Maggie Mae Fish on Making Blow Up Doll Revenge Horror (feat. Addison Peacock)

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Hi everybody. Uh, welcome back to We Are Not Alive. Henry and Gus are not here.

[00:00:04]I'm here and I have somebody with me today. We are alive. It's a misnomer.

[00:00:10]>> It's a misnomer. I'm Addison Peacock.

[00:00:13]>> Hi. And uh, I'm Maggie May Fish.

[00:00:16]>> Folks who watch the channel probably I don't know probably are already familiar with your work, but in case they're not, could you do just like a little quick primer?

[00:00:24]>> Absolutely. I think most importantly, Addison is great and um, I'm one of my friends. So that is a reason I'm here. I am a video essaist, writer and actor. Um yeah, my video essays on my YouTube channel are, you know, mostly about film, a little bit of feminism, little bit of queerness. You also made a TV show.

[00:00:49]>> That is so right. This is why you need to have friends, everybody, because it's true. I made uh Amy's Dead and Dreamhouse streaming on Nebula, a kids show for adults. We recently we were a webbby honory in comedy, which was a lovely surprise.

[00:01:09]>> The like primary reason I wanted to chat with you today and make this little video is that uh you're currently crowdfunding for a project.

[00:01:17]>> Yes, I am. And I would love to give you just I would love to like roll out the carpet the red carpet for you for a sec to just like give the pitch and then we can talk more about like the process.

[00:01:28]>> And also I am excited to talk with you Addison about this because it deeply involves feminism and horror.

[00:01:35]>> Yeah.

[00:01:36]>> Right up your alley.

[00:01:36]>> I love feminist horror, dude. Yeah.

[00:01:39]>> The project is called Blow. It is a short horror story about a blowup doll who takes revenge on people who, let's just say, cross boundaries. It is a wonderful 10-minute self-contained horror film with a twist, a lot of glitter, a lot of blood, um, and took many years to develop, uh, which I'm sure we'll get into, but I am finally so excited to, yeah, be on the track to launching it. Yeah, because something we talk a lot about on on the channel is one of the ways to make your art exist in the world is to just is to make it.

[00:02:17]Unfortunately, >> no, unfortunately. Yeah, it's harder and harder to, you know, bypass official gatekeeping uh around like the especially the film space, but just the art like serious artistic spaces in general. Like the way to make your thing exist is to make it. And sometimes that means you have to make it yourself. That for better or for worse, that's what we do. And it's [ __ ] I get so [ __ ] excited when I see especially artists that I admire because I I love I love stuff you've made and uh seeing people just essentially not waiting for permission. This is such a great example of the kind of thing that you you know you can't wait for permission to make something like blow. This is you got to you make it. You know what I mean?

[00:02:55]>> You got to bring her to life. Truly >> you have to bring her to life. Can I ask like what the kind of inception of her of this of this was and what the development process was like?

[00:03:05]>> You know what? Let's say I watched the film Promising Young Woman. I have some thoughts on that film.

[00:03:11]>> Ditto. Titto. I really felt like the ending gave no catharsis for people who may have, you know, experience with things that the film talks about. And, you know, I think every type of movie and type of ending deserves to exist. But that really is what spurred me to create a project that uplifted survivors were was there as the catharsis that I wanted to experience in a film like Promising Young Woman.

[00:03:51]>> It was originally a short film that I wrote this idea of a uh supernatural blowup doll. And within the movie, uh, the lore is, uh, that it is simply a revenge spirit that has had many iterations throughout time, throughout different cultures. It shows itself in different ways. It's modern skin is a blowup doll. An image that men have created of women for themselves that looks nothing like a woman and functions nothing like a woman and is objectively uh terrifying. Yes. Oh, deeply uncanny.

[00:04:29]Deeply deeply uncanny. Even down to the skin. It curdles my my blood. Uh so therefore I think incredible idea for a horror monster. Uh I we have a actually we have a prop blowup doll that we keep around. Um and anytime it is blown up and I see it in our living room, I freak the [ __ ] out. Uh cuz it is just a body.

[00:04:53]It feels like the natural progression uh obviously with the gendered baggage that comes with it, but it feels like the natural progression of like, you know, the uncanny valley horror of like the mannequin and the sort of these, you know, dolls, mannequins. They're all very kind of classic. uh kind of wells to draw from horror wise. And I feel like I'm I'm actually shocked pleasantly that I've not like to see it now that that I've never seen a blow-up doll used for horror purposes before because they are so uncanny and such a specifically kind of loaded image.

