bring on a co-writer. I just happened to be a horror fanatic that she knew, and she had read a couple of my scripts before and really liked them. We kind of meshed. I understood her style, I think, and I’m also just a huge fan of hers in a general way. So, she brought me on, and we immediately jumped into the collaboration of writing and developing. We didn’t have much time at all.

LRM Online: Can you talk a bit about that? Because I know it went from production to release pretty quickly. Was that the same thing with the writing? Like you’re saying, just from the beginning it was a go project?

Wolfe: Yeah, absolutely. It was a do or die kind of thing. And the thing is with Sophia and I, if you know a lot about horror, you know that there really aren’t that many women-directed and written horror films out there that are made by a studio. And I think this might be the second that I can really think of, after Jennifer’s Body by Karyn Kusama and Diablo Cody. There are definitely indies, but in terms of studios and ones that have mainstream wide release, this would be the second ever. So, that was a thing for us to keep in mind but not keep in mind as we went through it. Because when you are given a do or die task, you have to succeed. It kind of feels like your entire gender is on the line, whether or not you do okay with this. That’s kind of stressful, but that’s what we had in mind as we were writing it.

LRM Online: It’s interesting you mentioned Jennifer’s Body. I knew it was directed by Kusama, but I forgotten that it was written by Diablo Cody. Definitely a rare occasion that that happens, like you said, on the studio scale. So, it’s great to have another one, and it’s too bad it took another decade for it to happen.

Wolfe: I know. A nice square 10 years.

LRM Online: There was a bit of a controversy a little bit ago when it was revealed that the movie was rated PG-13. Certain horror fans were not happy about that. And it might’ve been either Sophia or you who talked about how the decision had partly been made to make the movie available to young women, who are usually big horror supporters. Maybe they’re not normally considered that, but when you see the breakdowns of opening weekends, you see there are a lot, especially for PG-13 horror. I was wondering what you wanted young women to take away from the movie.

Wolfe: When we were writing this, we were really looking at that target age of like 18 to 21 year olds, right? We knew that we needed to get them, as they were the same age as the characters. But we realized also that the things that we were saying were accessible to girls who are younger than that, because they’re smart and involved in the world. It was such an opportunity and we were like, okay certain horror fans are going to love if this is R, but we have a really huge opportunity being the second-ever female written and directed horror film, to actually get these younger women involved. And the discussions that we’re having in this movie are really big, and they are really topical. And I don’t mean that in just kind of a flippant way.

They are something that these girls and young women are living every single day. And they’re living with power structures that are against them, and they are living with people who maybe don’t have the exact same ideology that they do, but they’re trying and having really difficult discussions. That’s definitely something that we really wanted to showcase in this movie. Especially a younger audience is going to connect with that. Also, I really think that anyone in their thirties, forties and beyond can really remember what it feels like to have these really tough discussions about power and power hierarchy.

LRM Online: Yeah, it’s extremely relevant to the times. It would have fit in any time, but it seems like it might’ve taken this long for this discussion to even happen in mainstream entertainment. And some of the best horror films are socially relevant. I saw a little push back on that recently. I was told just the other day that I believe it was Joe Bob Briggs who was saying oh, why do all these horror films have to be socially relevant or political or what have you. I was just wondering what you thought of that in horror, the presence of whether it’s politics or social criticism.

Wolfe: Well, the weird thing is, so when Sophia and I were crafting this story, even though there’s a bunch of topical stuff, and I can talk about this in retrospect like, oh yeah, there’s a storyline about date rape. And there’s a storyline about not believing women. And there’s a storyline about these things. Even though those are really topical, Sophia and I didn’t even plan to make this “socially relevant.” It was just like of course this is what would happen, because this seems realistic today. And I’ve been saying this and I think that when you make a movie with young people and there’s any element of realism that’s grounding the story, you have to take into account that we live in a really different time, and that social and political policy, like these ideas, these ideologies are extremely overt in a way that I don’t know that they have been before. I think that to make a movie with characters of that age range specifically without including those things feels disingenuous and I think, dishonest. By not making a movie “political,” you’re also making a statement of politics, because it’s just the time that we live in. You can’t avoid it.

LRM Online: That’s a really good point. Especially with the conditions that we’re living with politically in the US right now. Well, thank you for taking the time to speak to me and I wish you all luck with the release. I hope it does really well.

Wolfe: Thank you so much.

Black Christmas hits theaters this Friday!

Don’t forget to share this post on your Facebook wall and with your Twitter followers! Just hit the buttons on the top of this page.

—–

Have you checked out LRM Online’s official podcast feed yet The LRM Online Podcast Network, which includes our flagship podcast Los Fanboys, our premiere podcast Breaking Geek Radio: The Podcast, and our morning show LRMornings? Check it out by listening below. It’s also available on all your favorite podcast apps!

Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts |  Spotify  |  SoundCloud | Stitcher | Google Play

  FOR FANBOYS, BY FANBOYS Have you checked out LRM Online’s official podcasts and videos on The Genreverse Podcast Network? Available on YouTube and all your favorite podcast apps, This multimedia empire includes The Daily CoG, Breaking Geek Radio: The Podcast, GeekScholars Movie News, Anime-Versal Review Podcast, and our Star Wars dedicated podcast The Cantina. Check it out by listening on all your favorite podcast apps, or watching on YouTube! Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts |  Spotify |  SoundCloud | Stitcher | Google Play