Film Club 3000: A Journal on The History of Film - Issue 001

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OVERVIEW

About Film Club 3000

Letter From the Editor Kemari Bryant

ESSAYS

I Brought You Into This World and I Can Take You Out: A History of Mommy Issues in Horror Cameron Linly Robinson Isabelle Adjani: Reestablishing a Horror Icon Scott Rogers Black Horror: A Renaissance and Release From Trauma Jay Najeeah A Girl Walks Home at Night and Ana Lily Amirpour’s Mastery of Blending Style Madeline Saintsing Inside the Neglected Emotional States of Ari Aster Kemari Bryant

CONTENTS

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FEATURES

Torso: The Proto-Slasher Film and The First Final Girl

By Kemari Bryant A Look at Unbridled Joy and Community at Queer Fear Film Festival 2023 Kemari Bryant What An Excellent Day for An Exorcism: The 50th Anniversary of The Excorcist Cameron Linly Robinson

CLOSE UPS

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In Conversation with Tiffany Albright Kemari Bryant

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A Close Up on Jay Najeeah Cameron Linly Robinson

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What Makes a Final Girl?

Mixology by Cameron Cameron Linly Robinson The Final Girl Playlist Maddie Conti Watchlist 3000

Issue 001 | October 2023

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ABOUT FILM CLUB 3000 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF KEMARI BRYANT MANAGING EDITOR CAMERON LINLY ROBINSON

ALL VIEWS AND OPINIONS ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHORS AND DO NOT NECCESSARILY REPRESENT THE VIEWS HELD BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF.

CONTRIBUTORS SCOTT ROGERS MADELINE SAINTSING JAY NAJEEAH MADDIE CONTI

WEBSITE FILMCLUB3000.COM

COVER ART LEANNE RENEE

CONTACT FILMCLUB3000@GMAIL.COM

FILM STILLS COLLECTED EXCLUSIVELEY FROM SHOT DECK.

INSTAGRAM @FILMCLUB3000

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Dear Readers, Watching a film is time travel.

Art is an abstract thing: it exists as both concept and physical object, in time and space forevermore.

Time implies change, movement, and trajectory. Throughout our history, art has been used as a marker of time. Ancient hieroglyphics exist as a snapshot from Ancient Egypt, providing us with information through a combination of language and visual art. A painting by Sandro Boticelli marks a time of transition from the Medieval Period to the Renaissance, and the beginnings of an overall evolving cultural perspective.

In my opinion, film is the highest art form of all. A combination of the visual and the auditory, the ability to incorporate music and art, the unique opportunity to create movement — all of these aspects add to the emotional experience of viewing a film. Furthermore, when going back and watching movies, we can watch the ways that technology has evolved. Today we can watch a movie shot in CinemaScope, or on 35mm, or on digital, and by look alone, it is possible to place the decade in which the movie was made —it is a stamp made in time. The study of film is crucial to understanding our history. With each film we learn more about cultural thoughts, moral dilemmas, and the shifting perspectives of any given time period. Filmmakers, like painters, writers, and all artists, are both culture bearers and keepers of time.

In Issue 001 of FC3K we dive into a series uncovering the origin of the final girl, exploring all aspects of women and sexuality in horror films. Horror is a genre that has, for so long, been placed firmly on the outside of mainstream filmmaking. So in this issue we plant our feet in the ground on the outside, looking in, examining the ways the evolution of a simple trope can interlock so closely with the changing and evolving attitudes of a wider culture.

So, dear readers, we invite you to strap into your time machine and head back with us to learn a bit more about our history.

Enjoy, to 3000 and beyond, Kemari Bryant | Editor-in-Chief

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I Brought You Into This World and I Can Take You Out: A History of Mommy Issues in Horror

BY CAMERON LINLY ROBINSON

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’m sure many of us have heard this threat from our mother throughout our lives. And while it’s normally said as a joke or not meant to be taken seriously, you can’t deny that the horror genre as a whole has taken the idea of a monstrous, murderous, terrifying mother and ran with it. Margaret White, Mrs. Voorhees, Annie Graham, and Faye Dunaway’s Joan Crawford of Mommie Dearest represent some terrifying mothers in scary movies throughout history. These women are, at times, abusive, murderous, evil, and even worse create children that follow in their footsteps. Why does this prevail in the horror genre? Where does the fascination of this relationship come from?

