Interview: Vito Trabucco and Deborah Venegas – Creators of Watch The Pretty Girls Suffer
David Gelmini
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Watch The Pretty Girls Suffer. The title says it all really. This new horror web series can be supported here. We talked to the creators of the series, Vito Trabucco and Deborah Venegas, to find out what horror fans have to look forward to:
Dread Central: Firstly, why such an explicit title?
Vito Trabucco: I don’t think it’s too explicit. Is it? We wanted a fun title. I think it sounds like its going to be a fun series. I feel like we’re letting the audience know what they’re in for.
Deborah Venegas: Vito has a knack for titles. To be honest, in the beginning he had another one that I was really excited about. He knew he wasn’t though, so his wheels were still turnin’. So when he came to me with ‘Watch the Pretty Girls Suffer’ I hesitated just cause I liked the other one so much. However, one nights sleep on it and I realized how powerful the directness of the title was. It’s no bullshit, just like our movie.
DC: Where did the inspiration from the series come from?
VT: I think we both just like the same stuff. We talked about writing something together and this one was perfect timing. I’m not sure about the inspiration. We started talking it out, and we ended up writing the whole series in about a week which is crazy. Plus, we got to poke fun at the horror world that we both live in.
DV: That’s hard to say. It’s from a lot of different places. We had started throwing ideas around. I know Vito was excited to work on something like “Visiting Hours” where the killer is always clear to the viewer, and the audience follows a parallel story. I think I had been watching a lot of Fellini and was feeling a bit lethargic about “Classic Hollywood” and bitter about my Hollywood so I wanted to make fun of a lot of the ‘types’ I’d come across… and really even make fun of myself. I could be quick to point fingers, but really it starts with the bullshit I’ve been willing to buy into as an actress, and at the end of the day how ridiculous it can all seem.
DC: I understand that the film is about some spoilt rich girls who fail to realise that beauty is only skin-deep?
VT: Kind of. But our killer shows them that they’re beautiful on the inside as well.
DV: Well, there not all spoiled or rich. They’re sort of oblivious for their own individual reasons. I guess its more a thing of ambition towards a career that can blind side your morals and push you to identify yourself based on very shallow standards. It’s when people get so determined to make it big that they forget how small they are.
DC: And there’s also a serial killer on the loose?
VT: Yep! That’s Daniel Schweiger. He plays our serial killer. Deb and me both love Daniel. He was in Bloody Bible Camp with us and we wrote the part specifically for him. Think Michael Ironside from Visiting Hours.
DV: In fact you’ll probably like him more than anyone. He’s like the grim reaper you’re rooting for.. In our first reading everyone in the room had to ask how we found him. Of course he’s a good friend, but he was so committed to the role that he stood out. It really fits him like a glove, and we’ve both been pretty psyched from the beginning about seeing him take on the role of Allen Gunther.
DC: How nasty will the series be?
VT: As nasty as we can possibly make it! This is being made for horror movie people so we have to deliver.
DV: It’s nasty enough that various people were offended by certain gruesome moments and wanted us to take them out. To be fair we contemplated them, but ultimately no one thing offended everyone… and risk taking is what this is all about. There’s no better audience to test gruesome out on than horror fans.
How much of a challenge will it be to produce fifteen full episodes?
DV: Well, we are working on having more than one director. So this will present the challenge of really communicating and making sure everyone is on the same page. I think budget will definitely determine other challenges. If we need to shoot all of our scenes in our apartments it may present a problem for our neighbors. Ha!
VT: It’ll definitely be tough, but it’d certainly be a lot easier if we can raise our campaign goal 🙂
Does the length of the series mean that you will explore scenarios not possible on a film runtime?
DV: It was originally a feature. It just turned out it split up pretty nicely, and presented an opportunity to build something overtime as far as shooting goes. The strength in doing it this way is more related to how we get to distribute it.
VT: This is a new format for me so it’s also a new way of telling a story. It’s already been a real enjoyable process.
So Vito and Deborah, this is your third tome working together? I guess that you make quite the team?
VT: I definitely think we are! Or maybe we’re the only ones who can put up with each other 🙂 Regardless it’s been working out great. We’re on the same page all the time and that’s rare. And getting to collaborate on this, I feel like I’m on the verge of the best thing I’ve ever done.
DV: Well, we weren’t at first. During the making of Bloody there were certainly some rocky patches. We got better at the end of that shoot. I think it was when I saw how punk rock Bloody turned out that I got excited about Vito’s work. I think after that and a friendship that continued to develop it was inevitable that we would eventually collaborate to write together.
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