Exclusive: Director & Star of KILLER KATE! Discuss Powerful Women in Horror
Killer Kate! arrives in select theaters and VOD platforms this Friday, October 26th. Dread Central was lucky enough to sit down with the film’s director, Elliot Feld, along with the star of the movie, Alexandra Feld (who goes by Alex). If you noticed the identical last names and suspected there’s a familial connection, you’d be correct: Elliot and Alex are husband and wife.
They met in high school where Alex tells us:
“We actually shared our first stage kiss together, but we weren’t ever together in high school. It wasn’t until seven years later when I happened to be in our hometown at the same time he was touring with his first feature film, General Education, which Elliot produced. After I saw that, we had coffee and dinner but he was only in town for the weekend. But we ended up getting engaged two and a half months after our re-meet.”
As you’ll discover during the conversation below, their convergence led to more than just the joining of two souls. Killer Kate! is more than just one couple’s collaboration as bringing the film to fruition proved to be a true family affair.
Dread Central: Elliot, tell us a little bit about how you got into filmmaking.
Elliot Feld: I moved out to California in 2007. I went to Brooks Institute of Photography; it’s a film school up by Santa Barbara/Ventura. I went there for 3 years after I transferred from Arizona State University. I wanted to get a better sense of the film industry and go to a more-focused film school. I graduated in 2010 and shortly after that, me and a few buddies made a film called General Education with Maiara Walsh and Larry Miller. While going to school and even filming General Education, I was working with my brother, David Feld, who’s a producer. He would hire me to work as a PA on commercial gigs. So, over the years, I was sort of assimilated into the commercial industry.
DC: Alex, how did you get into Acting?
Alex Feld: I’ve been acting pretty much acting my whole life and at age 10 I knew I wanted to be an actress. I started as a dancer and that spiraled into a lot of community theater. I’m kind of a music theater nerd. That’s where I started. I sing and dance, but that was never really my strength; acting was really my strength and my passion. I went to school briefly for theater my senior year in high school. It was an arts high school and that’s where Elliot and I met. So, theater is where I got my start, but I always knew I wanted to get out to Hollywood and get into television and movies.
DC: General Education was a comedy, so that means Killer Kate! is your first horror movie, right Elliot?
EF: Yeah, but I did a horror short. The director of Annabelle: Creation [David F. Sandberg] had a competition for 60-second shorts about a year ago. So, we made a little horror short called Mother Mary and since I’ve always enjoyed the horror genre, I was like, “Man, this is really fun!” It’s such a cool genre to explore. There aren’t a ton of rules, so you can have fun with it and really surprise your audience. At the same time, comedy (like in General Education) has always been a big part of my life. Dumb and Dumber is one of my favorite movies; I loved Jim Carrey growing up. So, I thought it would be fun to blend the two genres, sort of along the lines of what Sam Raimi does with the Evil Dead series.
Alexandra Feld
DC: And Alex, this is your first horror project as well, correct?
AF: This is my first horror project and it’s also my first feature film, period. I’m checking a few different boxes off my list here as an actress. I never really actually thought about acting in horror movies because I’m a scaredy-cat in real life, so this was a real intro to the entire genre for me. But I’ve grown to absolutely love it. When I first found out we were focusing on doing a horror movie, at first I was like, “Time for me to suck it up and really watch some of these classics.” But being able to look at it through that lens, as research, made it a lot easier for me. And Elliot loves the genre, so of course, it behooved me to watch a lot of movies that he loved—we just watched a lot of them during the day! Now that I’ve acted in a horror movie, it’s given me a completely different perspective because I know what goes into making them. And I’d love to do some more.
DC: That’s a perfect segue into what I was going to ask you next, Alex: Were there any specific characters or scenes in horror movies that influenced your portrayal of Kate in Killer Kate!?
AF: Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween was a really big one. I’ve always loved her as an actor in general but John Carpenter was also a big inspiration in the writing of Killer Kate! So, in an effort to get that vibe, I looked at the roles Jamie Lee Curtis takes on. Sigourney Weaver in Aliens is a really big one for me too. Of course, Elliot also loves Sarah Conner [from Terminator], so that was a big one. I learned a lot about myself as an actor and as a producer as well and how I’d like to do more of these roles.
DC: Let me give you a variation of the same question, Elliot: While writing and producing Killer Kate!, what horror movies, or movies in general, influenced you the most?
EF: I think my biggest influences in filmmaking overall come from the 1980s and 1990s; everything during that time felt really big. You had these blockbusters shot on 35mm playing on huge movie screens where everyone has their popcorns and sodas. James Cameron, John Carpenter, Sam Raimi, Steven Spielberg, all those guys just did such a great job of taking us to other worlds. I’m a big James Bond fan as well; I just love exploring around the world and all the action and intrigue and mystery. But I really love James Cameron in the action genre and John Carpenter in the horror genre.
DC: What sets Killer Kate! apart from other home invasion horror movies, or even other horror movies in general, Elliot?
