Bystander Director Breaks Her Female Directed Rape Revenge Film

"The horrible, incredible female characters always have strong women," she said. "I think the horrible changes over the past decade are the films that are becoming more and more women are being made by people, not the harsh hammers." , instead of a nuanced little way to solve this problem, talk about women’s problems across textures. Now, we are the guy with the Big Hammer saying, “It’s time to listen. We're going to stuff the glass into your eyes, stop talking about male gaze. '"

McAndrews smashed the scene with her directorial debut Batisters, which Via Dread is available on VOD. The movie is about Abby (Brandi Botkin), a young woman who visits a fraternity party with her friends who are drugs, raped and chased by men. However, Abby meets a couple (Jamie Alvey and Garrett Murphy) who are willing to help her fight back with the kidnappers.

The Rape Revenge Horror Subgenre has always been fascinated by McAndrews, editor-in-chief of the genre news site Dread Central.

"I've written a lot about this before, but I'm a sexual assault survivor," she said. "I've been raped a few times and it's a rough talk, but I think it's an important point. Rape Revenge movies are very interesting in how to deal with this topic. At first, I was fucked by movies like "I spit on your grave", "ms.45". Always focus on the exploitation part of it, which is more about wonder . Then I saw “Revenge,” the film by Coralie Fargeat, and that was when my mind and life changed. I realized “Oh, sexual assault and the media can be portrayed in many different ways, and it’s still important in the genre , but it is not this kind of exploitation. "I think that's when I realize that women and people who are going through these things have a more interesting perspective when portraying sexual assaults. I'm a camp and we can't shy away from these things on the camera."

Director Mary Beth McAndrews is in "Onsight."

"The Bystander" is written by Alvey, who has researched and revised the script for about eight years. McAndrews wrote his master's thesis on rape revenge movies and quickly understood Alvey's new vision.

"From an academic perspective, this genre has been a big interest for me," McDrews said. "I read her script and thought, 'It's amazing. We need more movies like this." I like images of people wearing bridesmaid dresses, hunting down fraternity boys."

From there, she tagged the script as a fear center and urged them to make the movie through their fear release tags. Since 2017, the Independence Flag has been developing low-budget horror awards such as "The Golem", "Lodgers" and "Directors' Layouts". After McDrews showed them her vision, the horror team asked her if she wanted to take charge of the film and respect her opinion of the material once she signed up.

"Jamie and I agree with this movie, we won't show any attacks," she said. "We hope the consequences will get you into the headspace of the character, but we don't want to show any clear violence against the young girl in it. Behavior. Obviously implied, that's the way we have to figure out. How do we sell these boys' dangers without making these teenage assaults a spectacle of a "tortured" movie? Horror is often about watching women The horror of body torn apart, exploited, cut down, murder. So what happens to a boy? That’s the process of thought and guiding spirit, from the wonders of our violence and the film.”

Inner storytelling in “Bysayers” elicits various reactions at different festival screenings, with McDrews pointing to the interesting gender divide between the reactions it elicits.

"Personally, everyone is very supportive," she said. "But then you keep on using Letterboxd, I shouldn't read the reviews, but I'm always curious. I've seen a lot from female audiences who have 5 stars, 4 stars : “I like what this is doing, I like what we are talking about. "I'll then see people who look like male audiences, or male audiences, pick some of the more independent aspects of the movie. I won't feel resentful about it. We yes Low budget movies. I'm not perfect. It's fun to see who focuses on the subject and then focuses on technical execution. You'll look at what you're looking at, but it's really fun to see the gender gap. "

“When I said it was a rape revenge movie, men had a lot of really funny reactions and they said, ‘Oh, I don’t like those movies’ Immediately,” McDrews said. “A lot of the time it feels like they want to say, ‘I’m not that. They are ugly. I want to ask, 'Why? Why are you ugly? When you ask that, people do squirt a little bit. I mean not to make people uncomfortable, but to say, “Do you think it feels like a woman looking at a woman or a survivor experience?” Again, I think it’s all good-hearted, but seeing a man trying to image: "Oh, I'm not a bad guy, it's funny. I don't like watching those movies. I don't like watching women get raped. I didn't expect you exist All, but OK. "

Ultimately, McDrews said, “Onsighter” was the climax of everything she had as an artist, academic and fan.

"Being a director feels it's absolutely beautiful to stand next to the women who unknowingly encourage me," she said. "There is also a lot of things to solve... I think it caused a lot of undead in ways that I think helped. Things to suffer. We love therapy, the therapists are great, but I think it helps me to do some shutdown on certain things as well. My goal to get into this movie is to create something that might make someone feel represented, invisible and support stuff. I've heard of it from some people, so the goal has been achieved. But for more people to see this, especially younger audiences, I'm even more excited to see them for this The reaction of the movie.”