Interview with filmmaker Emily Hagins

Emily Hagins is not new to the horror filmmaking world, in fact, Emily debuted her first feature film Pathogen at the age of twelve. At the age of seventeen, her third feature film My Sucky Teen Romance premiered at SXSW. Since then Hagins has gone on to work on films and shorts such as her Cold Open segment for the Shudder exclusive, Scare Package, alongside studio Paper Street. 

Recently Paper Street Productions announced that Hagins had wrapped up working on her latest feature film Sorry About the Demon. What follows is a conversation between myself (Catherine) and Emily Hagins, discussing horror filmmaking, the horror world, Sorry About the Demon, and the future of film.

Cat: If you can give me like some ridiculous plot that I will just, I will give myself to the movie and I will suspend belief and be like, eh, 

Emily: I think I was watching. San Andreas, in a hotel room once. And it really like I had this, I guess, an epiphany can’t think of another word for it. It was just some scene that made me think if your characters believe what they're saying, the audience will believe what they're, what they're saying, what they're feeling.

If your characters don't believe what they're saying, then no one else will be on board with it. So all you have to do is have enough logic. Like it could be a really out there or crazy plot or idea or scene, but if your characters believe what you're saying, they're saying that's all you need.

That’s the beauty of movies, nothing has to be exactly realistic. I had to say this a lot on my most recent movie. Because it has some pretty wacky elements to it. Trying to justify it, like, this is why a demon would really like this or whatever. If your characters believe it, and your actors believe it, then hopefully your audience believes it too. 

C: You just wrapped up on your fifth or sixth feature?

E: Six. I mean, it can get a little bit confusing because some of the movies I made really early on when I was still a teenager, I don't talk about them as much. We just wrapped in the Summer. I want to say so we're just in post-production now. It's just been so exciting.

It was a huge honour to get to do another horror-comedy scene, a comedy, all of these things that we like. I think it's a hard genre to kind of get going because you know, there is are like comedy can be really subjective and someone's sense of humour might not match your sense of humour, even if you have the same sense of horror, you know, like it, it just, you got to have everything kind of click on all the levels to get a movie in the hard comedy genre.

I wrote this, four years ago, I want to say. And so it was super fun to get to make something that's like kinda came from my own heart and brain. It's like the first project in like 10 years I've gotten to do that was totally my own thing. So I felt really lucky. 

C: I'm excited because I haven't seen anything, but I'm on Google, like what can I find out about this movie? 

E: Not a whole lot to like, what can I say? What can I not say, I don't know yet we'll find out? John Michael's back, it was really awesome to work with him again and Shudder and Paper Street.

It just really felt like a nice reunion of everybody, especially cause we've all been in lockdown. So it was just so great to see all these faces again.  It's been a couple of years since we filmed our segment for that (Scare Package). 

We shot in Canada in the Toronto area and there was a hotel that let us film in their atrium. So the whole set was built basically in the atrium of this hotel and the crew and the cast stayed in the hotel.

So we were all in a bubble. We did our COVID tests, you know,  as much as I love making movies, I never want to put someone's health at risk. I never want to, see someone suffer. So luckily, no one got sick, it was very safe. It was also just nice because you wake up in the morning and walk downstairs. You don't have to drive home super tired or anything. It was, it was just a very, it's kind of like making a movie on a cruise ship or something. It’s like you’re just in that bubble the whole time, like a summer camp kind of thing. 

It's just like, you're just in that bubble the whole time and, uh, or like a summer camp kind of thing. But it was also, it felt safe because there weren't any, anyone who had. You know, not there the whole time they had to get tested before they can interact with anyone. And, and, you know, someone was running errands for us.

We had to be creative, but very safe, and luckily it was. It all worked out as far as I know. It was cool to have the whole thing built so we could get creative without sets. If we were like it’d be cool if the camera could just slide through the wall, we just cut out a hole in the wall. 

C: tell us about the movie because there's not a lot out there. I know that it is about a young man who loses love. 

