Throughout the month of February, FEARnet will be profiling Women Who Make You Scream in celebration of Women in Horror Month. Read our first interview with writer and WiHM founder Hannah Neurotica, our second interview with Jovanka Vuckovic, our third  interview with filmmakers Jen and Sylvia Soska, and our fourth with Viscera Film Festivals’ Shannon Lark, and our fifth with blogger Heidi Martinuzzi below.

You have to respect blogger Heidi Martinuzzi’s honesty. The FanGirltastic.com founder and former writer for Film Threat and Bloody Disgusting is going to tell you exactly what she thinks and she doesn’t care if you don’t like it.  Her directness and wit have won her and ever-expanding cult following. But she’ll also admit that, in the world of filmmaking, her stance often has a polarizing effect.

“It has almost nothing to do with horror and almost everything to do with how drunk I was. I had a very bad reputation there for a while, but now I stay away from the fake horror industry bullshit as much as possible and concentrate on my own projects,”  she said  “There's a LOT of double-standard bullshit out there, especially if you're a woman … Most men in the film industry don't really see a point to women who don't either fuck them or go away - they can't imagine why I'm here and have opinions about them and don't always tell them they're geniuses. I'm 'unsupportive' of men's projects if I say something like, ‘Oh, that The Hills Run Red by Dave Parker was not a good film.’

But the men that criticize me for my honesty and opinions have zero inclination to come out and support women filmmakers. They just don't care. They're all friends with each other, and they only care about who can help them with their careers. There's not much real camaraderie - at least not in my experience as a woman. In order to be a part of the 'cool' group of horror industry people and be a female, you should be reealllllly hot and young or be famous or be rich - you have to help them in some way to be worthy of being a friend to the men. If you're like them, just a filmmaker, you're nothing to them.
 
So, yeah. Saying things like that has gotten me into a lot of trouble. Can't wait for people to read this and send me some more, new hate mail about how unsupportive I am of the low budget blah blah blah. To them I say, ‘Thanks for coming out to support Viscera ... OH WAIT! You never have.’”

One of the things I respect most about Martinuzzi’s work is her obvious sense of humor. That’s not to say everything produced in the genre has to be self-referential, wink-wink nod-nod fest, or a slapstick slaughter romp (ahem, Hatchet) but sometimes a little laughter makes the chills that much scarier.  Martinuzzi agreed with that, and points out that it’s all part of enjoying the fantasy.

“Humor is important to everything,” she said.  “Maybe I'm just flattering myself, but humor is a sign of intelligence. Boring, dumb people are never funny. Also, humor lets us know that sometimes it’s okay to laugh at grisly and gruesome images, that it's okay to root for killing zombie children, or, at someone being killed onscreen. It's okay to feel really inappropriate humor - I think we're too politically correct and we don't let each other just fucking let loose and enjoy the fantasy of what's onscreen.”

When Martinuzzi isn’t working on FanGirltastic, starring in a Troma splatter-fest or directing her own films, she’s one-half of the Viscera Film Festival team that also includes Shannon Lark.

 “Viscera came from Shannon's desire to create a DVD festival of short horror made entirely by women,” she said. “She always wanted to put the films onscreen in an official film fest, and I was eager to help her do that.”

And that’s what she did. Viscera is accepting submissions until February 28, so female filmmakers out there you’ve still got a little time to submit.

Read on to find out more about how women are rewriting their roles in the horror industry, how Martinuzzi is working to record their history and which horror icon’s head she loves to see fly through the air.

FEARnet: Most horror fans have their thing - Giallo, Hack n' Slash, Satan, Evil Babies, Scarotica. What's yours?
 
Heidi Martinuzzi: Nazi Zombies! And also small fuzzy things that kill you - think Critters, Ghoulies, etc.

Whether it’s because of the blood or the boobs, there’s a popular notion that horror movies belong to men. But you and I know more than a few women who embrace them wholeheartedly. What do you think it is about horror that specifically appeals to women?
 
Horror is universally appealing - there's no reason why it would particularly appeal to men as opposed to women unless we've been telling ourselves for the past 6,000 years that women are delicate creatures who hate violence.

Which is bullshit.

Horror gives men and women the ability to escape into a fantasy world where they can explore the disgusting, the gruesome, the sick, the demented, the 'wrong', the terrifying - in a safe way. It can be cathartic to the viewers and the filmmakers; it can, like great art, express inner tensions and desires that there is no other way to express. It can also express sadness, pain, and grief.

Do you feel like it’s necessary to balance the "gore" and the "whore" in your work? If so, how do you go about doing that?

I never do anything because of how people perceive me - I gave up on that a long time ago. If there's a bit of 'whore' in me or what I do it's because it's genuinely there - maybe I'm a whore that day. If I express a desire to enjoy gore, it's because it feels right at the moment. Women need to stop pretending to be something they're not to impress people who don't give a fuck who they are. I genuinely just try to be myself, which is why there are people who don't like me!
 
Historically, women have carved out a space for themselves in the genre through playing the victim.  Have you seen a change in that over the last few years and how do you view your place in the annals of horror?

Women's didn't carve shit. Men carved that role out for women. It was the only acceptable place for a woman in a horror film. Or women could be the overly sexual demon/vampire, because women who take charge of sex are scary demon whores. Horror has reflected MEN's fears and ideas about sexuality for the past century; we now have a unique opportunity, as we approach equality, to allow women to rewrite their roles as whatever they want them to be.

I view myself first and foremost as a journalist, then as a feminist, and third as a huge fucking geek who loves watching horror movies and everything about them. I've been in a few, I wrote one, and I love to write about them. I'm not going to let Facebook's current trends influence me to believe I should act or think a certain way about my role in the horror industry. I'm a disseminator of information (and also my opinion) and I'm willing to have people pissed off at me in order to tell the truth about how I feel. I hope I can record the history of the women's directing in horror movement so that future fans can enjoy learning about them. If I can do that, I'll be a content woman.

If you could cast a spell and change one thing about the genre right now, what would it be?
 
I'd prevent untalented men from getting great opportunities to keep directing movies when clearly they have no talent. I'd give opportunities to talented people only.

Who do you see as the up-and-coming woman to watch in horror?
 
Not to sound like a broken record, but Jen and Sylvia Soska are going to have a huge career making real films within the next decade. They do great quirky violence, and I think there's a bigger audience out there who will love their stuff. I think in the next 5 years you'll see them making films on the level of Hatchet or Cabin Fever in terms of budget and distribution.
 
I also think there are some great horror bloggers out there who have a lot of talent and a lot of knowledge. Many of them will take the leap to legit journalist and add to our fandom about horror by writing books.

Laurie Strode, Ellen Ripley, Jennifer Hills, Jennifer Corvino, or Rhoda Penmark?
 
Barb Coard from the original Black Christmas. Followed by Ellen Ripley.

Speaking as a fan, what horror film is a must-see?

Suspiria- the most beautiful-looking horror movie ever made.

What's the all-time greatest Final Girl moment?
 
The slow-mo hack-off of Mrs. Voorhees head in the original F13, of course!

Right now Martinuzzi is finishing her master's degree in journalism and working on book about female horror film directors. She also plans to keep FanGirltastic.com up and running as long as she’s alive. Find out more about the Viscera Film Festival here.