Five FrightFest Facts with Izzy Lee of ‘House of Ashes’

Acclaimed filmmaker, writer, and festival favourite Izzy Lee makes a triumphant return to Pigeon Shrine FrightFest Glasgow with the International Premiere of her highly anticipated debut feature, House of Ashes. No stranger to the FrightFest crowd, Lee has long been a celebrated alum of the festival with her provocative and genre-pushing short films. Now, she steps into the feature film spotlight with a haunting, socially charged horror that’s already generating major buzz.

Following a sold-out world premiere at Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, House of Ashes brings its phantasmagoric chills and politically charged terror to Scotland’s most prestigious horror showcase. The film stars Fayna Sanchez (Creepshow, Tenants) as Mia, a woman under house arrest after suffering a miscarriage in a dystopian world where bodily autonomy is criminalised. But as she struggles to reclaim her life, strange and violent occurrences blur the line between supernatural terror and human malevolence. Featuring a stellar supporting cast, including Vincent Stalba, cameos from horror icons Joe Lynch and Mick Garris, and a powerful score from Antoine Lamothe (Deadly Apples), House of Ashes is set to leave a lasting impact on audiences.

Ahead of its Pigeon Shrine FrightFest Glasgow premiere on March 7th, we caught up with Izzy Lee to talk about her career, inspirations, and the terrifying realities that fuel her latest work.

Izzy Lee, writer-director

1. Tell us about your film

House of Ashes was born out of the hell that is the United States. Politics have always upset me here, but the more recent movement to strip rights away from anyone the far right pleases, particularly women, is deeply disturbing. At the beginning of the film, the main character Mia is under house arrest for the crime of having a miscarraige. This is a pretty common occurrence, but now we punish women here for even more things out of our control. Anyway, Mia’s husband Adam recently passed away, and though it was ruled a suicide, Mia’s been suspected of homicide, albeit without motive. We meet her at the beginning of her house arrest. Her old high school friend Marc (who wants to be more than friends) has recently reconnected with Mia, and because she has no other friends or family, he’s moved in to help her navigate her new life.

Well, friends, things don’t exactly go smoothly for either of them. There’s a lot of interference from neighbors, Mia’s parole officer, a nosy podcaster with a motive to get the “real scoop,” and a whole lot of the supernatural. Mia’s now being terrorized in her own home and she can’t leave, or if she does, she’ll risk a much harsher prison sentence. How does she survive? There’s some humor, surrealism, and catharsis in the mix, along with the dread and scares.

2. How did you get into making movies?

In high school, I messed around with a few neighborhood friends. I was a theater kid, and wanted to try putting some vampire skits to video. In college, I had a film course and made some long-form shorts there. It wasn’t until much later, after I was a genre journalist and film festival programmer, that I got really mad and started making my more modern shorts. Though self taught, I got into several Sundance Collab courses over the pandemic and really buckled down into learning the craft of filmmaking, heart and soul.

With seed money from Insurgence, our sales/distro company, some Kickstarter funds, and some personal funds kicked in by my fellow writer and producer Steve Johanson, House of Ashes was born. Steve and I have talked about making a feature for a bit; we’ve collaborated on some shorts, like my most successful one, Meat Friend. That played at FrightFest London in 2022, though I wasn’t able to attend. Totally different tone, too: that short is what I call absurd nihilism, and it’s a funny short about a talking meat blob that teaches bad lessons to a child. It’s playing on Arrow.

House of Ashes is more straightforward, dramatic psychological and supernatural horror with a socio-political backdrop. I tend to make both kinds of films. I don’t like being put in a box or labeled.

3. What films would you love to see screened at FrightFest and why?

It’d be cool to have an international gems sidebar. These would be films from all over the world that you might not get to see in most places. I feel like that’s harder to do now that everything is so global, so these films would be restored to the glory in which they should be seen. Suspiria and Phenomena in 4K with Argento. Bring in Jennifer Lynch with a showing of Surveillance. Gimme a fistful of female-made revenge films from every country possible. I’d have loved to have seen The Substance with Coralie Fargeat in person, which FrightFest London did last year. I’d love to see Guillermo del Toro talk again, let’s do a double feature of the original Nightmare Alley followed by his, and have a cool discussion about that.

4. If you could create your own award to give at FrightFest, what would it be and why?

This is a pretty American answer, but I’d call it the Rocky Balboa Award. It’d be for filmmakers who had the audacity to create something from almost no funds and time, and went on to make it into rad festivals despite the impossible.

5. If your life was made into a horror film, what would it be called and who would play the starring role?

I might title the film Out of Spite, seeing as that’s how I survive and make films. People used to tell me how much I looked like Katheryn Winnick from Vikings, so that works for me. She’d do a great job. I’d rather make horror movies than live them, however.