DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

When I was about 9 years old, my mom showed me ‘Halloween’ on a Friday night in late October. Aside from being completely entranced by the music and Jamie Lee Curtis’ symphony of screams, I remember thinking how scary the idea of something so horrifying happening in this quaint little suburban neighborhood was - the randomness of this masked murderer’s brutality onto these innocent teenagers. ‘Halloween’ has remained a consistently strong inspiration in all of my creative endeavors since my first viewing of it. From that point on, horror became my lifestyle. As I grew up, my passion for the genre became more practical as I quickly realized I wanted to become a filmmaker.

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For ‘Pigskin’, my thesis film at the Florida State University Film School, my friend and creative collaborator Nicola Newton and I wanted to further explore the idea of terrible things occurring in idyllic settings. Together, we wrote a story revolving around a seemingly normal high school cheerleader hiding a deeply rooted secret – one that manifests physically from her own bodily insecurities. The images, sounds, and overall tone of the film were influenced by 70s/80s high school horror flicks like ‘Carrie’, ‘Halloween’, and ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’. We wanted to build this nostalgic, colorful, innocent suburban-America world and then tear it all away to expose something very sinister hiding in plain sight. While paying homage to the films I grew up watching and adoring, ‘Pigskin’ also plays further upon ideas of repression, insecurity, sexual anxiety, and societal expectation – as seen through the eyes of Laurie, the film’s protagonist. Nicola and I aimed to create something that is frightening and genuine, but also fun and highly energetic.