Texas Chainsaw Massacre Cast on Crushing Horror Stereotypes
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Watch out! This post contains spoilers.
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Watch out! This post contains spoilers.
POPSUGAR: What are some of your favourite horror films?
Sarah Yarkin: I'm not a big horror movie person. I'm scared of basically everything, including the dark. So I hadn't seen this movie until I got the role and watched it, but as far as horror movies go — and I think these count — I love "Get Out." I think that's just an iconic, incredibly smart movie. And I also love "Us."
Elsie Fisher: I really love John Carpenter's "The Thing." That's really fun because it mixes man versus nature and psychological horror. I really like a lot of newer stuff that's coming out like "Hereditary," obviously amazing. I loved "Us," but I also love like "Gravity," which isn't technically classified as a horror, but I find it horrifying.
PS: What attracted you to your respective roles?
SY: What I really liked, once I had talked to the directors and I read the script, was that they were like, "We don't want this to be the classic hot, tall blonde in a mini skirt, running and being naked and screaming in the woods. That's not what we're making. We want this to be a person with career ambitions and love for her sister." And I think that really came through, and I love that it didn't just feel like an overly sexualized woman who's helpless. I feel like Melody has these moments where she's kind of a badass, and that the real love in this movie isn't for a guy or sex or anything — it's for her sister.
EF: Connecting survivors of trauma to horror was really important to me because a lot of people in real life who are survivors of trauma find themselves drawn to these darker genres. I really wanted to tackle [Lila's storyline] with as much nuance as possible . . . I felt like I had a lot of freedom to really be able to play someone who has this trauma, but then also is not defined by it and can still be a little assh*le teenager to her sister.