By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Over 60 gallons of fake blood were spilled during the production of ASKING FOR A FRIEND, a black-comic horror film that sees release next month.
Gunpowder & Sky has announced that ASKING FOR A FRIEND will premiere on its Alter horror platform June 10, following a festival tour that resulted in 15 wins and many more nominations. Created by all-female movie outfit Edelweiss Film Productions, it was written and directed by Kelsey Bollig and stars Victoria Lacoste, Jacqueline Bell and Clifton J. Adams. The synopsis: “Blake and Q are childhood best friends, roommates, and soulmates. After a long day, Blake’s one-track mind is set on the nachos Q has promised to make. Aside from nachos, however, Q has also managed to unexpectedly kill someone in their apartment. Through a series of heavily graphic and hilarious situations, the girls attempt to tap their inner serial killers and handle the body themselves. What happens next is a visually surreal, musically fluid journey complete with blood raves, a creative use for slip ’n’ slides, and a body that for whatever reason won’t stop bleeding.”
“Horror is a powerful tool to point out the flaws of our society while poking fun at them at the same time, which is why I think it’s so important to add the female perspective,” Bollig says. “Women can be unemotional psychopaths too. I think it’s time we make that clear. This is a feminist story because this is my idea of strong women. They own their womanhood and they lift each other up no matter what. The friendship between these two women is the glue of the entire story. It’s women helping women to the extreme.
“I didn’t want to sexualize either of the main female characters for the audience,” she continues, “but I still wanted them to own their womanhood. To me, feminism doesn’t have to be directly addressed to exist in film. To get concepts of equality across, you sometimes just have to make your characters exist in a world where it’s already the standard.”
