{"id":43415,"date":"2024-03-31T23:30:49","date_gmt":"2024-04-01T03:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=43415"},"modified":"2024-03-31T21:04:44","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T01:04:44","slug":"karenlam-wihm2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2024\/03\/31\/karenlam-wihm2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Director Karen Lam Interview [Women in Horror Month 2024]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Vancouver-based director Karen Lam<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

To start, please introduce yourself:
\n<\/strong>I\u2019m Karen Lam, a Vancouver-based horror filmmaker. I started off in this industry as a lawyer and then as a producer, but I\u2019ve been writing and directing exclusively since 2008. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is horror to you, what makes a work of art one in the horror genre?
\n<\/strong>I think my definition of horror is a lot broader than what it currently is in our film and television industry, but what I take from horror literature.\u00a0 One of my favourite genre literary editors Ellen Datlow defined horror as an overall atmosphere of the dread of death.\u00a0 I love psychology horror and what usually affects me the most is paranormal.\u00a0 Simple human cruelty never appeals all that much, although I do love true crime.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To me, a work of art in our genre transcends its parameters: if it\u2019s a slasher, it\u2019s the penultimate slasher that gets under my skin but also makes me look at the world through a different lens. I hate the term \u201celevated horror\u201d because it\u2019s usually an excuse for people who hate our genre to dip their toe into it while still plugging their noses.\u00a0 But I do love when the horror film does something more.\u00a0 The new Godzilla Minus One was just brilliant: \u00a0a perfect monster movie while bringing forward some of the critiques of the WW2 for Japan and weaving in a perfect human story \u2014 while never shortcutting or forgetting that it\u2019s Godzilla.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What made you want to work in horror?
\n<\/strong>My parents were huge horror and macabre fans \u2014 although they wouldn\u2019t have described themselves that way: my dad loved horror and action films and my mom loved horror and gothic literature.\u00a0 I grew up loving horror films, horror books and the paranormal has always been a big part of my real world.\u00a0 I can\u2019t imagine another genre that I have anything to contribute to. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Where do you get your inspiration?
\n<\/strong>I get my inspiration from the world around me.\u00a0 I don\u2019t write for the sake of writing.\u00a0 But I take daily walks and I have a very full artistic life: \u00a0I work with textiles, I make clothes and leather bags and pottery, and I recently went back into my music (I had been classically trained since age 3 but I\u2019m starting vocals, god help us all).\u00a0 I love having lots of community and friends from different arts which is where I draw a lot of my inspiration.\u00a0 I read a lot, I live in the world, and I am incessantly nosy about peoples\u2019 lives. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What would you like your legacy to be in the genre (or elsewhere)?
\n<\/strong>I don\u2019t think my work is for everyone, but I would love to know that the films I make, the stories I tell, really affect and influence the people that need to see them.\u00a0 I love pushing the boundaries of our craft: every project makes me uncomfortable because it\u2019s always a new technique or a new way of making films.\u00a0 If it\u2019s just doing the same thing because I\u2019m comfortable with it, or I expect a certain response, then I\u2019m not doing it right. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is Women in Horror Month to you and why is it still important this many years later?
\n<\/strong>I think our industry and our genre still has a reputation of being so male-centric when the opposite is true.\u00a0 It\u2019s that, or I\u2019ve been so much a part of this community that I don\u2019t even notice that the rest of the industry is not as female-focused as we are! \u00a0I love celebrating this month with all my fellow female filmmakers who work so hard in this genre, and I love discovering new films and new talent. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Who are some of the Women in Horror who you look up to and who do you want to bring attention to in your field or others?
\n<\/strong>My directing mentor has always been Rachel Talalay (Tank Girl) and it\u2019s her direct influence and friendship that has always made me want to push our medium: she\u2019s fearless and a pioneer herself and to get a \u201cwow\u201d from her is probably my inner benchmark.\u00a0 I love the work of Floria Sigismondi \u2014 she\u2019s such an artist and I still think about her first feature about the Runaways that I think was grossly underlooked.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s always new talent and I\u2019m fortunate to be working in a city that also includes Gigi Saul Guerrero and the Soska Sisters.\u00a0 There must be something in the water\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

What are you currently working on that you can tell us about?
\n<\/strong>I\u2019m just in prep on a new feature that is a dark comedy about Armageddon set in the 1970s, more Biblical horror but with a Coens vibe called \u201cArmageddon Road,\u201d which is being produced by Kate Kroll.\u00a0 And I have a short film that won the Directors Guild of Canada Greenlight Award last fall that is my version of a dental horror (if Wong Kar Wai were to make a dental horror), called \u201cMrs Chang\u2019s Perfect Teeth\u201d and produced by Kristyn Stilling.\u00a0It\u2019s a busy year ahead!<\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vancouver-based director Karen Lam<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1284,8,2673],"tags":[477,1550],"class_list":["post-43415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-festivalsevents","category-interviews","category-wihm","tag-horror","tag-women-in-horror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43415"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43416,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43415\/revisions\/43416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}