A Q-and-A with Cindy Martin

Doug Mann sits down with the star of the upcoming horror movie Women's Studies.

On the last day of the FanExpo I was flagged down by a tall man with a beard who offered me a press kit and screener for his new film Women's Studies. He turned out to be Lonnie Martin, an indie horror director, who directed me to the booth of his production company Ningen Manga, where I interviewed Lonnie's wife Cindy Martin, a partner in the company and one of the stars of the film.

CM: My husband and I Lonnie Martin - my name is Cindy Martin - we're the owners and producers of Ningen Manga Productions. We made Women's Studies - we produced the film together and then I also acted in the film. I played the role of "Mary".

DM: What's the Mary character do?

CM: Mary's character is the "good girl", her and her friends. Her car breaks down, "oh my goodness!", and she winds up stranded on the campus of this women's academy and at first we think "they're fantastic, they think all the things that we do, and isn't this a women's utopia", and then we realize they're absolutely crazy, murderous and insane and we have to fight the good fight.

DM: It's funny about the title Women's Studies - in Canada we have a number of university departments that are called "women's studies" - do you have that in America too?

CM: We do...

DM: ...and they tend to be hotbeds of a sort of old-fashioned radical feminism that not a lot of young women or a lot of young men appreciate. Is that fair to say for the US too? And how did that influence the film?

CM: I actually think that women's studies today, at least in America, the people that we have encountered, is not so radical - they're definitely not killers!

DM: Oh no, I'm not suggesting that... other than careers (that's a joke).

CM: [Cindy laughs, thankfully] I don't even think that they're as radical or aggressive against men these days. Honestly, they could have been green aliens in the film as opposed to feminists.

DM: So the title was accidental, or the location was accidental? What I'm trying to get at, is there any sort of political agenda in this film?

CM: Cults and terrorism, Lonnie's interests. My husband Lonnie, who is also the writer and director of the film, is interested in gender studies, and women in film... So that was what he was exploring while writing it. Simply because he enjoys that subject.

DM: So you're out of Washington, DC?

CM: Yeah, we are.

DM: That's an unusual place to have a film company, isn't it?

CM: No, it's not actually. There's a lot of film in Washington, DC. There are a lot of people who work in the industry on a day-to-day basis and make their living that way because there's so much government and industrial work and voice-over going on. So you have a lot of people on the weekend who are really hungry for narrative work.

DM: And did you film in Washington?

CM: We filmed in Washington DC, Maryland, and Northern Virginia.

DM: I've been to Baltimore and throughout that area - is there a lot of interesting spaces you can use there that aren't that hard to pay for or get to access to, or was it done in the studio?

CM: Nothing was done in the studio, we had a lot of spaces from friends and family and acquaintances that we got. We were also lucky enough to get to use the Bolger Center, which is the United States' Postal Service conference center, that serves as the campus of the school.

DM: This scene that we're watching here on the DVD, where did that take place?

CM: That is actually, what you're watching, that is not from Women's Studies. That's from Helena Hussy of Horror, that's a web series that we do, it's free online on YouTube, hussyofhorror.com is where you can access her. She's a comedy. We do five-to-ten minute videos each month with her.

DM: Riffing off this, Women's Studies looks like a slasher, right? To a certain extent?

CM: It's more like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, like a psychological thriller.

DM: Do you know about the theory of the "final girl"?

CM: Yes!

DM: (Laughter) You do, good! Is there a final girl, without giving away the plot, in Women's Studies?

CM: We do indeed have a final girl.

DM: Is she anything like Jamie Lee Curtis?

CM: (Hesitatingly...) I would say so, she's all into using found objects, which is where our giveaway tennis balls come from.

DM: Maybe one last question... Invasion of the Body Snatchers - I think it was remade in the 70s... and slashers came through the 70s and 80s - in that period of horror, influences on you and your husband?

CM: Very much so.

DM: Which ones though, which directors and films?

CM: Which films? That's truly a question for Lonnie. He loves Night of the Living Dead, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the older 60s and 70s-type films.

DM: How about Nightmare on Elm Street... or even Carrie going way back?

CM: Lonnie enjoys watching slashers today, but his favourite types of films are the kinds of things that we write and we like to produce and work on, are really ones where it's not in-your-face slashing horror - there's actually not that much blood. It's more twisting in your head.

DM: Blood horror or psychological horror?

CM: Psychological.

DM: OK thanks.

CM: Sure!