Original-Cin Q&A: Horror Maven Audrey Cummings on She Never Died, Putting Female Spin on a Henry Rollins Role, and Maxed-out Credit Cards

It speaks to the life of a Canadian filmmaker that - even as her star rises and she releases her most self-assured feature She Never Died - horror-filmmaker Audrey Cummings is still paying off her first film.

That would be the 2014 babysitter-in-peril movie Berkshire County, Cummings’ first feature after graduating from the Canadian Film Centre with high expectations. Unfortunately, those expectations didn’t include her ambitions in horror.

“It’s a great honour to have been accepted there,” the Sept-Îles, Quebec native said over coffee a day after her She Never Died star Olunike Adeliyi was named best actress at the Blood in the Snow film festival (Cummings herself received a Vanguard award as a Canadian horror trailblazer).

Audrey Cummings on set of She Never Died.

“But I still had to work my butt off after. And it was tougher for me, because I always knew I wanted to be a genre director. And eight or nine years ago, genre films were not as accepted as they are now.”

“So, Berkshire, was basically my ‘FU’ film, because I’d been turned down by everyone to make it. It was all my own money, maxed-out credit cards AND line of credit. It ended up costing me about $140,000 and I’m about 30 something thousand dollars short of making it back.”

Happily, projects have been easier to get off the ground since. She Never Died, which opens Friday, is a sequel to 2015’s He Never Died, which starred rocker Henry Rollins as an immortal, cannibalistic loner – a fallen angel. The movie, by Jason Krawczyk (The Briefcase) was a hit at South by Southwest. 

Oluniké Adeliyi plays a cannibalistic immortal, temporarily restrained, in She Never Died.

“They grossly underestimated Henry’s fanbase,” Cummings says, “and the film really took on cult status. Everybody loved the movie, loved him in it, great stoic performance.

“Then they said, ‘Well let’s do He Never Died 2.’ And they were getting ready when Henry got swept up in TV land (he landed roles in the series Z Nation and Con Man). And they said, ‘We can’t do He Never Died 2 without the He.’

“So, they decided to open up Jason’s world. He was writing a TV series called The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (currently in development), in which the only people that can save the world are these fallen angels. And they decided to spin it into a sister film, She Never Died.”

In She Never Died, Adeliyi (who starred in Cummings second feature, 2017’s Darken) plays Lacey, an immortal who lives the life of a homeless person, and subsists on the fingers of her victims (because they’re easy to carry). Driven by her conscience, she has become a vigilante, killing criminals whenever possible. A police detective named Godfrey (Peter MacNeill) notices her modus operandi and tracks her down, but decides against arresting her. Instead, he points her in the direction of evildoers who have frustratingly avoided arrest.

“Because the first film was such a hit, I really wanted to do it justice,” Cummings says. “It was a fine line to tread on, because there’s the world Jason’s created, and I wanted to stay within and honour that world. But I also wanted to bring in my own artistic fire and my own voice as a director, and just try to maintain a balance between the horror, the heart and the humour.

“Henry played it very stoic and deadpan, and was amazing in it. Whereas for her, because she’s female, I wanted her feel emotions. I didn’t want her to not feel, like Henry, I wanted her to have some female characteristics.”

Cummings’ style (informed by ‘70s Canadian horror flicks like Black Christmas) is finally getting noticed south of the border beyond the horror film festival circuit. 

“I just signed with a big management company in LA, Echo Lake, and they are awesome,” she says. “And so now I’ve decided this is the year I try to break into Hollywood and see what happens. 

“I had four or five meetings a day for three weeks, and I’m starting to get scripts sent my way. Which is great, but I’m also trying to develop my own stuff. So, I’m trying to get that too, to see if I can generate a bigger budget film.”

A bigger budget may not be all it’s cracked up to be, we suggest. “That’s true,” she says. “There is something to having to just scramble every day. There are magical things that have come out of constantly having to go to plan B. Unexpected magic.

“On the other hand, it would be really nice to have more than just 15 shooting days,” she adds with a laugh.