What does it say about society as a whole and its view of women and mothers? The horror trope of the monstrous mother represents the pain and suffering brought upon us by simply being alive and, furthermore, how we deal with that pain.

It all goes back to our mothers, our creators, the person who brought us into the world. The first science fiction novel, ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley introduces these themes in a beautifully complex way. This story examines the psyche of scientist Victor Frankenstein as he creates a creature from pieces of many corpses that he reanimates and brings to life.

Horrified by his own creation, he runs as far away as he can, literally all the way to the North Pole, to hide from his creation. The narrative takes a turn by switching to the creature’s perspective. Here we examine the pain and suffering inflicted upon this creature simply by being alive and by being denied by his creator. He is confused and enraged by being thrown into the world with no support or affection. And we are led to wonder if Dr. Frankenstein had the right to create life in the first place. Perhaps if he had stayed with the creature and nurtured it he could claim that right. And yet, we still are

left with the sense that the best way to rectify his actions would be for Dr. Frankenstein to go back in time and never create the creature. That is the only way to remove us from our suffering completely–to never inflict it in the first place.

Taking a step back from the narrative, we gain another layer to this story: the author, herself, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Shelley had a tumultuous early life in relation to motherhood.

Before the age of 25, Shelley had given birth to her four children and had a miscarriage that almost cost her her life. Tragically, only one of her children lived to adulthood. It is well documented that the idea for Frankenstein came to Shelley in a dream in the summer of 1816 (a little over a year after the death of her daughter, Clara).

In this context, the story can be understood to represent a woman’s fears and insecurities surrounding motherhood and birth. This extends to reflect the complicated relationship that humans may have with their creator in a divine sense. The conversation surrounding our hatred of a God that created life, and therefore created suffering, is oftentimes represented through motherhood.

Moving forward almost 150 years, we arrive at Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), one of the most influential films to grace the horror scene.

Here we are introduced to Norman Bates–a young man who murdered his mother and her boyfriend years before the events of the film.

This act supposedly causes a break in his psyche which leads him to take on characteristics of his mother–seemingly believing that half of him is his mother. Here we see an examination of the mother-son relationship, a common theme throughout horror films, specifically slasher movies (Michael Myers of Halloween, Jason of Friday the 13th, Billy of Scream). While Psycho is not necessarily a Slasher film, it did definitely influence the form, and Norman Bates relationship with his mother is seen again and again

in these films. She is depicted as having been overbearing and controlling, so much so that her words echo through Norman’s mind years after her death and lead him to murder any woman who may threaten their relationship. Talk about major Mommy Issues!

This overbearing relationship is repeated again and again with both mother-son and mother-daughter characters. In Carrie (1976), the lead character is so sheltered by her mother, Margaret, that she doesn’t even realize what is happening to her when she gets her first period.

She is locked away (literally in a tiny closet) and forced to pray for forgiveness for the unholy punishment that women bear (having a period).

It becomes clear that Margaret is taking a lot of her own guilt and shame out on her daughter, and Margaret even fears Carrie to some degree, especially when she discovers her telekinetic abilities. At the end of the film, after Carrie has murdered her classmates, she returns home and her mother tells her how it was a sin for Carrie’s father and her to conceive her. She says, “I should have given you to God when you were born. But I was weak and backsliding. And now, the Devil has come home.” Margaret believes that Carrie is punishment for her sinful desires and that it is her responsibility to get rid of her.

Then, she stabs Carrie in the back, clearly intending to kill her. Once again, we see a creator coming to terms with the thing that they’ve created. And similar to ‘Frankenstein’, we ask who really has the right to create life? And does the creator of life have the right, or the responsibility, to take it?

This film adds another layer due to the 1973 passing of Roe v. Wade, which granted abortion access to women across the United States. Carrie became one of the first horror films dealing with these issues of motherhood to exist in a time where women had the right to choose whether or not they would be mothers. With the fight for abortion rights, we began to see a new character metamorphosize in these films–the fetus or a representation of the fetus, which becomes a villainous character that exists in direct opposition to the “mother”. The fetus’s “right to live” is positioned against the woman’s “right to choose” and her bodily autonomy in an antagonistic way. We begin to see these Mother characters through a new light. Where they were once the villains of the story, things get more complicated.

