Women In Horror Spotlight - Emma from Spooky Astronauts
Hello fellow spooky friends!
One of the things I wanted to start doing on Horror Bound was giving the spotlight to some awesome women in horror! Today I am happy to share one of my favorite horror YouTuber’s and a fellow female in this crazy industry - Emma aka Spooky Astronauts.
She creates awesome YouTube videos - every month she’ll share what she’s watched and what her favorites were, she’ll do horror movie reviews, and “Come With Me” where she goes and watches a new horror release. Emma has a new series called “That Scene” where she takes iconic scenes from horror movies and talks about them in depth.
Another great thing she offers the community is a live stream done monthly with her and fellow YouTuber, Nightmare Maven, called “Does This Offend You”. The duo takes two movies and dissects and reviews them.
Right now, she’s also celebrating 31 horror movies in 31 days and each day is putting up mini reviews on her channel.
Her dedication to the genre is incredible, and her ability to consistently put out great content is admirable. She’s also a great photographer and posts some beautiful shots over at her instagram.
I recently got to connect with Emma and ask her some questions.
When did you start your blog and your YouTube channel?
I started my horror channel three and a half years ago. It started off as just reviews and grew from there. I was really lucky that somehow a whole bunch of horror YouTubers started around the same time and we have all grown together. Its a small community of horror fanatics now.
When did you discover horror and why is it so important to you?
There was no defining moment when I saw a horror film for the first time. It was always there in the background. But I have always loved film and found it a way to escape hard times in my life. In my teenage years I started searching for more disturbing and 'out there' movies and found that generally speaking, horror always pushed the boundaries. So, I fell in love with them from an early age. I remember convincing all of my girlfriends to watch The Exorcist at a sleep over when we were 15 years old. I was definitely the weird kid in high-school.
Being a woman in horror comes with its own setbacks. How do you handle any pushback or sexism in the genre?
It's funny, I used to think about this a lot. Until I had someone point out to me that horror actually has the most female empowerment of any other genre. Women defend themselves, are strong protagonists and sometimes complicated psychopaths (Mrs. Voorhees, Carrie, Annie in Hereditary etc.).
I would say action might be the worst in terms of sexism out of film genres. The issues I have with the sexism in the genre is the whole sexual violence story line being used over and over. Or a woman's worth being summed up to whether she is pregnant or not. But there are outstanding films that do have these clichés. I guess the way I deal with it is to try to focus on the films that get it right, and just ignore the ones that frustrate me.
Do you ever have to deal with push back in your own life for liking horror so much? It can be quite a lonely genre for most folks.
Oh yes, I am a complete lone wolf. I go alone to the cinema 90% of the time. Which is one of the reasons I reached out to join an online community. But I do find myself pretty jealous when I see my partners friends bonding over a football game. It's more lonely for me being in Australia, I know so many horror fans in America.
Do you have any women in horror that you look up to? Whether it be a director, writer, actress or fellow journalist or YouTuber etc.
I really admire Andrea from Rue Morgue Magazine, she is absolutely killing it. I also really admire Actress/Writer/Director Alice Lowe and the whole story behind Prevenge.
What’s next for you? Where do you want to take your brand?
I mean, lets be frank, I'd love to be able to make horror content full time. And with that time, I'd be able to make it even more of an interactive experience for those people out there who are like me, alone but in love with horror. I really just want to build a community of people who feel included. I also love doing interviews and would love to do a lot more of them.
What movies are you most excited to watch for the “31 days 31 horror movies” challenge?
For my challenge? Oh gosh! there are a lot of Asian horror films that I have down that I wanted to see for a long time, one being Booth and another being K Shop!
What movie are you most excited for that’s coming out in the next few months?
The Suspiria remake! I've already got my tickets!
First horror film you ever saw:
Leprechaun (1993)
Freddy or Jason:
100% Freddy!
Chucky or Annabelle:
Chucky!!! We are both redheads.
Favourite horror remake:
The Ring (2002)
Favourite horror TV show:
Does Black Mirror count?
Favourite Goosebumps story:
The Haunted Mask!
Favourite kids horror flick:
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Favourite horror flick you don’t think gets enough love:
No one is talking about my favourite horror of the year thus far - Unsane!
Favourite Stephen King character:
Anne Wilkes (Misery)
