Emma Higgins Talks Fandom, Addiction, and Teen Angst in SWEETNESS
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- 4 min read
By Shannon McGrew
In Emma Higgins's feature film SWEETNESS, when superfan Rylee (Kate Hallett) learns that Payton (Herman Tømmeraas), her rock-star idol, is spiraling into addiction, she makes it her mission to save him, whether he wants her help or not. But when her desperate plan spirals out of control, she kidnaps him in a delusional attempt to “fix” him. What begins as compassion turns into captivity, as she locks him away in the name of love.
For the release of SWEETNESS, Creepy Kingdom’s Shannon McGrew spoke with writer/director Emma Higgins. During their conversation, they discussed everything from the dark side of fandom and the dangers of idolization to capturing the emotional intensity of teen girl obsession through horror.
Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today, Emma! Where did the idea for the film originate from, and why did you decide to explore it through horror?
Emma Higgins: I had to explore through horror because I’m a horror junkie, obsessive, crazy person, so my brain just always wants to go to the dark side of things. I credit it to having anxiety, where I always think the worst thing is going to happen [Laughs].
The idea came from working in music videos for so many years. I used to work at 604 Records, a record label in Vancouver. I made over 100 music videos in Canada, toured with bands, and spent a lot of time around musicians and fans. I started doing that when I was a teenager, so it was both sides of the coin at once: seeing fandom and being a fan. That’s kind of the genesis of it. But I also wanted to do right by the girls and the fans and give them a little bit more of their side of the story.
As someone who used to be obsessed with *NSYNC, this movie reminded me of the intense fandom I had for them during my formative years. How important was it for you to make sure that the film didn’t romanticize the collision between Rylee and Payton?
Emma Higgins: There is that old adage about never meeting your idols, and I think it’s very true. That was one of the things I would say about working in the music industry. The more people you meet you always want them to be the way that they exist in your mind. No one can ever live up to the person that we’ve projected upon, and I think that’s something we all tend to do.
In Rylee’s case, she made Payton out to be so perfect that no actual human being could ever live up to that. The core idea, even at smaller levels, not just with celebrities, is that we project our desires onto someone and then get disappointed when they don’t live up to something we created in our minds. It’s unfair, but we do it again and again.
As someone who has had experience with their own addiction, I appreciated the approach to Payton regarding him having to confront his own uncomfortable truth, even while in this unimaginable situation. How did you approach depicting withdrawal and addiction without turning it into a spectacle?
Emma Higgins: There’s an absurdity to the situation that he is going through that does have this comedy to how he’s having to go through withdrawals, but it’s also tough. There’s a line in the movie where he talks about the reasons for his addiction. No one thinks it can happen to them, that it only happens to people who have X, Y, and Z, or whatever. Then he dispels that in a way, and I thought it was really important to keep that line in the film because it’s a reminder that it can happen to anyone.
The music in the film is almost a character in its own right. What was the process like when it came to choosing the music for the film?
Emma Higgins: I have a playlist that I listen to when I’m writing and creating. I’m very inspired by music. I created a whole playlist of songs that spoke to teen angst. Every generation has its version of it, and for me, it was very much My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, All-American Rejects, and Avril Lavigne. I was in that emo space, and we wanted to carry that through.
As we made the film, we had different people from our crew add to the playlist. Every morning, we would play a song of the day, and a different crew member would get to pick their angsty song, and we’d all listen to it while doing a morning wake-up stretch before we started filming, so music was in the DNA of the film from the get-go. A lot of the artists on the soundtrack are Canadian, like Sophia Stel, but I would say it’s almost all women, which was intentional. Then Blitz Berlin wrote all the band's original songs and the score. They had some heavy lifting on this one.
Horror often thrives in the spaces we have discussed, especially in terms of control and power dynamics. What do you hope people take away from this film when they leave the theater?
Emma Higgins: More than anything, I wanted to communicate a feeling. I hope that in some way it can create a bit of empathy or understanding for the teen girl experience and the fan girl. Even if you aren’t on Rylee’s side, you can step into her shoes and step into her world and have a different experience than you might’ve been able to have because there’s such a brushing off of young girls and fan girls. They’re brushed off, and their taste is brushed off, and I don’t think that’s fair. I hope this allows people to step into the world of a fan girl.
SWEETNESS is now available On Digital and Demand.