This is explored in depth in 1979’s Alien, which follows the crew of a spacecraft, the Nostromo, as it is overtaken by an alien life form. The alien reproduces by penetrating its victims throat and placing a fetus in his body that then bursts through the chest, killing the victim. The horror of course being in the removal of choice from the victim and forcing them to give their life for the life of the baby alien. In these films motherhood is explored in a number of ways: literal birth as well as surrogate motherhood. And we begin to have a really interesting conversation around choice and how important it is for the mother (creator) to have autonomy over the decision to create life, and how detrimental it can be for the child (creature) to force its life upon the world. The line between mother and child and who the real monster is becomes blurred.

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Of course, this reflects back to ‘Frankenstein’, which is one of the first stories that questioned who the real villain is in this relationship, and also posed the answer that perhaps both creator and creation are monstrous in their own ways. “God created man in his own image,” (The Holy Bible, Genesis 1:27) after all. And it is clear that the use of “mother” as a horror villain trope is a variation on blaming a divine creature for the pain of existence. However, there is a great deal of power that we gain when we are able to create stories that question our existence. Art is a way to explore life’s mysteries and come to terms with our trauma. So, while there is a great deal of suffering that comes with being alive, creating is how we deal with this as humans. Mary Shelley wrote a new Author’s Introduction for the third edition of ‘Frankenstein’ in 1831. Here she speaks very fondly of her creation.

“And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper. I have an affection for it, for it was the offspring of happy days, when death and grief were but words, which found no true echo in my heart. Its several pages speak of many a walk, many a drive, and many a conversation, when I was not alone; and my companion was one who, in this world, I shall never see more.” (Shelley, 1831).

Shelley refers to her creation–this book, its characters, perhaps the Creature that she created–fondly and with a sense of nostalgia, like an old friend that she misses. For a piece created out of deep pain and suffering after the loss of her child and the questioning of herself as a mother, it’s pretty miraculous that she viewed the act of writing this book with such love. It says something about the power of expression, and how we utilize art–books, films, music–as a means of therapy to get us through challenging times. We question our creator, then we go on to create. It is the cycle of life. No wonder these tropes return again and again in the art we consume.

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Isabelle Adjani: Reestablishing a Horror Icon

BY SCOTT ROGERS

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stablishing yourself as a horror icon is extremely difficult, and often, out of your control. People like Neve Campbell, Jaimie Lee Curtis, Janet Leigh, and Shelley Duvall are synonymous with their respective horror filmographies. They’ve cemented themselves as not only Horror fanatic icons, but also Hollywood stars in the mainstream. Even now, with emerging stars like Mia Goth and Jenna Ortega, we’re witnessing a new generation of “scream queens’’ emerge. And everyone will be partial to their own favorite. However, I find that one of the most overlooked and underappreciated is French actress Isabelle Adjani with her work in both Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession (1981) and Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu The Vampyre (1979). One, a subdued yet engrossing performance. The other, potentially the most unhinged, and impressive performance I’ve ever seen. Though she didn’t work exclusively in horror (working with Francois Truffaut for one of her academy award nominated performances for The Story of Adele H and with Luc Besson on his film Subway), it’s with her horror filmography that I believe her legacy will be cemented.

Nosferatu The Vampyre is one of those movies that’s all about atmosphere. The plot, a retelling of the Dracula story, can be summed up in about only a few sentences. Despite the wishes of his wife Lucy (Isabelle Adjani), Jon-

athan Harker (Bruna Ganz) takes a job to close an estate deal in Transylvania with Count Dracula (Klaus Kinski). After a 4 week journey, he arrives at the Count’s castle. Dracula sees the locket of Jonathan’s wife Lucy, and becomes enamored with her beauty, and specifically, her neck. After biting Jonathan’s neck, he escapes in the night, bringing death and disease with him to the Harkers’ home of Wismar. Jonathan races home to save his wife, but by the time he arrives, the town is plague ridden and he can no longer remember Lucy. Lucy, in a desperate attempt to save the town and her husband, allows Dracula to bite her. In doing so, he is too distracted to notice the rising sun, and is killed.

