{"id":47049,"date":"2025-03-28T18:00:50","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T22:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=47049"},"modified":"2025-03-28T07:12:27","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T11:12:27","slug":"writer-director-emily-greenwood-interview-women-in-horror-month-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/28\/writer-director-emily-greenwood-interview-women-in-horror-month-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Writer\/Director Emily Greenwood Interview [Women in Horror Month 2025]"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Meet Writer\/Director Emily Greenwood:<\/p>\n

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To start, please introduce yourself:
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I\u2019m Emily Greenwood, a writer\/director based in Kent, just outside London, UK. I\u2019ve always been drawn to dark stories and characters with a bit of an edge\u2014twisted, conflicted, complex. I also love high production values and strong cinematic appeal. My 6th and most recent short,\u00a0<\/span>S<\/a>top Dead, is a proof of concept for my horror feature debut,\u00a0The Still Man, with Shadowhouse Films (Host, Dashcam) and Lunar Lander Films (The Severed Sun).\u00a0Stop Dead\u00a0is near the end of an amazing festival run, racking up over 65 official selections across 23 countries and winning four awards. With a background in mostly drama and suspense, I love weaving those elements into horror, bringing flesh and body to subconscious fears.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

What is horror to you, what makes a work of art one in the horror genre?<\/b><\/div>\n
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Horror, to me, is the unease that comes from the distortion of the ordinary. It\u2019s when something familiar becomes corrupted or invaded by something unnatural, leaving you with that uncomfortable feeling that something is\u00a0off. Comfortable becomes uncomfortable. Safe becomes sinister. It\u2019s the tension between what seems normal and the creeping dread lurking beneath the surface. While jump scares and gore can be fun, there needs to be a deeper, unsettling atmosphere to ground them.<\/p>\n

Horror, like any good storytelling, needs strong characters with relatable problems. When their ordinary lives are thrust into something terrifying, that\u2019s when the pressure really builds. If we connect with characters and understand their struggles, the horror becomes more personal. Their fear becomes our fear, and the situation they find themselves in becomes all the more real and scary.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

What made you want to work in horror?<\/b><\/div>\n
I think horror found me, rather than the other way around! My fascination with the human psyche naturally led me down a dark path. Back in university \u2014 where I studied film at the Universit\u00e9 Paul Val\u00e9ry in Montpellier, France \u2014 my films were strange and surreal. One followed a weird family living in the walls of a lecture theatre, while another told the story of a girl who goes for a walk and turns into a statue! My first non-student short,\u00a0The Button, explored a man driven mad by an innocuous button on his hotel wall. The tension builds as he obsesses over what it might do, until he finally presses it \u2014 only to discover it simply turns on a light.<\/div>\n
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Everything I made early on was experimental and a bit strange, but as I gained more experience and budgets grew, I became more aware of audience. I didn\u2019t want to make films just for myself. Of course, I still want to tell the stories I\u2019m passionate about, but a film isn\u2019t truly alive without people to watch it.<\/p>\n

This led me to create more mainstream films, but still exploring the darker aspects of human nature. My fourth short,\u00a0Cold Warrior, for example, is more of a political thriller than a horror film, but its story of abortion doping in gymnastics is undeniably horrific and harrowing.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, it was during my maternity leave that I found myself gravitating more toward horror! During that time my agent sent me scripts and introduced me to David Scullion, the writer of\u00a0Stop Dead\u00a0and my debut feature,\u00a0The Still Man, which I later co-wrote with him.<\/p>\n

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Where do you get your inspiration?<\/b><\/div>\n
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Inspiration is everywhere \u2014 life, the news, films, books. But of course it always seems to come at the most inconvenient moments: just as I\u2019m about to fall asleep, out walking, exercising, in my dreams. Never when I\u2019m actually trying to think of something! You can\u2019t force it. And if I don\u2019t write an idea down immediately, it\u2019s gone forever. It\u2019s a bit overwhelming at times, when you have multiple ideas fighting for attention. But the real challenge is having the discipline to focus on just one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

What would you like your legacy to be in the genre (or elsewhere)?<\/b><\/div>\n
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I don\u2019t think about legacy or how I\u2019ll be remembered. I just want to create stories that are meaningful to me at the moment, that hopefully resonate with others too. I want to create films that challenge, provoke, and entertain, and if they\u2019re inspiring or leave a lasting impression on viewers, that\u2019s a wonderful outcome. But ultimately, I just want to make great films that people appreciate, and enjoy the experience of making them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

What is Women in Horror Month to you and why is it still important this many years later?<\/b><\/div>\n
Women in Horror Month (WiHM) shines a light on the incredible work women are doing in horror, celebrating their voices, stories, and all the ways they\u2019re shaking things up in the genre. I\u2019ve definitely noticed more female-driven horror in recent years, with filmmakers bringing fresh takes on psychological horror, folk horror, and body horror in exciting and thought-provoking ways. From a writer\/director\u2019s perspective, it feels like things are moving in the right direction, but in reality, there\u2019s still a long way to go.<\/div>\n
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Take Coralie Fargeat, for example – why did it take until mid-life for such a talented director to finally break out? How many other visionary women are out there, struggling to get their films made? We are still massively underrepresented in film, especially in high-budget and mainstream genre projects. But when films like\u00a0The Substance\u00a0smash it, it just proves what we already know, that female genre directors can absolutely succeed in a huge way. Horror is a powerful, commercially viable genre, so why aren\u2019t more women getting the chance to make their mark?<\/p>\n

