February is known as Women in Horror Month. It is time to pay homage to some of the legendary women who have had an integral part in the genre we all love. It is imperative to recognize the contributions of an innumerable amount of women who have made an indelible mark in horror entertainment. While I’m glad we have a month set aside to honor these women, I do believe it is important to keep the recognition up the whole year round.
For my Women in Horror post, I am absolutely thrilled to talk about two of my favorite women in the horror genre, Jen and Sylvia Soska AKA the Twisted Twins!
Jen and Sylvia are twin sisters who run their own production company, Twisted Twins Productions. Growing up in Canada, the Soskas were first made fans of the horror genre after their mother reluctantly let them watch Poltergeist. After deciding to pursue a career in the entertainment industry, the sisters played extras in various popular movies and television shows. Unhappy with the roles they were receiving, the twins decided to take the helm themselves and enrolled into film school. As a final project they wrote, directed, and starred in the fantastic homage to grindhouse films, Dead Hooker in a Trunk.
Dead Hooker in a Trunk became a very successful underground independent horror film. Being a big hit with fans, it won many awards and was called “a hidden gem in indie film-making.” After the success of their first feature, the twins decided to start there own film production company: Twisted Twins Production. Jen and Sylvia then began working on yet another cult classic, the fan favorite American Mary. This film is a gruesome epic of unrelenting body horror. With the release of this film the Soska sisters were putting the horror genre on notice. They are here to stay.
In 2014, two years after the release of American Mary, the twins joined up with WWE Studios for See No Evil 2, a sequel to the 2006 horror flick starring WWE’s Kane (Glenn Jacobs). Along with Jacobs, they brought in iconic scream queen Danielle Harris, and American Mary star Katharine Isabelle. The result was an ultra creepy slasher movie, that is head and shoulders above it’s predecessor.
Jen and Sylvia Soska are involved in a lot more than just writing and directing horror movie features. They’ve also directed the gory action flick Vendetta (WWE Studios), and did a controversial segment in the anthology film The ABC’s of Death. They are both huge comic book fans and have recently collaborated on a graphic novel called Kill-Crazy Nymphos Attack! They can also be seen hosting the survival horror game show Hellevator.
Already aimed with an impressive body of work, the Soskas aren’t slowing down any time soon. In fact, they are currently working on a remake of the brilliant David Cronenberg body horror epic Rabid. This is unbelievably exciting. If you haven’t been following Jen and Sylvia thus far, it is time to start. They just keep getting better and better. They absolutely personify what Women in Horror Month is all about. I can’t wait to see what’s next!
