David Teixeira

HTG: Start off by telling us a little about your horror background and where you are from.

DT: My horror passion came early as a teenager when I was visiting my family in France. I was influenced by my cousins who owned a lot of horror films and I think when you’re young you always want to watch what you’re parents say you shouldn’t, so I started to watch “Species”, “The Exorcist”, the “Scream” saga which is a big inspiration for me and all came to life after that… It sparked really early my passion for film making, wanting to study everything about it and the ability to learning to scare people through storytelling.

I was born in France, but I lived most of my life in Portugal. Now I’m back in France, living in Bordeaux.

HTG: What got you interested or how did you get started in making horror films?

DT: I was excited to try to expand my filmmaking studies through horror. It was a challenge and I love challenging myself. I started to write horror stories and I started to watch a lot of horror films, buying DVD’s, watching the making ofs and listening to the audio commentaries. I read a lot of books about urban legends, so it helped as well.

HTG: What was your inspiration for Girls night 1 and Girls night 2?

DT: “Girls Night” started as an idea for a mini-series with two episodes and it was supposed to be with four girls having a slumber party. One member dropped out the project really late so I had to reschedule and rewrite the stories and after a while I decided to scratch the second episode (it was too hard to explore with only three members of the cast) and just adapt the first episode on a full short film. It all went well and “Girls Night” came alive.

With the success of the first film I wanted to go forward and finish the story of Jess so I wrote a direct sequel and directed it. I did both films by myself, from pre-production until post-prod. It was hugely hard but a truly rewarding experience.

I’m super excited to release “Girls Night 2” this fall.

HTG: Have you made other horror films?

DT: I wrote a script called “Surprise me!” back in 2012 which was an homage to the opening scene of “Scream” with Drew Barrymore and I actually filmed about two or three scenes but I had to cancel the project for creative and budgeting reasons.

I did a one minute-short called “Pesadilla En El Piso” for a film festival in Portugal that was based on “Paranormal Activity”. It was my first work in horror and it turned out to be fun!

HTG: Are you working on any other upcoming horror projects?

DT: I thought about a “Girls Night 3” but I think I should focus on something else right now. I might readapt the script from “Surprise me!” into another short. I would love to go further in horror especially focusing on directing actors by directing a female driven story about survival. I think it’s important to explore more female roles in films.

I would love to do a drama as well, I’m open to new horizons and my objective will always be about challenging myself.

HTG: Can we find you on social network, if so please share with us?

DT: You can find me on twitter, facebook and instagram. I do have an Youtube channel and Vimeo channel.

Here are the links:

twitter: @davidemmanuelt facebook: @davidemmanuelteixeira instagram: @davidemmanuelt youtube: youtube.com/davidemmanuelt vimeo: vimeo.com/davidteixeira

Thank you for your questions and taking the time to contact me. I really hope the “Girls Night” saga will entertain a lot of horror fans out there as I did making them!