A rather simple plot from start to finish, but where Nosferatu excels is in the dense, dark, gothic aesthetic. A pervasive tone that is evident from the first shot of mummified bodies, to the plague rats that swarm the city at the end, the gothic imagery and feel is the strongest part of the film. It makes for a perfect Halloween watch.

However, Isabelle Adjani’s expressive delivery in the film is what works as the perfect foil to the gothic tone. While her look of long, dark hair contrasted with pale skin and white nightgowns exudes goth, her inarguable love for Jonathan shines so brightly in what’s an otherwise extremely bleak movie. Upon Jonathan’s return home, her excitement is genuinely infectious. Among the death and disease, Lucy’s wide eyed enthusiasm

and warmth is a welcome sight. She’s the beating heart of the film and the only character with whom we can truly empathize and celebrate. Adjani’s ability to totally sell this passion cannot be understated. After the film’s release in 1979, Roger Ebert noted Adjani’s “curious quality of seeming to exist on an ethereal plane.” Her otherworldliness makes it hard to talk about, but it’s also what makes for such a captivating performance.

Her ability to capture both genuine fear and joy create such a magnetic performance, it makes it hard to focus on anything else other than her when she’s on screen.

She also happens to be one of the earliest examples of a “final girl” in horror. Even though Lucy as a character dates back to the late 1800’s, Herzog shifts her around some to help create a more full character.

He combines her character with that of Mina Murray, Jonathan’s original wife in the Bram Stoker ‘Dracula’, who doesn’t appear in the film. In doing so, however, he creates what is an early version of the final girl trope.

It’s down to Lucy to save not only her husband, but the town as a whole. She knows of Dracula’s obsessive infatuation with her, and knows that he is the reason the plague is killing the town. She determines that she can sacrifice herself and buy enough time to distract him until the sun rises, killing him and ending the town’s torment. As Dracula leans in for the bite, something changes though. Adjani says about this moment “First, she hopes to save the people of the town by sacrificing herself. But then, there is a moment of transition. There is a scene when he is sucking her blood… her face takes on a new expression, a sexual one, and she will not let him go away anymore. There is a desire that has been born.” She ends up successful in her original attempt to kill Dracula, but subverts the final girl trope in those final moments. It’s only a subversion looking at it with a modern lens, as this does predate the idea of the “final girl”. Succumbing to evil in those final moments, Adjani’s final expressions are incredible. Her subtle shift is so slight, but carries a world of meaning. There’s always been a seductive nature to vampires, both in literature and on the screen, with works like Interview with a Vampire, Twilight, and Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’, this moment is my favorite example of the sexuality of vampires, completely sold by Adjani’s spellbinding performance.

Now to take the dial and turn it in the opposite direction, Andrzej Zulawski’s Possession is darker than the gothic tones of Nosferatu. Unlike Nosferatu; however, Isabelle Adjani’s performance in Possession is one of the darkest aspects. It’s a manic performance in which Adjani chews up every bit of scenery possible, spitting it out with vitriol and resentment. Despite winning best 07 | FC3K

actress at the Cannes Film Festival (a more than well deserved win), not everybody was on board with her performance. Writer for the New York Daily News, Harry Haun, described Adjani’s performance as the “prize-winning mad-act [that] is impossible to appraise because the film it’s in is outlandishly unhinged as well.” It is true, the film is as wild as her performance, but I don’t view that as a negative whatsoever. She meets the film where it is; a film where a supporting character’s name is Margit Gluckmeister, a film with some of the most dynamic camera movement, and a film where Adjani’s character [SPOILER] has sex with a Lovecraftian tentacle monster. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Possession’s plot is more complicated than Nosferatu’s, and also a bit harder to describe. Mark (Sam Neill) returns home from his job as a… spy… to his wife Anna (Isabelle Adjani) insisting on a divorce. She insists that it’s not because she’s been seeing someone else, but we soon learn that isn’t the case. She’s been having an affair with a man named Heinrich (Heinz Bennent) as well as neglecting their child, Bob (Michael Hogben). Through a series of arguments, fights, breakdowns, and betrayals, Anna and Mark’s relationship falls apart.

