Film Courage: We had this comment come in on our channel “In a horror movie only the villain character matters. All the other characters are expendable, most are going to die anyway.” What’s your reaction to this?
Steven Shea, Filmmaker: I disagree. I think in a movie every character matters. You want to build good characters across the board. If you can build a good villain character that’s fantastic because a throwaway villain character is not good for your story, just a straight villain. You want that villain to have motives. You want that villain to have some kind of connective element, those always make the best villains. But you want a lead character to root for and in a horror movie it’s somewhat of a Russian Roulette. Hopefully you don’t know who’s going to get killed. There’s definitely a lot of clichés in horror films (a lot of 80s clichés) which I always think is interesting that even nowadays people still use 80’s clichés instead of 90’s or 2000 clichés (if that even exists). [The] 2000’s is more about the torture element of horror with just brutal violence, graphic gore and whatnot. Every movie needs good characters, even horror movies, every movie. You want to connect with someone. If you connect the most with the villain that’s fine, you’re connecting with someone and maybe you think the villain’s right. A lot of people watch The Avengers and…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
BIO:
International Award-Winning, STEVEN SHEA has been working in the entertainment industry since he was 16 years old. Starting out in the local television market in the Florida Keys where he grew up, he eventually made his way to Orlando where he founded Abyssmal Entertainment in 2002. His first feature film he wrote and directed, “The Night Owl”, was distributed globally in the Summer of 2005. In 2008, “Hoodoo For Voodoo”, Steven’s 2nd feature he wrote and directed was released on DVD. Steven garnered some awards on the international festival circuit with the horrific short film “2:22” in 2009, which has been distributed through Hulu & FearNet. “Doomsday County” is a horror anthology film that he co-directed and produced that was released worldwide through Troma Inc in 2013. The comedy web series “The Interrogationists” was released in the summer of 2014 through Funny Or Die. His latest feature is the Documentary “Surviving Supercon” that was completed in 2019. Steven had directed over 25 music videos, for such artists as Kitty In A Casket, The Hellfreaks, The Dollyrots, The Attack, The Bloody Jug Band, WhiteQube and The Crazy Carls. As an award winning photographer, Steven has directed and shot such talent as Harrison Ford, Louise Fletcher, Roger Corman, Deepak Chopra, Lin Shaye, Mark McGrath, Denise Richards, Vivica A. Fox, Rick Fox, Juliana Harkavy and many more. He was a Producer on the feature films Last Shift, Rockabilly Zombie Weekend, The Unbroken, Deadly Weekend, Two Days, and Andre the Butcher. As well as Producer for the Disney Channel series Game On!
Steven’s latest film is SURVIVING SUPERCON, a zany behind the scenes look at how a rag-tag Mom & Pop organization pulls off one the biggest pop culture conventions in the United States.
CONNECT WITH STEVEN SHEA
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