The Canberra sisters bringing your nightmares to life

Posted on 21 August, 2019

A new horror film from Clare Langsford and Marisa Martin explores sisterhood, bodies and closeness. They’re now crowdfunding to make Violet Daze a reality.

Sisters Clare Langsford and Marisa Martin have co-written a film called Violet Daze and are now in the process of fundraising to produce it. The sisters have long been passionate about horror as a genre, but this is their first project together—an intriguing and terrifying tale of two best friends that are scarily close.

Marisa Martin. Image: supplied.

Born and raised in Canberra, Marisa now lives in Queanbeyan and is an animator and graphic artist for film and television, including her own short films and big productions like Secret City and other Australian shows.

Clare is based in Sydney and works in sales and field development. She’s also passionate about acting and storytelling, most recently working on a web series called After Nightfall.

Clare Langsford. Image: supplied.

In fact, both sisters have unusual skills that come in handy when you’re making a horror movie. Marisa’s side hustle is making miniatures of Canberra icons, like Bus Stop earrings and Black Mountain Tower necklaces, while Clare studied forensic science at university.

The original idea for Violet Daze was a team effort that grew out of a writing exercise Clare had been working on with a friend. Clare created a scenario where two sisters pretend to be conjoined and sent it to her partner, who decided that fairies granted their wish of being together forever.

However, when Marissa read the scene, she was struck by a very different story that involved horror and surgery to make the character’s dream a reality.

“What I loved about the original idea was that it all started with an image of the girls, and after I shared that with Marisa, she came straight back to me with ‘That’s it. That’s what I’ve been looking for,’” explains Clare.

“Her enthusiasm and passion inspire me and I cannot tell you how excited I am to be working with my sister on this film.”

“The film is about two teenage girls who are the absolute of best, best friends,” says Marisa. “They can’t imagine a second apart. They spend all their time together. It’s that intensity of friendship when you’re that age that we’re looking at.

“I think having that closeness of friendship as well as being sisters allows us to understand Violet and Daisy, although we’ve never been quite as intense as they are!”

Marisa has always been interested in scary stories, from reading mystery novels as a kid to watching the horror classics as a teenager.

“There’s often more female characters and female leads in horror films than in other genres, so that drew me in. I also like being scared in a totally safe way. It’s imaginative and that’s fun.”

Violet Daze movie poster. Image: supplied.

While Clare may not be a die-hard horror fan like Marisa, she grew up watching it over her sister’s shoulder and recognises its creative potential.

“Horror is one of those genres where you can explore some amazing themes in subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle ways. It has great capacity for something unexpected,” says Clare.

To cover some of the costs of producing the film, the sisters have set up a crowdfunding campaign that will run until the end of this week. The money raised will supplement the film’s budget and assist with the prosthetics and practical effects.

They have also received a grant from Screen Canberra that will contribute to the expenses.

“We wanted to do this the old-fashioned way with as much of the special effects happening in front of the camera,” says Marisa.

“There’s something real about this low-tech approach, and all the films we love from the ‘70s and ‘80s did it this way, so it seemed like the obvious choice. It’s quite expensive though as it’s labour intensive, so that’s where the money will go.”

You can keep up with all the developments of the Violet Daze Instagram or Facebook page.

Support the Violet Daze Pozible campaign at pozible.com.