Lou Simon – HazMat

Tweet

By Briege McGarrity

Writer/director Lou Simon, known for The Awakened, is fast becoming one of the hottest up-and-coming female horror filmmakers in the US. Obsessed with haunted houses and scary stories from a young age, Simon’s dreams of carving out a successful career in a male-dominated are industry are becoming a reality.

Her most recent feature Hazmat was produced by White Lotus Movies and just won an award at the 2014 Berlin Independent Film Fest. It is also available on VOD channels such as ITunes, Google Play and Vudu, courtesy of Uncork’d Entertainment. HazMat, a suspenseful slasher flick with comedic input, tells the story of a group of friends who are trapped in an abandoned building with an axe wielding maniac, impressively played by Norbert Velez (Wall of Shame).

Ambitious, hard-working and multi-dimensional, Simon has already begun working on her next feature, Agoraphobia, a supernatural thriller starring horror icon, Tony Todd, and Sharknado’s Cassandra Scerbo. IFQ enjoyed chatting to Lou about her approach to making HazMat and strategies for shocking her audience and getting films completed on a low budget.

Independent Film Quarterly (IFQ):  I’m curious, why are you drawn to the horror genre?

Lou Simon (LS): I’ve been fascinated by scary or mysterious things since I was just a little girl.  It’s not something you can really explain, but I know that a lot of people feel like me so I know I’m in good company.

IFQ: Tell us more about the concept in HazMat – it was smart, suspenseful and very well paced.

LS: Thank you so much.  I wanted to explore the pretty bad stuff that we consider entertainment these days, and how reality TV has become just about pushing boundaries in order to shock viewers.  So I wanted to ask the question, what if a prank on a reality show goes so wrong that the pranksters become the victims?

IFQ: How was the translation from script-to-screen in this slasher tale – did you feel the actors brought out the realism you needed?

LS: Considering the time constraints we had, I think the actors did an amazing job. When you only have time to do a few takes of each scene, it puts a lot of stress on them to get it right.  People don’t understand that even the best actors in Hollywood have dozens of takes to get it right.

IFQ: You are now a modern horror indie filmmaker? What do you think about that? Do you think it’s a big deal that there are not many noted female horror filmmakers?

LS: I guess I’m still getting used to the idea.  The reception to HazMat has been so much more than I ever expected.  I think our time is coming.  The number of female horror fans has increased dramatically in the last few years, and now we make up more than half of the paying audience.  It’s only a matter of time before Hollywood catches up to the numbers.  It’s already happening with Hispanic audiences, for example, that they made an entire “Paranormal Activity” movie geared toward the growing demographic.

IFQ: Like most indie flicks, financing can be an issue. How did you manage to see the project through?

LS: I’m very lucky to have very supportive friends, family and past clients that saw the potential in the script.  I think you build a relationship with people that they know that you’re either going to make this a success or die trying.

IFQ: Your camera work was excellent – was the mix of handheld and film camera challenging?

LS: When I originally wrote the first draft, I wasn’t sure how much money I’d be able to raise, so I wrote it so it could be entirely done from the POV of the show’s cameras.  Once I was able to raise enough money, I kept the scenes that I felt worked well as POV shots and just shot the rest like a “normal” film.  I felt that the POV shots made sense because it was part of the show, as opposed to having the audience think, “yeah, right, you’d keep filming through that?”

IFQ: Is it true the props for the film were just lying around the abandoned building?

LS: All the furniture, the signs, and set dressings were just left behind in the building.  The only thing I can think of that we brought was the lockers.  Other than that, when we needed something, we just needed to go rummaging through the place to find something we could use.

IFQ: How was the casting process? That axe wielder was relentless. What exactly were you looking for in terms of slasher protagonist types?

LS: Above everything else, tolerance for heat.  It was 80 degrees in a building with no air conditioning, and inside a hazmat suit.  I kept thinking that Norbert Velez, who plays our slasher Hazmat, was going to pass out at any moment, but he took it like a real trooper.  He also did a great job of looking and moving in such a cool, imposing way!

IFQ: Indeed he did, I’m even more impressed with Norbert. What is challenging about making a slasher apart from arousing fear in your audience of course?

LS: What I found hardest was thinking up of ways of killing people with an axe.  I wanted him to only use the axe, and not find different tools.  I had to make a list and go checking it off as it happened to each character.

IFQ: How was the experience of releasing the film?

LS: We got very lucky, because we got a sales rep almost immediately after we had completed post production.  Horror is one of the few genres that if it looks decent, they will come looking for you.  We got contacted by several sales reps and distributors, actually.

IFQ: Are you surprised about official selection as well as awards on the film’s festival circuit journey?

LS: You’re always surprised by both.  It makes me extremely happy for the cast and crew who worked so hard on it, and deserve all the props for making the film what it is.

IFQ: Can we expect a sequel?

LS: I would definitely love to do a sequel of it.  I still have some kills with the axe that I didn’t get to do on this one, and I need to check off the rest of the list!