"I always loved the original Grimm's fairy tales," Los Angeles-based filmmaker and newly christened Master or Horror Lucky McKee explained in a 2003 interview with writer Kim Linekin, shortly after McKee's independently-financed horror film MAY (2002) was picked up for distribution by Lions Gate Films. "Just the bizarre ways that these characters think, like Cinderella's sisters chopping their heels off to fit in the glass slipper."

Raised in the riverbank town of Jenny Lind, California, in the foothills of Calaveras County, Edward Lucky Mckee grew up without access to the most basic forms of entertainment. "I really didn't get to see many movies, I lived way out in the sticks," he told the genre magazine Are You Going? in 2003. "So comic books were the replacement for that visual storytelling. I wanted to draw and write comic books...and that's where I made the transition to seriously wanting to make movies."

When McKee was ten years old, the use of a video camera to record his sister's birthday sparked an interest in making films. At the age of twelve, he and a friend made their own home version of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. Evincing an ambition that would serve him well in later years, McKee and classmate Kevin Ford solicited a commission from Calaveras High School to shoot a documentary of their senior year and projected the finished product for the entire student body.

After his high school graduation, McKee traveled to Los Angeles to begin an intensive four-year filmic writing program at the University of Southern California's School of Film-Television, a program in which he was involved from 1993 to 1997. "I always saw writing and storytelling as a great base for a film education," McKee told interviewer Christopher P Garetano in 2003. McKee formed several lasting friendships while at USC, with several of his classmates later working behind the scenes of his feature films.

After leaving USC, McKee returned to Calaveras County, where he made his first feature ALL CHEERLEADERS DIE (1999), with former production student Chris Sivertson. Shot on video over the course of two four-day weekends, the splatter comedy involves a high school rivalry between jocks and cheerleaders that extends from beyond the grave during a class reunion. Acting in the film were members of both the McKee and Sivertson families, as well as the lead singer for the LA punk band Switchblade Kittens, another USC alumna.

"We decided to do a simple fun story that we could exercise a bunch of different styles with," McKee explained to Bloody-Disgusting.com in 2006. "On the filmmaking end, Chris and I shared the duties on everything. When I operated the camera, he held the boom and vice versa. We divided up the scenes and edited them, did the sound, pieced together for the soundtrack, handled contracts, everything. For better or worse, we taught ourselves how to make a movie on that project."

While a USC sophomore, McKee had made the short video FRACTION, which he expanded into his feature-length screenplay for MAY. Inspired by Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, Martin Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER (1976) and the music of Nirvana, MAY tells the discomfiting story of a repressed veterinarian's aid whose desperation for companionship is twisted by the cruelty of others. Having recognized McKee's talent while attending classes with him at USC, Marius Balchunas developed the script through his newly-founded 2Loop Films and offered McKee a production deal.

With the backing of an established production company, McKee was able to attract an above average cast of indie performers to MAY (2002), including Jeremy Sisto, Anna Farris, and Angela Bettis in the title role. McKee's first solo effort was praised by the Chicago Tribune for it's "fierce, palpable creepiness" and by the Los Angeles Times as "a stylized work of unflinching control and discipline." Preeminent critic Roger Ebert lauded McKee's solo directing debut, remarking "You get the feeling he's the real thing."

Picked up by Lions Gate after an impressive showing at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, MAY had a limited theatrical release before being rushed onto the home entertainment market, where it developed a cult following. Fans rejoiced in McKee's slow burn aesthetic and in the performance of Texas-born leading lady Angela Bettis. "I communicate with women really well," McKee told Fangoria's Mike Gringold in 2003. "I like filming women, I love women, I think they're just about the best thing there is going on!"

For United Artists, Lucky McKee was hired to direct the David Ross script THE WOODS (2006), shot in Montreal and concerned with weird goings on at an isolated girl's boarding school during the early 1960's. Again, McKee was blessed with a first rate cast, including Patricia Clarkson and EVIL DEAD star Bruce Campbell. Slated for a 2005 release by UA, THE WOODS was shelved when the studio bought out by Metro Goldwyn Mayer, and a belated release is pending.

"I'm really proud of that film," McKee told writer Elaine Lamkin in January of 2006. "I stuck with it all the way through the studio meatgrinder and ended up with a really neat-feeling movie on the other side. I probably should have made a more modestly budgeted film after MAY, but I will always carry with me the experience of making a studio picture. I had to grow up really quick, and I feel I actually pulled off something quite unique."

With health concerns compelling Roger Corman to excuse himself from the MASTERS OF HORROR series, McKee became the newest, youngest member of the fraternity. In fact, McKee turned 30 during postproduction of his contribution, "Sick Girl", written by Sean Hood. McKee tailored the scripts to include regular leading lady Angela Bettis as a lovelorn entomologist. "It's like a romantic-comedy version of THE FLY," McKee told Fangoria's Tony Timpone in 2005. "It's a lesbian love story about two girls and the bug that gets between them."

After the twin hassles of studio interference and distribution limbo with THE WOODS, McKee was grateful for the chance to work quickly and with his own people for MASTERS OF HORROR. "Its an honor to be part of that group," he told Fangoria. "What I didn't have in experience, I tried to make up for with my energy and preparation. I really worked my ass off for this thing, and put everything I had into it."

McKee steps in front of the camera for the shot-on-video ROMAN (2006), based on his own scripts and helmed by first-time director Angela Bettis. In 2005, McKee told Fangoria's Paul Gaita: "It's about a lonely guy who has nothing in his life except for looking out the same window after work. He watches the same girl go by every day but never talks to her, until he meets her by chance. Unfortunately, he's obsessed so much over her that things go horribly wrong."

For Chris Sivertson, McKee has produced THE LOST (2006), based on the novel by Jack Ketchum, and will direct RED, an adaptation of Ketchum's novel about a war veteran who goes ballistic when his beloved dog is murdered. Although he may experiment with other genres, McKee remains committed to horror. "I never thought horror films lost that potential," he told Bloody-Disgusting.com. "Just as long as people remember there's more to horror than grossing people out and jumping out and saying boo."

2007- RED (Announced)
2006 - MASTERS OF HORROR (Sick Girl)
2006 - THE WOODS
2002 - MAY
2001 - ALL CHEERLEADERS DIE

-Written by Richard Harland Smith, and can be found on the SICK GIRL DVD.