Nicolas Winding Refn’s “female-led” horror movie is moving forward

By Katie Rife | November 3, 2014 | 7:01pm

Aux Features Film

Plans for Nicolas Winding Refn’s “female-led” horror movie are moving forward, and as production approaches Deadline reports several changes since we last reported on it over the summer. First, the movie is no longer called I Walk With The Dead, and was not co-written by British playwright Polly Stenham. Now the movie is called The Neon Demon, and will be shot from a script written by Refn and first-time screenwriter Mary Laws. These things have not changed, however: the film will be shot in Los Angeles, reportedly beginning in February. Cliff Martinez, the composer behind Drive’s uber-cool synth soundtrack, will also return, pointing to a film dripping with neon-noir atmosphere.

Refn’s determination to make a movie with a feminine touch also remains unchanged. Deadline quotes Refn as saying, in his own special Nicholas Winding Refn way, “One morning I woke and realized I was both surrounded and dominated by women. Strangely, a sudden urge was planted in me to make a horror film about vicious beauty.” Refn’s efforts to understand women have thus far presumably included multiple viewings of the Mel Gibson classic What Women Want, a thorough study of the Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus series, and a couple of ‘80s dating tapes.