Every week Robert Saucedo shines a spotlight on a horror movie worth checking out. Today: My kid could film that.
Emily Hagins is a 12-year-old girl with a dream — it just so happens her dream involves gallons of fake blood, decapitated heads and as many volunteer zombies as she can wrangle up from the shoppers at her local grocery store.
Emily wrote and directed her first feature-length film over the course of two years — struggling every step of the way. Although she had the passion, Emily didn’t necessarily have the experience or the know-how and she made nearly every mistake an amateur filmmaker could — from recording over footage she had shot the previous day to mismanaging the time of her cast and crew. She persevered, though, and before Emily finished middle school she had shot her very own zombie movie. Not too shabby considering the fact that when I was 12, I was still playing with action figures in my backyard.
Directors Justin Johnson, Aaron Marshall and Erik Mauck followed Emily over the course of her first film production — from the initial stages of development and planning, through the lengthy film shoot (extended by the fact that Emily could only shoot on weekends and school holidays) and finally covering Emily as she premiered her movie at the world-famous Alamo Drafthouse theater in her hometown of Austin, Texas.
Zombie Girl: The Movie is a sometimes humorous, other times touching look at a young girl perusing her dream. Emily’s dream wouldn’t have amounted to very much, though, if it weren’t for the loving support of her parents — especially her mother.
Megan Hagins, Emily’s mother, is the best possible kind of pageant mother — supportive of her daughter’s passions without letting her own dreams overwhelm her child’s life and twist it into a cruel reflection of a mother’s ambitions. Between juggling a full-time job and her duties as a mother and wife, Megan worked as Emily’s tireless producer throughout the production of Pathogen. She struggled behind the scenes — helping the young filmmaker coordinate and plan her shoot, design and build special effects and even finish the film’s editing.
Megan threw herself into Emily’s project and the two sometimes clashed because of it. Emily, like most children, is a whirlwind of ideas, concepts and dreams. Her mind going in a million different directions, she doesn’t necessarily take the time to properly plan out a day’s shooting schedule.
That’s where Megan comes in. Like any film producer, Megan is the voice of reason — reigning in Emily’s sometimes-lofty ambitions to a manageable level while doing her best to provide the resources her daughter will need in order to bring as much of her vision to the screen as she possibly can.
Because Emily is a burgeoning filmmaker who is 90 percent passion, 10 percent planning, Megan is oftentimes overwhelmed by her daughter’s movie — but boy does she try her best to make it happen.
Zombie Girl: The Movie is required viewing for all aspiring filmmakers. The documentary perfectly captures that infinite enthusiasm that fills those lucky kids who are able to find something that really interests them while they are still young. When I was in high school, I used to make my own movies with my friends. Watching Emily prepare for her shoot by drawing storyboards, plan daily shoot schedules and audition a cast of characters, I was embarrassed by how more professional this 12-year-old girl was in filming her feature-length zombie movie — even when she wasn’t at her most professional.
Through hell and high water, Emily shot Pathogen — covering neighborhood children with makeup and oozing sores, staging computer effects-filled shots and even making her own dead kittens using fake blood and stuffed animals.
Zombie Girl: The Movie may not be especially slick in its production value (it does have a snazzy score by Christopher Thomas) or feature frame-to-frame hilarity like some other amateur movie making documentaries out there such as American Movie or Best Worst Movie, but it does have plenty of heart. The filmmakers were clearly as passionate about Emily as she was of her film and it shows. The film captures some really raw footage of a young girl struggling to capture her vision on camera — and her mother struggling to keep up without loosing her mind.
Emily was lucky enough to live in a town like Austin where a pre-teen girl who enjoys horror movies can really thrive. With the support of local luminaries such as Harry Knowles (creator of aintitcool.com) and Tim League (founder of the Alamo Drafthouse), Emily was put in a better position to succeed than most aspiring children filmmakers get. What sets Emily apart, though, is that she did not rest on her few lucky breaks — she pushed herself (and her mother along with her) to chase her dream and finish the movie.
I haven’t had the chance to see Pathogen yet so I can’t really speak to the final results of Emily’s two years struggling to make a movie but I will say this — Zombie Girl: The Movie is an inspiring portrait of a young artist who, if she continues to nurture her passion for film and thirst for knowledge, will be somebody to watch in the next ten years.
Even if Emily doesn’t have the talent, somebody who has this must desire and support from friends and family will find a way to grow whatever seed of skill she does possess until it is a mighty oak of filmmaking power.
To learn more about Emily Hagins and to support her future films, visit her on the web at www.cheesynuggets.com.
Robert Saucedo welcomes suggestions for other movies to cover in future installments of this column. Follow Robert on Twitter @robsaucedo2500.