We learn the true nature of Anna’s unfaithfulness: she’s been serving some evil monstrosity that we never understand, nor should we.

We learn that this monstrosity will grow and morph to be a copy of Mark. Both Mark and Anna do not survive the events of the film, and Mark’s doppelganger takes their child, Bob. If that plot sounds crazy to read on paper, just know that’s the simplified version.

Adjani’s performance in the film works as an incredible mirror to her performance in Nosferatu. Her ethereal goodness and beauty from Nosferatu is nowhere to be found in Possession.

Instead, we are treated to her jaw dropping performance in which she fully commits to playing someone who is losing her mind. It’s not even a slow, steady decline. We meet her, and she is already on the brink of insanity, and just plunges deeper and deeper, faster and faster. It’s a performance that is hard to get a feel for without seeing it, as I can’t think of a point of reference to compare it to. She is at times, absolutely hilarious in her mannerisms, and at others, genuinely hard to watch in how grotesque she makes the performance.

There are several scenes in the film in which Adjani is able to fully showcase that range.

One of my favorite yet very small moments in the film is so inconsequential to the plot, but has not left my brain since. She’s holding a bottle of wine, staring at it as if there’s something there that we cannot see. As she spins with the bottle, she drops it (certainly on purpose), just to let out a shocked yelp, and then abruptly mutters “Broke!”. It’s such an overreaction to something that could never be passed off as an actual accident, and yet the action just keeps going like nothing happened. Possession is filled with these sort of acting choices that the viewer has to just continually accept.

Taking that all into account, her performance is frightening in the ways she’s able to shift tones so quickly and so effectively. Her ability to bring such a dark character to life, in what is already an incredibly dark film, is a testament to her abilities as an actress. I do find it important to bring up, however, how taxing this was on her. She said about her role that “It’s something I could never accept again”. I don’t love the idea of torturing your artists to get great work from them, but I do love her performance here and do believe that it should be celebrated.

The main reasons I feel that Adjani never had the breakout success many other horror stars did is mainly because of both her film choices and the fact that she mainly acted in European films. She never had the American breakout like, say, Mia Farrow did for Rosemary’s Baby. Working with mainly European arthouse directors like Francois Truffaut or Werner Herzog, she never had a smash hit in America. Despite this though, I do believe that her performance in both of the aforementioned films should place her among some of the classic horror performance conversations.

Isabelle Adjani plays such an integral role in both films that recasting her would be changing the core of the films to the point they’d be unrecognizable. These are roles that I think she should be praised for, and roles that I find myself thinking about again and again when thinking about not just my favorite horror performances, but my favorite performances in film. She’s an actress that by no means was unsuccessful, as she was nominated for two Academy Awards, but did not hit the major stardom I feel she deserves from her stellar roles in these two films.

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WHO CREATED THE MOLD A

he idea of the ‘final girl’ as a trope in horror films can be attributed to professor of the Medieval Studies and American Film, Carol J. Clover. She first wrote about the final girl in her 1992 novel, ‘Men, Women, and Chainsaws’. A final girl can be desrcribed as the sole survivor of a group of people hunted by a villain. The final girl most often gets a final showdown with the villain, and her survival is oftentimes linked with her moral superiority. In 2023 the ‘final girl’ trope is almost fifty years old, and with age comes evolution — the final girl has changed and, while this list of traits is compiled from both Clover’s works and the films that make up the trope, some have proven to be outdated and even self-mythologizing.

AND HOW FAR HAS IT COME?

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The image of the distressed female most likely to linger in memory is the image of the one who did not die: the survivor, or Final Girl. She is the one who encounters the mutilated bodies of her friends and she perceives the full extent of the preceding horror and of her own peril; who is chased, cornered, wounded; whom we see scream, stagger, fall, rise, and scream again.”

— Carol J. Clover

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ally Hardesty is arguably the first final girl and she is a blonde. Many aren’t seen to be explicitly virginal, there is more of an interest in overall moral purity in these characters that has conflated itself into virginity over time. It is easy to boil these characters down to a list of shared traits, but in reality there is much more to it than that.

The final girl is a complex character. She is thrown into impossible circumstances, forced to cling on to life, and must use all of the parts that make her up to fight her way out of hell. The final girl survives.

