Julia Ducournau names her favourite horror movies of all time
Julia Ducournau has stormed to the head seat of the pantheon of contemporary body horror greats in the past few years, with her feature debut Raw in 2016 and last year’s Titane. Ducournau’s work is defined by its disturbing nature, a necessity in any horror flick worth its salt.
Ducournau directed her first short back in 2011, and the film won the Petit Rail d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival that year. This was followed up by the TV film Mange before Raw shocked audiences at Cannes in 2016, subsequently scooping the Sutherland Award for Best First Feature at the London Film Festival.
Raw contains a now infamous shower scene that appeared to pay reverence to one of the horror greats, Carrie. Raw tells the story of a vegetarian who tastes meat for the first time at veterinary school and develops a craving for flesh.
Discussing the impact of Carrie on her feature debut, Ducournau said: “The thing is, considering the premise of my own movie I knew that in the audience most of the people would think about Carrie on their own. And so I thought, ‘Okay, I’m going to do a wink to that famous blood-shower scene so that we know it’s here.’ I know I go on the same territory, but my movie is very different. So after that you can move on, you know?”
However, seeing as Ducournau is an ultra-talented horror director, she surely has an excellent working knowledge of the history of horror. As such, she loves the work of David Cronenberg. She said of the director: “The way he filmed bodies and the themes he tackles – with mortality and the human condition, and identity as well – are themes that I have always been interested in and that I treat in my own work.”
Discussing her favourite Cronenberg films, Ducournau added, “I think as a filmmaker, Dead Ringers would be my favourite one because for me it’s like his opera. It is an opera in five acts. It’s a Greek tragedy. As an audience in terms of emotions I would say The Fly because this movie makes me cry over and over and over again each time I watch it.”
Luca Guadagnino also once gave special praise to The Fly. He said: “The experience of horror has always been for me one of extreme exhilaration, so I am scared but also uplifted. The Fly by Cronenberg is an all-time masterpiece, one of the very many masterpieces that Mr. Cronenberg has made, and it’s very horror”.
Julia Ducournau’s favourite horror films:
- Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976)
- The Fly (David Cronenberg, 1986)
- Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg, 1988)