[00:05:24]>> Yes, exactly the same, Addison. I you know when I first came up with the idea I was like surely surely that you know but yeah all the more inspiring and spurred myself on to go ahead and write it writing the thing that I you know >> expected to already have been made.

[00:05:47]>> This is a piece of Addison Lore I actually don't know if people who watch this channel have about me either and I don't think you do. Addison Lord Drop.

[00:05:54]>> Yeah. Addison Lord Drop. One of my first writing jobs when I was in college was for a site that no longer exists uh called The Horror Honeys, which was like women covering horror stuff. And one of the like niches I was given to cover was like revenge horror and rape revenge horror.

[00:06:08]>> Oh wow.

[00:06:09]>> Um so it is a subgenre that I have like a very intense relationship with and and and a lot of love for a lot of it when it's done really well. Like revenge is great movie. And so I was curious about like what kind of what media like went into the DNA of the script for Blood.

[00:06:25]>> Yes, absolutely. And you know actually so before Amy's Dad and Dreamhouse, I did a series on Nebula about sex in film and especially uh you'll know this as well as anyone at Addison. Uh especially in the 70s when you are watching films that are supposed to be sexy but they are written and directed by men. Uh there is often uh just an assault scene like out of nowhere um for entertainment and not for any other reason and it is so jarring. It's very hard to just uh you're trying to enjoy a movie and then suddenly you're confronted by it.

[00:07:07]>> Yeah. a movie about something completely unrelated and it just sort of like dropped in the middle because it's like it it was like a really it was like a shorthand uh I feels like in the 70s it was either shorthand for shock or it was like a way to without like endorsing [ __ ] behavior have your lead nude and in a sexual situation.

[00:07:28]>> It's against their will so there's permission. I mean, now we def we have the language to say like consensual non consent. Uh, and especially if you're a viewer of it, uh, and there's like a warning label, you can like seek it out for yourself in a healthy manner, just maybe not necessarily shoved into, you know, an otherwise just like trit story.

[00:07:52]But in this story, it is against the perpetrators. That is one thing that I uh really wanted to keep in mind when writing Blow and that is that I did not want to depict the act. Uh let's put it like that.

[00:08:06]>> Yeah. No, that's fair.

[00:08:07]>> Simply because I don't I never again it's a story for everyone but with in mind first and foremost survivors who will would want to watch something that gives them katharsis without having to relive that. And something that I found when I was researching and watching um yeah many uh revenge films is that filmmakers often feel the need to depict it because there is going to be so much violence especially violence done by someone feminine presenting. It feels like they they feel the need to justify it like deeply so that you know it's okay that she did this violence because see what was done to her. For for me, I think that the audience is smart enough to make the equation themselves. We can uh feel how horrible it must have been because it is so wonderfully violent in the present. Getting straight to katharsis. You know, one of the things I love about the story is that Doll is a sentient being and she's pretty funny.

[00:09:14]She's a pretty funny girl. Um, this isn't giving anything away, but she's skinning her victims uh and creating her own Frankenstein um to love. So, you know, she's an artist. She's a crafter.

[00:09:28]>> Oh, gorgeous.

[00:09:30]>> Yeah, she's, you know, a girl like all of us. Um, >> she's just a girl.

[00:09:35]>> She's just a girl. And that really is like the number one thing on the list is to make it fun. Make the violence fun.

[00:09:45]Make still obviously in impactful. Um we deserve that more than anything.

[00:09:50]>> Absolutely. Uh do you have any any any pieces of uh media could be could be film could be anything that you've uh enjoyed that like really inspired kind of the approach tonally or to the character?

[00:10:02]>> Uh yes, absolutely. Um the two uh two two non-film pieces actually that I mention a lot is uh Julio Cortazar's Blowup which is a sto short story that he wrote. Uh and he is a wonderful author. He might be my he's he's definitely my favorite short story writer and he wrote uh what became the Antoni film Blowup which is about the way that men look at women and the stories that men tell themselves about women while looking at them. And that was deeply inspiring just about the doll. How men crafted a doll to to kind of replace that looking. A doll that is very purposefully not alive, that has no opinions, that can't talk, that doesn't even really look like a woman. It's like the vague suggestion of one.

[00:10:57]>> It's the vague suggestion of one. And I found that just so fascinating. And especially in the context of film, both of us love uh love horror. Women are such a central component of horror.