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Torso: The Proto-Slasher Film and The First Final Girl

BY KEMARI BRYANT

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hen tracing the origin of the ‘final girl’ trope, it’s easiest to go back to the beginning, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). Though Janet Leigh’s Marion Crane is the figure whose terror is most synonymous with the film, the character Lila Crane is the true protagonist and arguably the prototype for what the final girl would become. The character predates the trope so naturally, it doesn’t withhold all of the traits that we see in many of our other final girls, but we see the inklings of what will grow into a horror staple. Lila arrives at the Bates Motel to investigate the mysterious disappearance of her sister. Here we see her intrigue, her pursuit of truth and justice, and her intelligence as she evades a psychotic killer.

However, these are just the building blocks.

Sally Hardesty from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is widely considered our first final girl, but I want to take a look one year before the release of this iconic film. 1973s Torso is an Italian giallo film directed by Sergio Martino, and many film critics cite it as the earliest example of a slasher film. Giallo films are a subgenre of horror — visually stylish and overtly violent crime thrillers hailing from Italy in the 60s and 70s. Many have a hard time describing the qualities that make up a giallo film. It is more of a feeling and visual look: bright colors, graphic violence, explicit nudity that sometimes treads the ground of being considered softcore porn.

These all share the same DNA: they often times follow beautiful Italian women being hunted down by black-glove clad killers who murder them in extremely brutal ways. Giallis are, in many ways, the proto-slasher film.

Torso follows a string of murders surrounding a group of young women at an international college in Italy. The first shot of the film is the tracking of the female body in the midst of a threesome. This sensual opening and genuinely touching eye in on a sexual act brings the audience in, intercut with the sound of a shutter — a voyeuristic eye capturing the whole thing from a distance. There is an extreme amount of nudity in this film, which forces us to examine the link between sex and violence. Those are the very roots of horror — crimes of the body, physical and mental mutilation. Giallos really concrete that connection and are without a doubt the basis for slasher tropes, like the sexually promiscuous couple being murdered, or the morally “pure” individual making it out alive, both traits present in Torso.

The slasher villain in Torso takes the form of a stylish man in black leather gloves and a gray ski mask who strangles his victims with a scarf. He exhibits traits of an intense psychosexual disorder. His brutal murders of college women are often linked with his desire and denial, as shown by his disturbing encroach-

ment on their deceased bodies. There is a motif throughout where the killer has a flashback to poking out the eyes of a creepy doll, juxtaposed with the way he does the same to the eyes of his victims.

Our main group of characters run away to the Italian countryside after many of their close friends are murdered. We hop around through many possible protagonists, but as we encroach on the second act, we settle on four: Dani (Tina Aumont), a wealthy student, Ursula (Carla Brait) and Katia (Angela Covello), girlfriends who share tender, queer moments, and Jane (Suzy Kendall), an intelligent art student.

Misogyny and the male gaze is a huge theme explored throughout. The women simply walk through the town of Tagliacozzo and are catcalled, they sunbathe nude at their villa and are subject to the harassment of the delivery boy or the voyeuristic eye of a peeping tom. Dani’s uncle’s eye lingers a bit too long when she gets out of the shower, she also has a stalker who followers her to the villa and has a history of violence — every man in this film is a suspect because they all exhibit the same symptoms of misogyny, and this is shown through the way Martino directs and Giancarlo Ferrando shoots. It is visually stunning yet shot entirely through the male gaze, which is the point, but still feels so dark at times.

The third act takes an incredible turn, though. After Jane sprains her ankle and stays in her room instead of drinking with the others, she wakes up to find all of her friends have been murdered, and she is the only survivor.

Better yet, the killer is still in the house dismembering each victim and disposing of their bodies. Act three is a complete shift from what came before, and transitions into a psycholog-

ical cat and mouse game as Jane is trapped in the home, can’t make noise, yet has to try to escape anyway she can.

The killer is revealed to be an art history lecturer who Jane had been friendly with earlier in the film. However, he doesn’t immediately try to kill her. He explains that the rest of the women were just dolls: vapid, unintelligent, seductresses. They are “dolls made out of flesh and blood”. Jane was different, though. She was a bit more conservative, she was intelligent, and she spoke to him in-depth about art. He is a psychopathic misogynist, and eventually turns on Jane to cover his tracks.

