In a year filled with many styles of independent horror, “American Dollhouse” writer and director John Valley brings back a rollicking element: An outrageous villain. In the film, which premiered at this year’s South by Southwest and had lively screenings at New Orleans’ Overlook Film Festival, a young woman named Sarah (Hailley Lauren) moves back home after her mother’s death to clean up the family house and get her own life in order. Unfortunately, neighbor Sandy (Kelsey Pribilski) is unhinged and has some opinions about Sarah’s potential changes to the property, and things get dark quickly.
“Dollhouse,” which is still seeking distribution as it continues on the festival circuit, comes from Iowa native Valley, who didn’t have to look far to find inspiration for the idea.
“The question is, ‘What scares me?'” Valley says. “This last decade or so, there’s a sense of paranoia out on the street, these places where you think we’re supposed to be safe, and you can operate without feeling like you’re being watched all the time or judged. So the idea that sidewalks or our streets in broad daylight are these places where terror is looming at any hour of the day, it’s crushing to me. You take that real feeling that I can touch at any point and commune with, and then figure out how to apply that to the physical expression of filmmaking. Sandy, the villain of the film, is this manifestation of the panopticon, the terror of polite society.”
The larger-than-life villain has loomed large in the genre, from Leatherface in 1974’s seminal “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” to last year’s Aunt Gladys in “Weapons,” a role which earned Amy Madigan an Oscar. Valley was excited to look at our present day through the lens of “American Dollhouse,” in the tradition of scary storytellers before him.
“With slashers, I love how they celebrate being similar in their form, and people really love the tropes and the conventions,” he says. “Despite those similarities, each reflects a very unique point in history. What ‘Psycho’ is saying about society is very different than what ‘Black Christmas’ is saying about society, and they’re not that far apart from each other, and have similar moves and characters. There was this intentional effort to identify the conventions and the tropes, use those as hard guideposts, but then get out of the way of all the crew and the actors and let their lived experiences bubble to the surface. I hope you’re getting a snapshot of life in 2025 in America while still using the same lens that these other American slasher films have used throughout time.”
Valley’s advocacy of indie film as a group effort came from his previous experience up and down the call sheet, where he’s spent time not only in front of the camera but also in many of the departments behind the scenes, which gave him a holistic view of film production.
“I’ve done a lot of work in the [grip and electric department] and art department and as a PA,” he says. “I know that your crew and your actors are the people who ultimately make the movie. So you set up this thing that is rock-solid and just do your best to get out of their way and make sure that they are feeling heard, because their expression collectively will always supersede my best day as a singular component. For example, when you’re shot-listing for these types of movies, you have an idea of what it’s going to be. But then, when you show up on the day, it can be radically different. And so I always show up to set and ask my cinematographer, ‘How are you feeling? What direction do you want to look?’ Then we can change that around because we have planned it so much that we understand our visual language. The same thing with the actors: I encourage them to change the words and just find the intentionality, stick to it, but find your truth in it and let that dictate the relationship.”
As for his future, Valley remains fully focused on further blooming in genre material.
“I deeply, deeply love horror films,” he says. “Coming from the theater, you work on a lot of family drama, but there’s something so inherent about the horror genre with the medium of filmmaking. It’s maybe close to action films. It’s the best genre for the medium. It allows you to use all of the machinery tools for expression. I’m deep in the horror world and thinking about that. My nights are a little dark sometimes when I’m ideating on a project, but I have a monster movie in my back pocket that I’m very, very excited about: It’s kind of culty West Texas monster movie. I have a vampire movie in my back pocket. I have other suburban slasher-thriller-type things. But this monster movie has got my heart at the moment.”
Watch a teaser trailer for “American Dollhouse” below.