E: Yeah, he ends up moving into a haunted house and, um, kind of, I guess the themes are about facing yourself and facing things that are hard for you. Um, but in a kind of sweet and funny way, and he's a.

It mostly takes place in this, this haunted house that has demons and ghosts, and he's learning how to, how to live with that and, and kind of his ex-girlfriend and the situation there. It's hard to, because the description they put also vague I'm like, how much can I say to make the movie sound interesting?

I don't know. I felt like it's like a big secret, like the new star wars movie or something, but he gets dumped and then he's trying to find a new place to live. That place turns out to be inhabited by evil spirits. Sorry about the Demon. Sorry about it. And you know, part of the joke is like he moves into this house. It's just, obviously creepy and haunted, but he has blinders on.

C: Should we expect to see some of those practical effects that you brought to Cold Open? Sorry about the Demon. 

E: We have practical effects for sure. We have some demonic stuff. Uh, and, um, I, there's a lot of, uh, just kind of fun possession elements in the movie and some, some kind of goofy, goofy things.

C:  What was your driving force behind maintaining that momentum in filmmaking from a young age through to where you are now. 

That's a good question. I feel like when I started off, you know, it's like, you're, you're learning about who you are, and I think this is why I do like and this, this movie is about adults.

A lot of my other work is about teenagers and young people that are kind of like learning about who they are because I feel like, this is kind of the defining years of my life, where I was when I was learning, I am a filmmaker like that's what's in my heart and that's part of my identity. 

I was also growing up into a person at the same time. So that those two things kind of became both parts of my DNA. All my morals and who I am as a person, as well as a filmmaker and those things, grew together. And so I think I've always been drawn into coming of age stories for that reason.

This movie (Sorry About The Demon) is kind of a coming of age story. They're just in their twenties. Cause I feel like when you're in your twenties, you’re still learning a lot about who you are and you're being told you're an adult, but you're, there's still so much to learn. So you want to find the balance as a filmmaker, you want to find the balance between.

Physically in addition to growing up, you kind of look like an adult, but there's still a lot of things about the world that terrifies you. That's something that was influencing kind of the characters and their fears and their relationships in this movie, um, was kind of like what happens if you still feel like you're coming of age? You know, you're, you're an adult quote-unquote.

C: Your mid-twenties, you're still emotionally developing and there's still this identity searching and where am I without these things? Because those things meant something to me 10 years ago, but I feel like they should still mean something to me now, but I'm 25.

E: that's a big, that's a really big part of, of the movie, kind of figuring out who you are and what things matter to you as an adult, you know, how to prioritize those things in a way that is as meaningful.

I love directing, making a piece of storytelling that hopefully other people enjoy and feel resonates with them because that's what I like as a film fan. I love seeing someone else's art and feeling like it resonates with my heart. I just feel like I learned a lot of that when I was young.

That kind of propelled me into continuing as an adult. And it's hard because sometimes years go by between projects and then you're like, oh, I'm not good at this,  I'll never work again. And then something happens, you get, you know, the next thing. I don’t know if it gets easier, maybe it does. 

Some themes that I've incorporated into the movie, were interesting cause I wrote the movie pre-pandemic, but it is largely one location and it's like being trapped in a house, with himself and these fears. It just ended up being the perfect time to make a movie like that. 

 C: I have one last question and it is, um, what is some advice that you would give to young women who want to start making movies?

E: You know, don't let anyone tell you what you can't do. Always persevere. And if you feel like you can do it, you can do it, you know? Sometimes something that helps you make movies at a young age, I think, is that you don't know what you can't do. So you don't feel like the limitations.

Money and time. I was taping microphones to paint rollers. I was like, that'll work, you know? I felt like even if somebody was telling me,  like, I don't know if you can accomplish this.

I think the intentions are always good, but if you feel like you can make a movie and there's something you want to tell, you can do it. Now we have iPhones and other, hopefully easily accessible piece of equipment that you can go out with your friends, make something experiment, learn how to tell a story.