Mother, May I? is out now in select theaters and available on VOD/digital platforms.

Check out the full list on Horrorville here

Possession (1981)
This is the most horrific film I have ever seen. Isabelle Adjani’s performance shook me to my core. The actual body horror, when it finally comes, feels like a pleasant release from the real horror in the film — the pain people are capable of inflicting on the ones they love. What a bleak, tragic account of love gone wrong. But it is such a powerful example of how to have the horror of a film come directly out of an honest portrayal of a domestic couple.  

Profondo Rosso (Deep Red) (1975)
I love this movie so much. The camera, the score, the colors… It’s hard to articulate what it does to me. It just *feels* like something that only movies can do. And it shows that the basic elements of a horror film — the blood, the props, the screams — can be used to create art. And it’s also just so fun! No matter what’s going on in my life, watching this movie is a shot of adrenaline that makes me want to get back on set again ASAP. 

Cries and Whispers (1972)
This movie is not fun. It’s agony. It is also fearless. It unearths the horror of dying and what it does to the people left behind. On a technical level, the performances are remarkable. And the camera manages to feel deliberate without ever getting in the way. This was a huge influence on Mother, May I? 

Don’t Look Now (1973)
This movie seeps into you, sticky and insidious. It has a dizzying effect that is greater than the sum of its parts. The performances are truthful and direct in the devastation of loss and grief. But the film is still so entertaining. The camera language is wild, it casts a spell on you — unsurprising for anything Roeg touched. He was so unafraid to experiment. But for all of its expressiveness, it’s still rooted in the characters’ recovery (or lack thereof) from grief. The connection between the camera language and the themes and emotions of the film were a huge influence. 

Blue Velvet (1986)
I saw Blue Velvet at age 13 at my friend’s house (that friend, it just so happens, is Marc Riordan, the brilliant composer of Mother, May I?). Maybe no other piece of art has affected me as much as this one. Like it opened a portal into the darkness within us that I never fully was able to crawl out of. Marc and I went back to it again when we started discussing the score for our film. It was such a cornerstone in both of our lives and really kicked off our collaboration. 

Cape Fear (1991) 
I love how bonkers this film is. A director who could do anything showing us, at every moment, something we haven’t seen before. It’s Mannerist in every sense, and it’s just delicious. Aside from the expressive camera and the Bernard Herrmann score, Max Cady’s over-the-top outfits were also an influence on our film. Cape Fear taught me that you’re allowed to have fun even when you make a “serious” movie. 

Wake in Fright (1971)
Few movies have stuck with me the way this one has. It casually, almost indifferently, presents you with a world that has descended into hell. Every character feels like some kind of Boschian goblin who has crawled up from the underworld. As nightmarish as everything is, it also feels true to reality. It does what I love best in a good genre film: elevate what’s buried beneath our world to a place that allows us to see its essential truth. 

Kill List (2012)
This film has the logic of a nightmare. It weaves three disparate filmic subgenres into one cohesive journey. I’m not sure how Wheatley pulled that off. The film managed to create its own inimitable journey. I find this film immensely inspiring. It has been, in my opinion, severely neglected as one of the best genre films of the last decade. 

Knife in the Water (1963)
I know this is stretching it a bit in terms of horror… But this film is so masterful in its ability to create tension with the simplest ingredients. This film shows what you can do if you’re lucky enough to be able to work with great actors (regardless of budget). There is so much menace in the film, a simmering violence just waiting to explode. You can learn so much about blocking and camera from the deceptively simple way this film was shot.