EF: One thing [co-writer] Daniel Moya and I thought was important is that we really wanted to develop these characters and have good exposition—a nice long exposition where we could get a proper introduction to all of these people and, hopefully, fall in love with them; especially the four women who end up going to this cabin. We thought it would be fun to play with structure so we split the movie into halves. The first half is mostly: Let’s meet these girls, let’s get introduced to this world and establish a tone. Then the last half would be: No holds barred, everybody moving forward with the killers attacking and Kate fighting back. We thought that was a really fun thing to explore.
Of course, we stuck with a three-act structure; first, we had the crossing of a threshold when Kate goes to the cabin with her sister; then we have the second act in the cabin when they’re partying and the third act is Kate fighting back against the attackers. So, while we kept the three-act structure, we played with the idea of halves and I think there’s definitely a tonal switch, which I love. I know some people might watch it and be interested in why we went this way, but we just wanted to keep things fresh and keep people on their toes.
DC: So, having seen Killer Kate! I can say that the protagonist is different from many of horror’s stereotypically “final girls”. But rather than me analyzing that, I’d love to hear from you, Alex, about what sets Kate apart from most “final girls”?
AF: When Daniel and Elliot got together to write this movie, I had the unique opportunity to be in the room during a lot of their discussions. It was important for all of us, but for me in particular as an actor, that at its core, the relationships needed to be real and believable. Kate had to be a real person, and her relationship with her sister and her family was important to me. I think that’s something that’s different in the genre, or maybe films in general: Having really good stories for these characters. It might have even been a subconscious influence, but we needed Kate to be a real person and for the audience to care about these two sisters first and foremost.
DC: I know this is a tough question but I’ll ask it anyway: Is Killer Kate! a feminist horror movie?
AF: That’s so interesting because a lot of people have been bringing that up, which I love because it’s a really interesting conversation to have. But, to be honest, I don’t know what a feminist movie is. It’s a hot topic right now, so it’s great to hear people’s perspectives, but at the end of the day, we made a movie that we want to watch with a strong, smart, real woman at its core. We touched on female relationships and certainly, our main characters are all women. So, I think it’s definitely a female-driven movie; I don’t know that I’d call it a feminist movie, but we made a movie that I think people will want to watch and people are eager to see things that challenge the tropes we often see. You know, the stereotypes, the hot girl and the dumb girl, or the scene where a character’s shirt gets torn and we see her sexy bra. We dodged these pitfalls, but I’m not sure it was even intentionally. We just made a movie that seems to speak to everyone and if they take something else away from it, that makes me really happy.
Elliot Feld (bottom, left)
DC: Awesome answer. Elliot, same question.
EF: Is Killer Kate! a feminist horror movie? I don’t know how to answer that, but I will say it’s very much a female-driven horror thriller. I talked about this in another interview in connection to James Cameron. I love working with female leads; I love Sarah Conner [from Terminator], Rose from Titanic, and Ripley [from Aliens]. I just think it’s a really fun way to go and it’s still a fresh idea, so with Killer Kate! we wanted to make a female-driven action picture where the girls are badass and can fight back. I don’t know if that answers your question.
DC: Absolutely, great answer. Back to you, Alex: You spent the bulk of Killer Kate! literally covered with blood. That couldn’t have been easy! Tell us what that was like from a practical and an acting perspective.
AF: It was super fun! Blood is an accessory I hope to wear again in another movie. I think it added to the heightened, fun side of Killer Kate! A lot of people are, like, “Why wouldn’t you wipe the blood off your face?” and, yeah, in real life she might. But Kate is in this world where so many other things are more important than how she looks, and that’s the point. The last thing she cares about is how she looks and feels. She just wants to take care of her sister and get revenge on this other family. From an indie movie perspective, it was a really bold choice in retrospect because it was a huge challenge continuity-wise. We shot over ten days, so I was very impressed with our makeup and wardrobe and special effects departments because they had to recreate the look seven or eight times.
DC: So, what’s next for you guys?
EF: We’ve got a few horror movies were working on. We’ve also western we’re working on; Daniel and I are excited to explore the western action genre. The end of Killer Kate! almost turns into a western, or at least that’s what I like to think. I’d also like to do a straight-up horror movie, so whereas Killer Kate! is very much a blend of horror and comedy, I would like to do a movie like The Sixth Sense or The Shining where we dive straight into the horror genre and actually try to scare people. I tell people I don’t think Killer Kate! is necessarily super scary; it’s more of a thriller-horror ride. It’s a fun time at the movies. But hopefully, in the near future, we’ll get to make something that makes people jump out of their seats.
AF: We have one script called The Woods that we originally wanted to shoot before Killer Kate! and, oh man, it’s a juicy, meaty role that I would love to take on if schedules align. I can’t give too much away, but there’s another script that centers on the world of Dungeons & Dragons, which I actually play. So, I would be super excited to dive into that as well.
DC: Is there anything else you want to tell our readers before I let you go?
EF: The project was a family affair. My wife plays Kate and my whole family was involved. My brother was a producer and my dad executive produced it. Alex’s family was involved in wardrobe and the art department. We had a lot of fun making the film and we hope people will take a look.
Killer Kate! is playing in limited theaters starting on October 26th; it’ll be on iTunes and all the other VOD platforms as well. If you’re in Los Angeles you can check it out at Arena Cinema; if you’re in New York you can go to the Cinema Village. Check out our website, www.killerkatemovie.com, for other cities and follow us on social media!
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