The story of Mary Shelley and the creation of her literary materpiece, Frankenstein, has been brilliantly brought to life in Nora Unkel’s A Nightmare Wakes which is now available on Shudder. You can read our full review of the film right here.
Prior to the film’s release, we had the absolute pleasure of talking to Nora about her new film. We had the chance to ask her about how the film came about and what the casting process was like. You can check out what else we discussed below.
So How did this project come about? You know, what was it about Mary Shelley’s story that you gravitated towards?
I wrote this about eight years ago, I started it about eight years ago, four other iterations were kind of coming out. And it was the big winter storm (Sandy) in New York and I got trapped in my apartment for a week. All I had was a copy of Frankenstein, and some candles. So I lit them and I read it and I read the foreword about Mary and I was just immediately fascinated and loved it. The thing that really kind of captured me was that, you know, I always had this vision of, you know, the universal monster, as Frankenstein and while I’m reading the novel, and while I’m reading about Mary. I’m like, Oh, my gosh, no, wait, this is one of the most competent, thoughtful emotional characters ever written.
And ultimately, when I found out about Mary’s miscarriages, and like, all of the horrible losses that she suffered from both her children and just all the people around her. I realized immediately I was like, wait, this story is about motherhood. This is a story about loss and about being a creator giving life to something and then blaming herself for abandoning it, even though it wasn’t her fault. But you know, medicine at the time, that’s kind of what got pointed out.. So yeah, for me, it was really kind of recontextualizing some of this story into more of this incredibly feminine lens that I think it was originally written as.
How did you go about researching Mary’s life?
I went everywhere. And anywhere. I read countless biographies, articles. I watched a bunch of the other Frankenstein films. But I would say like, my actual main point of reference, at all times, was the novel itself. I felt like, at a certain point, when I was reading, I got to some of these beautiful, beautiful monologues that the creature has. And all I could hear was Mary’s voice. It just, it sounded like this woman, this teenage girl who’s just desperately seeking understanding and and people to get her. So I was referencing a lot of her other letters, some of her diary entries, and comparing them and I was like, oh, my goodness, wait, she’s speaking as this creature. And so, time and time again, while I did have all of the historical base, it was often just going back to the novel.
Universally, we all know Frankenstein’s monster and we know the story of Frankenstein as well, but to kind of spin on its head and envision the monster and Frankenstein in such a different way. Like, I’ve never seen it done like that before. So to have a different kind of perspective on it, I think highlighted what you’ve kind of realized about how Mary projects herself into her work. And I’m kind of glad that it didn’t fall into the kind of typical trope of here is the physical monster. But how important was that decision?
You know, it was, it was a big decision that we kind of tossed around a lot throughout the process. Ultimately, part of it did come down to a budget situation, unfortunately, where there’s, there are basically like two moments, we get to see my iteration of the creature. And they’re very brief, and simply time and money that we were dealing with. But ultimately, it was also supposed to be more of a hint for the people that were looking beyond kind of the surface level story and who were kind of interpreting some of the layers, which is the layers that I tried to kind of capture from the novel itself.
I think for them, it’s meant to be kind of as a special treat for you to realize and for you to see and experience. But that ideally, you don’t have to know to recognize by the end of the film. But yeah, it was, unfortunately, a lot was a budget, sadly.
Obviously, Mary Shelley is the star of the show. What was the casting process like for that?
Oh, goodness, yeah, that was, it was a long, long process, I had a very, very clear idea in my mind of who Mary was. And a lot of that was because of the vast amounts of research that I had done, and all of reading all of her other writings and her letters and stuff. So I had a very distinctive vision for who she was, which was a lot of looking for a compassionate soul, an incredibly intelligent person, that you can immediately believe that this person has the depths of Frankenstein inside of them.
But also, somebody that can capture that youth and vitality that this whole group had. So, we looked high and low, honestly. And yet at the moment, and I’m not even exaggerating, the moment I saw Alix’s face, I was like “her, I need her tape, that’s Mary, she better be as good as I think she is” And then she was better.
It couldn’t have been easy role to play because of the tragic story behind Mary Shelley. I didn’t realize how hard it was.
It was it was pretty gruelling. Yeah, we had an 18-day shoot. So, it was a very short amount of time to get this film done. And which ultimately meant that as you can see, with the film itself, there’s a lot of darkness in it, there’s a lot of hard scenes to get through. Which basically meant that every single day of filming had some horribly dark scene that Alix would have to go through.
And I was just impressed every day more and more as she would just come ready to go. And instead of coming like some people would come in and be like “okay, let’s get this done. Let’s do this thing”. She’d come and be like “I have six ideas. This is what we should do. What if we added this part” and it’s just her energy she came in and she stole the show every day even with the darkness.
The other question I had, and this was just because as I was watching it I just really liked it, was the location. I love the location. Where was it done.
The locations where my favourite part of it. We shot in upstate New York. At this incredible Manor home called Hyde Hall. And what was fascinating about them it, you know, my producing partner, Devin and I, we were looking all over the state of New York to try to find some sort of house that would fit what we needed. We roll up to Hyde Hall one day, and it’s pouring rain, and it’s super dark and gray and gross… And we walk in, and we tell them what we’re wanting to do.
And they were just instantly so excited, and they’re like, “oh, what do you want to see this original portrait of Byron that we have in our office over here? Oh, did you need a chapel? Yeah, we have an actual chapel here in the building. Oh, you need a cottage? There’s literally another side of this building. That is a cottage”. And so it was just it. It felt kind of like magic.
The fact that it was so secluded, in a way, it was just like the countryside, the lake and just the house on its own. And when I was watching it for me, when I looked at I thought it looked very much like a UK location.
Yeah, well, funny story is actually the guy who built the house was an English Lord, who came over to New York and decided to rebuild his family home from England, in upstate New York. And then filled it with furniture from our literal exact date, like year and era for this.
I think especially where you stay in that location for literally the entirety of the film, you really needed it to kind of look appealing and stand out because you’re always there. And I think also, in terms of Mary’s story, there’s this kind of eerie feeling of being isolated because she’s on her own in her world. But also, it feels very much on its own as a location.
yeah, absolutely. Because that’s a lot of what the novel is about, right? It’s solation, it’s loneliness and it’s abandonment. And so we really wanted to kind of create that feeling of isolation and being removed from the world, especially with this kind of group of miscreants where they could have a place to just play.
Do you have any future projects planned once a Nightmare Wakes is out into the world and everyone’s ready to see it.
I hope so. Yes, this pandemic has given me lots of time to write. So, I am kind of drowning in scripts right now but my main two projects right now I’m working on a Scottish folklore focused on a banshee horror film… And then another one that I’m in a year long, international lab for is called Bruja. And it’s another horror film and I’m partnering with an incredible up and coming Mexican director Michelle Garcia. It’s a super dark, twisted, contemporary Mexican witchcraft film.
Once again, thank you to Nora and her team for setting up this interview. Being able to learn more about the film was incredibly insightful. If you’ve always been fascinated by the story of Frankenstein and his creation, you’ll definitely want to check out A Nightmare Wakes.
The film is available on Shudder now, just days after the 170th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s death on February 1st, 1851.
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