Anna Spooks Interview

CoM: What got you into horror?

When I was a kid I was always obsessed with spooky things, and would watch things like Scooby Doo and Tim Burton movies constantly. I first discovered horror when I was around 8 years old, and one of my older brothers decided to show me The Exorcist. I laughed at first, then was shocked, and then laughed again, but was left with the imagery for weeks afterwards. The slight fear turned into a desire to watch more, but my brother had obviously gotten in trouble for showing me that film, so he then showed me Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca as a lighter option. It was my first black and white movie, and also the first time I realised horror didn’t mean a film needed to be gruesome. I was fascinated from there on out! 

CoM: Your sculptures are so cool! How long does it usually take to make a piece? 

Thank you! Time to make completely depends on the piece really. Some designs I think of are super quick and only take about 10 minutes to sculpt, and 10 minutes to paint, but more detailed pieces take a whole lot longer. The Creature From the Black Lagoon hand that I sculpted, and is now used as the trophies for the Scared For Your Liife film festival, took almost a week to sculpt due to size and detail, especially as I had to use several different reference pictures to find what detail was needed. I started sculpting because I’ve always been fascinated with stop motion animation, and I intended to start making my own short films, but started by practicing making figures and props. I will eventually create puppets for short spooky films though. 

CoM: Can you tell us more about the festival, how did you get involved with that, and how does it feel to be judging films? That must be exciting, but I can imagine it’s a lot of work.

The festival is called Scared For Your Liife, and it is a short horror film festival that is part of the Long Island International Film Expo. Our podcast, Hauntsville Cryptcast, were lucky enough to be asked by the directors of LIIFE to host and judge the festival as Anthony is both a host of the podcast, and has also been helping judge the film expo for quite a few years now. We judge the festival along with our friend Jon from Moonlight Madness Reviews, who may as well be a part of the podcast team by now! The festival is super exciting, but definitely hard work! Sitting through every submission, judging and scoring them to decide which will make it into the festival, then scoring those selected for winners of each category, and setting up for the festival is all hard work, but so worth it. We are already accepting submissions for this year’s festival, which is open to any filmmaker, from anywhere in the world. The festival takes place in Long Island, New York, and we were lucky enough to host it at my favourite venue- The Long Island Puppet Theater, which is the most magical place I’ve ever been.