Jane ends up being saved by a side character, a doctor who was earlier positioned as a possible suspect.

The precursors are all clear here: Jane is seen as having some sort of moral superiority, she exhibited her intelligence throughout the cat and mouse game, she was chased and wounded, and she even has a personal relationship with the killer. It’s hard not to see this as the direct originator of the slasher film genre and the final girl trope. A big reason it’s hard to truly consider Lila Crane a final girl is because Psycho is not properly a slasher film as we understand the genre today. The final girl and the slasher film are so intrinsically linked — even a film that isn’t classified as a slasher, Alien, at least shares all the same attributes, which is why Ripley is unanimously considered within the pantheon of final girls. Torso exists as a predecessor to the slasher film and as an originator to the final girl trope concurrently, and Suzy Kendall’s Jane should have her place in the hall of fame along with the best of them.

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Black Horror: A Renaissance and Release From Trauma

BY JAY NAJEEAH

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n the early 1940s, Spencer Williams, a screenwriter and actor, took the first stab at the genre we know today as “Black Horror” with the film Son of Ingagi, directed by Richard C. Khan. Though directed by a white man, it featured an all-black cast and made a statement regarding the kind of work that was missing from the canon. It would be over two decades later in 1968 that we saw another Horror film with a black lead grace the big screen with 1968’s Night of the Living Dead. Following this film, the era of Blaxploitation created a plethora of misrepresentations of the Black image that were directed by white men, with films like Abar, the First Black Superman (Dir. Frank Packard, 1974), Dr. Boss Nigger (Dir. Jack Arnold, 1975), & The Bad Bunch (Dir. Greydon Clark, 1973). With rare exceptions popping up like Ganja & Hess Directed by Bill Gun in 1973, there was a major disparity regarding works with “true” representations of blackness on screen.

Even with films like the original Candyman (1992), Def by Temptation (1990), Ragdoll (1999), and The People Under the Stairs (1991) debuting well after the Blaxploitation era, we wouldn’t see a Black Auteur in the horror genre reach critical acclaim until 2017’s hit, Get Out, directed by Jordan Peele. This film’s buzz led to a flood of Black Horror films and shows led

by Black artists in the genre and began further to uphold the concept of auteur theory in Black Cinema.

Auteur theory is exemplified in the films of Jordan Peele & Nia DaCosta who have breathed new life into the horror genre through their understanding of classic horror tropes, film and art history, and their personal aesthetic choices in their films. I intend to talk specifically about facets of Nia DaCosta’s film, Candyman as a groundbreaker in the genre, in a post-Get Out society, as well as being a transformative piece regarding our collective reckoning with trauma.

Going in chronological order, we’ll begin with Get Out (2017), written & directed by Jordan Peele. Peele can be attributed with reigniting

the social interest in what we now call Black Horror with this directorial debut. The film follows the story of Chris, a Black photographer, dating a white woman, Rose, as he prepares to meet her parents for the first time. Taking an increasingly dark, and anxiety-inducing spin on the 1967 classic Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Get Out, peers into the dangers of white liberalism at its highest degree of severity. We dig into stereotypes, implicit racism, and the commodification of the Black body and experience through this narrative feature.

Reaching critical acclaim and astounding box-office success, Get Out had a 4.5 million dollar budget and box-office earnings of 255.4 million dollars. Because of this success, we have to pose the question: what made this work? There is a compound answer for this. On one hand, according to the UCLA Hollywood Diversity reports of 2023, African-American viewership has consistently been “responsible for the majority of opening weekend, domestic, ticket sales” of films in theaters, coming in as high as 69%, of the minority share. With this fact, compounded with Jordan Peele’s mastery of horror’s cinematic language to discuss the fear that comes with existing in a black reality, it’s only logical that this film that is representative of Black fears and realities in a way that isn’t harmful to its target audience was a blockbuster success.

Due in part to Peele’s success, there’s space to talk in-depth about the state of Black horror. To step into that conversation, I’ll use Nia DaCosta’s hit film, Candyman, which hit theaters in 2021.