We all know the barriers that have held women back in film for so long. It\u2019s never been about talent, it’s about access and opportunity. But what\u2019s actually being done about it? Initiatives like WiHM are amazing for keeping the momentum going and championing female horror filmmakers, but we also need the big players\u2014the studios, the streamers, the funding bodies\u2014to step up. The industry thrives on fresh perspectives. Opportunity should be about talent, not outdated biases. Every filmmaker, no matter their gender, background, or ethnicity, should have a fair shot at building their career and shaping the future of horror and film as a whole.<\/p>\n

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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?<\/b><\/div>\n
There are so many talented women in horror, I couldn\u2019t possibly list them all, but here are just a few who inspire me.<\/div>\n
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Karyn Kusama \u2014\u00a0Jennifer’s Body,\u00a0The Invitation,\u00a0Destroyer, and\u00a0Yellowjackets.\u00a0I enjoy the psychological depth and the blend of horror and thriller elements in Kusama\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

Kathryn Bigelow \u2014 not technically a horror director, but definitely worth mentioning, being one of the few women to break into big-budget genre filmmaking with films like\u00a0Point Break,\u00a0The Hurt Locker, and\u00a0Near Dark.<\/p>\n

Coralie Fargeat –\u00a0 I\u2019ve been following her since\u00a0Revenge,\u00a0which really impressed me. I\u2019m not a huge body horror fan, but\u00a0The Substance\u00a0has been incredible for raising female voices in horror. Also, her journey, breaking out in mid-life after many years of persistence, is so inspiring and brings hope to so many of us.<\/p>\n

When it comes to actors, Mia Goth blew me away in Ti West\u2019s trilogy, especially\u00a0Pearl, where she managed to balance heartbreaking vulnerability with an intensity that was genuinely unsettling. That final shot, that desperation in her eyes, had me in tears! Maika Monroe has a quiet resilience and an effortless screen presence that makes everything she does feel so natural and grounded. Then there\u2019s Toni Collette, who is just on another level! Her emotional range is unreal. One of the most raw and expressive actors out there.<\/p>\n

Beyond filmmaking, I really admire M\u00f2nica Garc\u00eda Massagu\u00e9, Director of the Sitges Film Festival Foundation. She\u2019s created valuable opportunities for women in horror, launching\u00a0Woman In Fan\u00a0at Sitges in 2018 and curating the new\u00a0Horror Girls\u00a0events for the 2024 festival.<\/p>\n

I’d also like to mention Heidi Honeycutt, founder of the Etheria Film Festival and author of\u00a0I Spit on Your Celluloid: The History of Women Directing Horror Movies. Her work championing female genre filmmakers is invaluable, and her book is a must-read for anyone interested in women\u2019s contributions to horror.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

What are you currently working on that you can tell us about?<\/b><\/div>\n
I\u2019m currently working on getting my debut horror feature,\u00a0The Still Man, into production. My short film\u00a0Stop Dead\u00a0serves as a proof of concept, and producers Jude Goldrei and Douglas Cox are actively approaching financiers with the script. The initial response has been really positive, which is incredibly exciting, and I\u2019m looking forward to moving on to the next steps.<\/div>\n
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The Still Man\u00a0is about a workaholic city detective who must stop a ruthless serial killer, but discovers her perpetrator is a terrifying, supernatural entity with a horrifying ultimatum: if you stop moving, you die.<\/p>\n

At its heart, this is a story about the fear of stopping \u2014 about a woman whose job overshadows her relationship with her own daughter. As someone with a demanding career and a family of my own, the workaholic theme feels deeply personal. Developing this film has been a powerful reminder of how important it is to slow down, close the laptop, put down the phone and spend time with loved ones, especially children, because they\u2019re not going to be kids forever.<\/p>\n

I am also writing an action thriller script called\u00a0<\/span>Griefer\u00a0about a bored stay-at-home father who amuses himself by harassing online gamers, but unwittingly provokes the rage of another player who wants revenge in the real world. I started\u00a0Griefer\u00a0some time ago, but it kept getting set aside as other projects took precedence. Now, I’m determined to stay focused and see it through and resist the temptation to let it slip down the priority list again.<\/span><\/p>\n

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I also have the feature length script of\u00a0Cold Warrior\u00a0that I wrote some time ago. I haven\u2019t put it out there much yet, as it\u2019s an ambitious script and I was a lot less experienced when I wrote it. But it’s a passion project, and I\u2019m confident its time will come when I\u2019m ready.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Where can readers keep up with you? (social and whatnots go here)<\/b><\/div>\n
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https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/emily_greenwood_films\/<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.facebook.com\/emily.greenwood.902<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.emilygreenwood.co.uk\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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(Photo 01 courtesy of Willie Runte – Emily directing\u00a0Stop Dead<\/i>)
\n(Photo 02 Courtesy of Ralph Barklam – Emily directing actor\u00a0Eloise Littell in\u00a0Cold Warrior.<\/i>)
\n(Photo 03 courtesy of Willie Runte – Emily directing\u00a0Stop Dead<\/i>)
\n(Photo 04 courtesy of Willie Runte – Emily directing actor James Swanton playing The Still Man in\u00a0Stop Dead<\/i>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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