She Dies Tomorrow director Amy Seimetz files restraining order against ex Shane Carruth
Over the last few days, filmmakers, critics, and fans have rallied together in support of Amy Seimetz—star of the Pet Sematary reboot, co-creator of Starz’s The Girlfriend Experience, and director of the upcoming horror movie She Dies Tomorrow—after her ex, Primer and Upstream Color director Shane Carruth, tweeted out a photo with a restraining order that Seimetz had filed against him not-so-subtly tucked into a very visible corner. She Dies Tomorrow is coming out in drive-in theaters this Friday before a VOD rollout next week, so the timing of the photo led some people to believe that Carruth was trying to draw attention away from Seimetz’s movie and toward this scandal, making the larger story about him and not about her work.
According to Variety, the restraining order was filed back in June, and in it, Seimetz accuses Carruth of putting her through years of mental and physical abuse. The order apparently quotes a private investigator that Seimetz hired as saying that Carruth posed a “moderate to high level of threat” to Seimetz and that he had made “direct homicidal threats.” It also says that Seimetz had gotten a temporary restraining order back in 2018 after the two had broken up, but when a judge chose not to make the order permanent, Seimetz says Carruth was “emboldened” to “continue harassing her in emails and text messages.” This morning, a judge held a hearing on the restraining order that Variety says did not go especially well due to Carruth interrupting and being uncooperative, so it has been pushed back to August 21.
But anyway, if the goal of the photo was to draw attention away from Seimetz’s work, let’s not do that and instead talk about She Dies Tomorrow some more. Once again, it’ll be in drive-in theaters this weekend and VOD on August 7. It stars Kate Lyn Sheil as a woman who comes to believe that she’s going to die tomorrow, with her sudden revelation spreading to her friends like a virus. Timely! Our own Katie Rife said it was one of the most original films of this year’s virtual SXSW and that it had “inventive, invigorating visual panache to spare.” We’d also recommend checking out Seimetz’s directorial debut, Sun Don’t Shine, which is also good.