[00:11:10]We're were inextricable from horror and like I'm sure you have. Have you read the monstrous feminine?

[00:11:15]>> Yes. Yes. Yes. Mhm.

[00:11:17]>> Yeah. Overall, it's all over it. All the archetypes and all the anxieties are all playing out, >> you know, the mother and the seductress and the victim and the witch and the all over. And then yeah, behind the scenes, too. I mean, my god. Uh not enough people talk about this. The creature from the black lagoon was designed by a woman.

[00:11:36]>> Yes. Yes. I was say creators as well.

[00:11:39]Mary [ __ ] Shelly.

[00:11:40]>> Mary [ __ ] Shelly. Absolutely. Uh just OG's killing it. Killing it across the board. The other one that I bring up a lot is uh A Doll's House by Henrik Ipsson.

[00:11:53]>> Oh yeah.

[00:11:54]>> Yeah. Uh this might be more for the feature version of it. um which I you know we we can get into ducks because it was a short and then it was a feature and then that company went under and so now it is a short again >> it's uh much like doll it has been re reincarnated in many lives but yes that is a play that I read honestly I think it was for high school I was just very struck with the kind of simmering evilness of a woman simply living out a life um that is so regulated, so trapped in a way. She is trapped in a dollhouse and I think many women can often feel trapped in you know even labels like survivor, victim, um mother, daughter, you know they are descriptions but because of because of the society we live in because you know the patriarch we have so many um feelings and associations that you know come along with those words that bring a lot of baggage. Yeah, that was also very informative to the kind of overall tone, funny, uh, light-hearted until it's suddenly absolutely not. Um, so you were saying, um, I would love to know more about like kind of the as much as you can say about the the evolving kind of development process like you said short to feature to back to short because I think something you know the a less like glamorous but like a really important kind of in in my experience as well facet of being an indie creator is finding that you have to like get creative not just with the piece you're making but like with the way you make it because things will come up and and fall apart and then things will you know work and then they don't and then you have to be you have to you have to bounce you have to be resilient in my experience uh in a way that is >> punishing >> yeah it can be very punishing and and you don't want to and it's and again that's why I'm like as much as you can or want to talk about because it's not I'm not like oh how much did it suck but like I but I you know I am curious about you know sort of the the journey from conception to kind of linking up with the team you're working with now to the crowdfunding.

[00:14:16]>> Totally. Yeah. So, I definitely wrote the Yes. first version of the short much in a fit of stuper. I think it was during the pandemic, so you know, we're all going a little stir crazy. The first person I ended up sending it to is uh my friend Monica, who is she is a director and she is the director of Blow. Hell yeah. She is a phenomenal horror director. The way that she uses iconography and like empty space in the frame is so evocative and emotional.

[00:14:54]She's a very colorful director, too, which is very rare in horror. You know, >> I'm always missing color in horror. I'm always like rapsidizing about it when I see it.

[00:15:04]>> Yes. Especially for something like this.

[00:15:07]again like doll is so bright and plastic and um you know the bright red lips, the green eyes shadow and yeah, Monica is just a pro at all of that. On top of that um she is a makeup director. Her other job is shooting and photographing yeah models and makeup and drag queens with like glamour and light. So yeah, I was like, she she's the perfect person for this. Yeah, just a a a wonderful just a wonderful spectrum of what she's able to do both with beauty and horror.

[00:15:49]And I love those juxapositions. So yeah, I ended up uh sending it to her. Um, and at the time she was working with a small production company that was working with a much larger production company and she sent it to them and they loved it and asked if I was interested in developing it with them into a feature. Of course, I said yes. Uh it was a basically an entire year of uh you know planning out the future, writing, rewriting, writing again, rewriting again, rewriting, more rewriting. Yeah. And it was a long process, but I will say uh I did learn a lot. That was the first time that I had uh developed a feature, you know, with two producers. You know, I I felt like I was learning a lot how to translate producer notes into a creative note, things like that that I, you know, didn't have much experience with. Yeah, it really felt like trial by fire. Uh about about a year of developing it into a feature when it was all said and done.

