When we here at Nerdist heard about Emily DiPrimio, the 14 year old girl who ran a successful Kickstarter campaign for her slasher film Carver, which she wrote and directed, we were not only impressed but excited. DiPrimio premiered the trailer for Carver a few months ago, and we had the opportunity to talk with the first time director about her feature film debut, her love of horror, and what’s coming up next.
For fans of the genre, we all remember the beginnings of our love for horror. I asked Emily when her fandom began and she revealed, “I definitely think my dad helped me get that way when it comes to horror because he would always go to a horror movie and I’d say, ‘Can I go see it?’ And I was never allowed in the movie theater, obviously, since I was four, but it definitely pushed me that way. I loved them.” DiPrimio continued, “Pet Sematary was the first horror movie I watched all the way through. It definitely got me hooked on it.”
For DiPrimio, who was born after Wes Craven’s Scream both lampooned and reignited the slasher subgenre made popular in the 1980s, why did she choose to make Carver a slasher film? Said DiPrimio, “Well, I really love 80’s slasher films, that kind of genre, because I like the idea of an unstoppable killer like Michael or Jason, but I also like mystery aspects too of certain horror movies like My Bloody Valentine where you’re trying to guess who the killer is the entire time. With Carver, I really wanted to try to combine the two and that’s what I believe I did.”
So how was it for DiPrimio, who had been going to set with her dad Ron since she was little, to finally get behind the camera? The first-time director said enthusiastically, “It’s been amazing being able to do this. At first it’s a little scary, the first day on set was all kinds of emotions. You’re nervous, you’re excited that you’re finally here but I definitely got used to the process a few days in. I love the process, it’s amazing.”
As for the status of her feature film debut, can Emily offer any updates? “It’s going really well! We’re still in the editing process but everything’s going pretty smooth.” DiPrimio adds, “We’re not sure at all when the movie will be released because we have a lot of different offers coming at us right now and right now we’re so focused on getting the movie done so we can get the best possible thing out there to everyone. We don’t want to rush it and look back on it and think, ‘Oh, I wish I had added that scene.’ We’re definitely taking our time with it so we don’t have a release date yet.”
As she and her editor, Ron DiPrimio, get closer to finishing Carver, has she begun to think about her next project? “We have a couple ideas. We have a couple scripts we’re working out right now. A couple features, a couple shorts, so we have some ideas of what we’re doing next. Some of them are [slasher movies], not all of them. It’s kind of like a horror comedy that we’re thinking about doing next.” That makes sense since Emily cites Shaun of the Dead as one of her favorite movies and Edgar Wright as one of her favorite directors.
After running a successful Kickstarter and completing production on her first feature film all by the age of 14, I asked Emily if she had anything she wanted to say about this endeavor. The director told me, “I’m just really thankful for everyone who has supported me throughout this entire process. There’s a lot of people going against me for this because I’m something completely different going into this genre… because it’s mainly men in this genre, not women, let alone a 14 year old girl, but I’m really thankful for the people who have been supporting me because it does help when you have people supporting you but I don’t let the people who discourage me keep me down.”
We’ll keep you updated on Carver’s progress as announcements are made but in the meantime, for more from director Emily DiPrimio, check out her entry into Eli Roth’s “6 Second Scare” horror film contest titled “The Director.”
