What does it feel like to have your identity slowly siphoned away by someone who refuses to see you as a human being? How does a man like this function in the world, and how does he get away with such violence?

After spending the night with her ex boyfriend and thinking they’ve reconnected, she learns he is actually still seeing the very woman he left her for. An argument ensues, leaving her frustrated, embarrassed, and eventually, stuck to his mattress. Literally. She can’t move, she can’t get up, and though he tries, he fails to help her.

She's invested so much of herself into a relationship with a man who refused to see her holistically. He only values her up to the point at which he stops benefitting from her existence. This leads the woman to be totally consumed by him. She loses any sense of autonomy and is ultimately sucked into his mattress, never to be seen again.

Warm Body is about a woman who is the victim of an insidious kind of violence, and a man who is both the complicit and complacent perpetrator of her demise. As an audience, we’re left wondering: how many more bodies are in his bed?

Does he feel remorse, or just relief?

Warm Body is about the 'nice guys' who are actually monsters.

Why me?

From a young age I had a keen sense that men were dangerous. I felt the objectification and dehumanization women face, but couldn't put a name to it.

As I got older and entered romantic relationships, I saw this dehumanization take on another form, one much more quiet. I felt myself slipping away in these relationships, compromising myself because my partner wasn't capable of seeing me as a human being. He saw me as a warm body. Something to fill the space in his bed until the next woman came along. I was interchangeable, disposable.

This made me violently angry. It also made me laugh. If we can't find the (dark) humor, the sliver of light in the darkness that is our pain, what's the point? There is an incredible darkness to the subject matter, but the humor comes from the audacity and idiocy of the man who is perpetrating this violence.

Why now?

Women are uniquely equipped to write and direct horror. Our lived experience lends itself to the genre on a daily basis. The best horror films are those that defy audience expectation, that surprise us and, well, scare us. There are so many facets to the experience of being a woman that are horrifying.

As we move into a post Me Too world, it seems even if men are held accountable or publicly called out for their treatment of women, there are rarely any repercussions. Even with zero consequences, the prevailing narrative is one of victim blaming. We analyze every aspect of her behavior, the choices she made (or didn't make) and assign blame accordingly.

In Warm Body, there's no denying what is happening to her. There's no way around it. She is the victim of this mans erasure, neglect, and ignorance. And the consequences are deadly.

Look and feel

While this film is horror with some dark comedy, when we open, it should look like any other morning in a shared space between two people who might even love each other. The light is soft. It almost looks romantic. There’s something sinister under it all, though. That way when the turn happens, it’s unnerving. We sense something is coming, but we can’t be sure what it is. We don’t know who the monster is, but we know there is a supernatural element at play.

We focus mainly on her, keeping him in abject anonymity for as long as possible. The audience will feel her panic and her suffocation as she thrashes around in an otherwise still frame. Nothing is as it seems, leaving the audience to question the nature of their reality.

Characters

HE

He is every man and also nobody. He’s the product of a system that doesn’t want him to feel anything, let alone express those feelings to another human. It’s better and easier to see women as a monolith, as replaceable, as a means to an end. And yet, he is lonely. He does want someone. And he feels he deserves that. Because why wouldn’t he? The only problem is that he has no concept of the consequences of the way he treats women. He has a face that looks trustworthy, kind even. He might not mean any harm, but that doesn’t mean harm won’t be done.

SHE

She is like so many women, searching for love and connection in a world that wants to deny her humanity at every turn. But she’s determined. On her best day she is a bit of a pushover, though. She places a lot of meaning and value in her relationships with men in earnest. She truly believes it can work. This leads to the loss of her sense of self. Everything depends on the man she’s with. Even when they don’t attempt to understand or appreciate her unique humanity. She’s beautiful, hopeful, hard on herself. She wants to be better. She doesn’t want to keep making the same mistakes.