You are now listening to post-mortem with Mick Harris, where the most influential

voices in horror cinema will spill their guts, literally, to the renowned horror director, writer, and producer.

Now here's your host, Mick Garris.

I'm Mick Garris and this is post-mortem. It's 2017 and it's still news that there's a horror

anthology movie out with five woman filmmakers. How can that be? Haven't we evolved beyond that bullshit by now?

XX wears its gender proudly on its bloody sleeve and it's filled with the

frights we delight in. It's just a good movie and it's a shame that it took so much

struggle and heartache to get it off the ground.

It's not that female directors are anything new.

Dorothy Arsner was making Hollywood movies from musicals to melodramas from the 20s through the 40s. Actress Ida Lupino turned to directing in the

50s and made some impressive noirs from the hitchhiker to the bigamist.

Lena Wirtmuller ruled the art house cinemas of the 70s. There were even horror schlach misters, or schlockmistresses like Doris Wishman in the 60s and Stephanie Rothman in the 70s.

Penny Marshall and Nancy Myers have created many successful comedies over the last couple of decades

and Catherine Bigelow made waves in the horror genre in the 80s with near dark. The shame is that it's so easy to single

them out. The fact that we have to even categorize films of any kind by gender or

ethnicity is kind of mysterious. Storytelling is storytelling, and who gives a damn about the

source? Two of the filmmakers from XX are with me today.

Yovanka Vukovic, who went from being editor

of the Canadian horror magazine Roo Morg to filmmaker,

and Karun Kusama, who just happened

to make my favorite movie of last year, The Invitation.

This is post-mortem with Mick Garris.

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