With her role in the new short film Koreatown Ghost Story, Margaret Cho is interviewed by Fangoria's Meredith Borders, who gets the comedian/actress talking about her favorite horror films:

Once we started talking about the genre in general, Cho really opened up. Although, as she says, it’s always been what she watches most, she’s been especially diving in during the pandemic, and one South Korean television series stands out in this deeply weird time we find ourselves:

“Most recent, I would say that I really love Sweet Home, which is almost a K-drama of horror, but it’s the definition of post-apocalyptic – it elicits some emotions about the pandemic, too. There's the paranoia of other people, there's this thing that's outside that you don't understand what's happening. There's a lot of monsters that are taking different forms that could be like variants. It’s really scary, but it's also the classic horror story where the protagonist finds his strength within, which is really what horror is about. You want to see somebody dig deep and into their heart and survive this nightmare, and the best horror does that.”

When we got into her favorites – a challenging question for any horror fan – she had a lot of answers: “ghosty” movies, found footage, body horror, Halloween and the “entire series” of Friday the 13th. “I love horror with kids, because kids freak me out.” She listed lots of Asian horror films: The Untold Story, Ju-On, Ringu, the original Dark Water – “which ultimately became a true story with Elisa Lam.” Like the truest of genre purists, she adores a lot of pre-‘70s titles: Séance on a Wet Afternoon, The Haunting, anything Hammer or giallo. But when it comes to her absolute favorite, she avers that’d probably have to be Brian De Palma’s Carrie, although she acknowledges that what’s most special about Carrie transcends genre.

“Carrie is kind of everything, but what it really is, is this person – that's been victimized by all these people – finding her strength, but then Carrie becomes an antihero, too. So it’s really important to me.”

Also, Epic Film Guys Podcast kicks off "De Palmcast" series with episode on De Palma's Carrie

Welcome, Epic Film Fans, to the first episode of 2021, and we're starting the year with a bang: It's the inaugural installment of our new monthly series, De Palmcast! This year, we'll be celebrating the life and career of a true Master of Suspense, Brian De Palma... and what better way to start out than with his 1976 masterpiece, Carrie! In this blood-soaked 45th anniversary retrospective, Justin and LoySauce discuss Carrie's origins as a bestselling novel by Stephen King; the phenomenal cast lead by Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie; and the film's many technical achievements. Thanks as always for listening, and we'll see you at the movies!

I grew up in a very tiny town in Tunisia, not even the capital. There was no cinema. I’m VHS generation. We rented VHS. And mainly what was available was Bollywood movies…I found this amazing. I was a pre-teenager. But I never thought these movies were talking about me. And one day I went to the video clerk and said I watched all the Indian movies; you don’t have anything else? He said there’s this American horror movie. And I said yes! It was Carrie by Brian DePalma. I didn’t know who Brian DePalma was at the time. So I watched the movie and it was something very strange—it’s not the best Brian DePalma movie—but for me it was something because she’s a teenager, she just got her period, she’s bullied by her friend in high school—it was almost talking about me! She lived in a small city in the U.S. She had a strict mother. I was realizing, oh my god, cinema can talk about stuff (relatable to) me—a girl like me. It was a shift in my mind. So this is how it started, thinking that you can identify with heroes in movies. With Carrie!

I had a lot of visual ambition, but not enough money, so not enough time. I did the usual before shooting, precising every frame and what I wanted exactly. Making storyboards and visual references. Talking about it for days and days with my DOP. It’s like in this famous book by Sidney Lumet, the director of Network, “Making Movies,” talking about the metaphor of the mosaic. When you’re making a movie it’s like you have this tiny stone to paint, it’s like a shot, and nobody understands what you are doing since it’s a tiny stone, but as a filmmaker you should know where to put it, where its place is in the big mosaic. So, when I heard this I thought, Sidney Lumet is right, (I must) prepare every tiny stone because I don’t have time to improvise onset. I have to have my shots done…But there were some things that I changed. For example, the pimple scene. Only the operation on his back was written in the script. There was something missing. I needed the artist in the scene. So we brought the artist in and I wrote the dialogue between them on the same day…But mainly things were prepared before shooting.

If you bought two of these, you could connect them and activate "De Palma Mode" - allowing you to play the Prom level with 2 screens.

We are excited to reveal our poster created by @johnpata! With every every decision made on the film we’ve kept this “modern-vintage” idea in mind and wanted to extend over to our poster. It’s inspired by a lot of our favorite older thrillers like Brian De Palma’s Carrie.

Like Carrie, Claire is a loner, an introvert, awkward, sexually repressed, the list goes on. Remember near the end of the film, when Carrie is walking out of the burning school with a deadpan face – void of all care or concern. The Carrie we knew before is gone. This is someone else. Someone filled with nothing but rage. There’s a sequence in THE STYLIST where I realized Claire was in a very similar headspace. And so I wanted to go the extra mile — within that sequence, we dressed Claire very much like Carrie – in a light pink nightgown. Our costume designer Halley Sharp made all my dreams come true.

I went on a De Palma binge while prepping for THE STYLIST, a lot of them were first-time watches, like Sisters and Blow Out. De Palma’s cinematography and editing style had a huge influence on Robert Patrick Stern (director of photography), John Pata (editor), and my choices.

Happy Halloween everyone!! I am a die hard Stephen King fan, so I decided to do this little piece after recently rewatching Carrie for the 100th time! I absolutely love everything about this movie. Hope everyone is making the best of their spooky holiday!

Previously:

Francesco Francavilla pays tribute to Phantom Of The Paradise