[00:17:04]Yeah. the company kind of fizzled up by this time. I had a writing lit manager and so, you know, returned the rights to me and Monica. Yeah. After going through that experience, Monica and I both decided that we we simply didn't want to wait for someone to give us a green light. Um, especially considering we, you know, we spent a year developing the feature version of it. um which we love and the short is actually just the first 10 minutes of the feature version you know again it started it started that way um and I always kept it as kind of the cold open simply because I think it's awesome so when we were deciding to do the short we were like hell yeah let's just uh go back to what we originally planned and now we have so much more um you know thoughts about the character so many more visual inspiration, uh, very specific ideas about the way that she moves. She doesn't speak in the movie, but we know what she's thinking in every moment. Yeah, it was great foundation to >> very confidently uh, you know, dive into the process of funding uh, and next shooting the short. And I will say even with the ups and downs and the unpredictability of it all, you're always getting to, I don't know, deepen your own understanding of what the story is about. So even though, you know, obviously there were setbacks, getting to spend that time doing the rewriting and the rewriting and the rewriting and the digging and the like processing other people's notes, I think you maybe left it in a better place.

[00:18:54]>> Absolutely. You know, when I first wrote it, again, it was very much an emotional reaction of wanting catharsis, >> liking violence in movies, in movies, and movies. Movies, not in real life, and or in Minecraft. Um, those are the two places.

[00:19:12]>> I love violence in movies and in Minecraft. And that's where I like it.

[00:19:15]>> Exactly. Thank you, FBI. Okay. But I do also think uh I mean part of the reason I think violence in film is such a wonderful tool is that it is able to build catharsis, you know, for in a space where it's it's okay to imagine and play pretend.

[00:19:35]>> Oh, 100%.

[00:19:36]>> The doll's not real. He's not literally >> going to kill you. Um uh but yeah, I think that's important feelings for people to explore, especially people that yeah, don't often get to see things that they have dealt with addressed or talked about in film or, you know, that their their want for justice honored or even just honoring their anger, feminine anger, you know, again, very central to >> absolutely >> to horror and I'm using feminine as a very loose term. One of the actually very interesting things that I learned while researching for this project, there was a very interesting anecdote about how men got to see themselves as the horror protagonist. It was easy for them to live their own catharsis through a feminine form in a horror movie. uh you know it's a genre that they're very comfortable and familiar with and women are you know often allowed to explore and express feelings that again just using general terms for the quickiness of it but that men often feel yeah that they are not able to express yeah it's a it's a film very much about gender but I think even more than that yeah about our internal want for justice for the scales to be evened for your anger to have a righteous place to go in this film. That place is doll.

[00:21:06]>> She'll take care of it for you. Your hands are clean. That's the other thing.

[00:21:11]>> They don't even really have to do anything. Doll will do it for you. Uh and I think that's such a >> funny roundabout way. I feel like men in uh men in film often get to wash their hands of things. Uh because it's like, well, I didn't do it. that monster over there that I built did it. Um, and so, >> right, right, right, right, right.

[00:21:34]>> Yeah, this is much a version uh of that where >> according to the lore, yeah, girl, you didn't do anything. That was all doll.

[00:21:43]She did it for you. She's like the vector through which that katharsis and that justice can come. I really I really love that and I really love um there's been some stuff about this I think on on the socials for the for the for the short but I you know I really love kind of what horror movie monsters although I hesitate to even call doll a monster but you know what I mean >> I think she would enjoy the label the label >> okay good um like horror movie monsters give us like like are can act as the like vector through which we can explore these things and I am so intrigued by just kind of the process of creating you you were talking about like you know figuring out what she looks like, how she moves. Um as much as you can or want to talk about without any spoilers, the process of creating an original horror movie monster.

[00:22:32]>> Yeah. One thing that it inspired part of it for me is, you know, you probably don't in true crime when anyone sees a mannequin, >> it's not a mannequin. Our our brains don't ever want to believe something is a body. And so something like a blowup doll is just extremely creepy to have around because your brain registers it as a human body even though it is so looks nothing like a woman or a person.

[00:23:03]Um, it it's so close enough that your like the monkey part of your brain I guess speak or the lizard part of my brain whenever I even see the outline of it, Addison, my stomach does a I always think it's a person. Will always thinks that that is me like lying on the ground for a split second until they realize that's the blowup doll. Psychologically it is clo it is so right in that uncanny valley that just initially had so it gives me so many like unsettling uh feelings and with that you know a lot of easy fun things you can do to surprise an audience with that. Yeah, that was like the official initial thoughts about the doll. And so then of course we buy a blowup doll. And once I have the blowup doll, there's many more things to discover that are wonderful.

[00:23:56]Um because she's a spirit that can, you know, inhabit, you know, anything, any object. Doll is indestructible. So, if someone pokes her with a knife, yeah, she'll deflate, but she can reinflate herself and put a little sticker over the over the mark like a patch and just keep going. I love that.

[00:24:19]>> I think women are indestructible and doll is absolutely um indestructible, which I just think is very fun to play with. It's not a spoiler, but there is a part in the short where yeah, of course, the guy thinks that he has defeated the the balloon essentially. And yeah, she's able to put herself back together easily. She does it, you know, hundred times a day. Who cares? Water off a duck's back. And then I think the last component to doll in the short is again I'm fascinated with this idea of men creating something like a blowup doll as a way to like they had to have I don't know have feelings express themselves. It's like their twisted way of loving something.

[00:25:11]Uh, I use those words lightly, but I wanted Doll to have that same experience. So, what is she doing with the men that she kills? Yes, she's killing them because she is asked to and because the person did something terrible. Um, but Doll is herself creating a doll. She's skinning them alive and using their skin to craft her own being. Frankenstein, who's unfortunately not alive, but neither is a sex doll. So, um I think it really works out for her. I wanted to give her a goal that was beyond simply being at humans beck and call to enact revenge.

[00:25:55]You know, I wanted to give her something that she's doing for herself. Uh a craft, you could say a craft.

[00:26:03]>> She's not I I like that she although she is is in the literal sense, I like that she's not hollow.

[00:26:08]>> Yes. Absolutely. And that was um part of the challenge that uh Monica and I gave ourselves was as as close as we can, someone starting the movie and seeing doll as just a blowup doll and by the end seeing her as a full character with her own thoughts and feelings, wants, desires who just happens to have a profession where she enacts revenge for all eternity.

[00:26:39]I mean, a girl's got to have a calling.

[00:26:41]>> A girl's got to have a calling. And like she, you know, like any other working woman, she loves her job. It's just not all that she is.

[00:26:51]>> Right. Exactly. Just because she loves her job doesn't mean she is her job.

[00:26:54]>> Exactly.

[00:26:55]>> So, I won't keep you too much longer.

[00:26:56]I'm just so excited about it and I I hope uh I and so I would love to um if you would give the people like the info on where to link it obviously but like where they can find updates and uh contribute. Absolutely. Um yeah so we are it's a it's a time limit. It's a seed and spark so we only have a few days to raise the entire budget. So, you can find it at uh seednaspark.comfundtheblow movie. If you want to donate, we will be forever grateful. And we do have some really cool prizes to give for those who donate. We have a social media shout out, your name in the credits, a personalized postcard from doll, a doll magnet, a movie notebook to keep track of all your favorite films. uh that I designed a special thanks in the credits, handdrawn storyboard art. Yeah.

[00:27:57]So, we wanted to make things that were really would be fun to receive, fun gifts to thank you for your contribution. And if you can't give, you can just follow the project on Seed and Spark to get updates. You know, we've been posting about our our our glamorous uh monster maker Christa creating doll from scratch. Yeah. Head over there, check it out. Follow us. Donate if you can. We really want to bring this to the people that need that catharsis that I was looking for oh so long ago. I want it. I would like it. I would like the short. I would like the feature when it can happen. And I uh was thinking as we were talking about how often movies that explore this particular kind of rage and and and and vengeance feel as if they need to still sort of still function like a fable or like a morality play and be like but it's bad to actually killing her.

[00:28:57]>> We don't go into a Tarantino movie and be like w that was that was bad he shot that guy. Come on. you know, like what >> when he killed all those Nazis, that was not nice. When he took all those Nazi scalps, it's like, okay.

[00:29:09]>> Wow. Uh yeah. Uh I think we deserve more than that. Um and I I tr I trust the audience more than that.

[00:29:20]>> And I and I love that.

[00:29:21]>> And if for some reason folks don't know where to find you, where can they find you? Yes, you can find me on YouTube on Blue Sky on Instagram. Um, at just my name, Maggie Mayfish, May spelled M A like my dead great grandmother, not like the month.

[00:29:39]>> And watch Amy's dead in Dreamhouse on Nebula.

[00:29:41]>> Yes, which you can sign up for a free trial, watch it, and then just remember to cancel it. That's your right. That's your prerogative. I'm not going to stop you.

[00:29:49]>> That's a life hack. Hash life hack.

[00:29:54]>> All right. Thank you. Uh, thank you Maggie for being here. Thank you all so much for listening. And since Gus isn't here to say it, I'll say it.