Written by Jordan Peele, Win Rosenfeld (a longtime collaborator of Peele), and Nia DaCosta, the story stands as a direct sequel, and what I’d like to call a continuation, of the original 1992 film of the same name. With a 25 million dollar budget, the film did well, earning 77 million at the box office.

Returning to the same ideas that I mentioned regarding Peele’s films, we can also analyze DaCosta’s work. One of the most impressive things about this narrative feature isn’t just the phenomenal horror aspects, but DaCosta’s grasp on her directorial aesthetics. As a direct sequel to the original film, there are expectations and ques-

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tions about how to continue such a beloved and intense lore. DaCosta, as the director, goes a creative and unexpected route for the film by blending the original framework of the franchise (the descent into mania & the history of trauma in a community), Shadow Puppetry, & social commentary on gentrification and the meaning of art and artists in our current society.

Throughout the film, we are met with shadow puppets made from cutout paper. A storytelling device as old as the stories themselves, the use of puppetry to enrich the story of the Candyman and of Cabrini-Green is indicative of the nature of storytelling within tight-knit communities. Every time a story or a piece of lore is bought into the narrative, we are met with that pale white background and black shadows roaming across it. Like many folktales and urban legends that are shared generationally through the oral tradition, the use of shadow puppets, with maestro-like hands that we can see throughout the film is indicative of the fact that these stories morph and change as time goes on. The ownership of them is of a community, not of one person, and that’s what truly allows Candyman to continue to be iconic, even after a 29-year break between films. To be able to make the intangible fear and folklore tangible through literal pieces of paper is an extremely impressive feat. Making that feat even more impressive, and speaking to DaCosta’s ability as an auteur filmmaker, is that this feat is compounded with her using the tried and true tools of the horror genre as a tool

to discuss the cyclical nature of trauma.

Starting subtly, we watch the characters muse about gentrification, white supremacy, the over-policing of disenfranchised communities, and how art affects these worlds. These musings at the opening of the narrative bud into the roots of what this film truly is about, the trauma imbedded in history, and how unless unpacked and resolved, it will continue to repeat itself and destroy everything around it. Even without the fantastic puppet work, we see this theme play itself out in Anthony’s Bee Sting being ignored until his actual hand is cut off, Colman Domingo’s character of William Burke being both a worker in a laundromat and delivering the iconic monologue about the stain on the community, which goes as follows: “When something leaves a stain, even if you wash it out, it’s still there. You can feel it.

Uh, uh... a thinning, deep in the fabric. This neighborhood got caught in a loop. The shit got stained in the exact same spot over and over until it finally rotted from the inside out! They tore down our homes so they could move back in. We need Candyman, ‘cause this time, he’ll be killing their fathers, their babies, their sisters. I knew it was only a matter of time before the baby came back here in perfect symmetry. A chance for Candyman to take back what’s rightfully his.”

This monologue, placed near the end of the film, brings us back to the point previously mentioned.

If not dealt with, the trauma of the past will come back to haunt and physically harm us. This con-

police violence, stamps another moment where We see black folks traumas of the past, in this case, the trauma of police being historically violent with Black folk, put a name to their are indicative of issues not worked through back to haunt us. Unresolved trauma traumas, reckon with coming and history will always leave a stain that can’t out or ignored. The stain will grow their history, racial beuntilwashed that’s all we’re able to see.

These concepts discussed by Nia DaCosta or otherwise, and throughout the film are part of a framework that many Black creatives have long since begin to unpack the taken hold of to use for their own stories.

Jordan Peele says it best in the foreword of the emotions that come anthology series ‘Out There Screaming’ that he edited, “I view horror as a catharsis through with that. entertainment. It’s a way to work through your deepest pain and fear–but for Black people that cept isn’t new, however. In most waves of “Black film,” not just the horror genre, we see black folks isn’t possible, and for many years wasn’t posput a name to their traumas, reckon with their his- sible, without the stories being told in the first tory, racial or otherwise, and begin to unpack the place.” Having an outlet to share your experience and not be further traumatized by it, was emotions that come with that. In these dealings with trauma, it is often marginalized groups who not a privilege people of the African Diaspora often had. With works of what we now call have to find and create their own spaces to make Black Horror, we are able to make greater sense sense of their history. of our experiences and release ourselves from No one better than Black Women can make the grip they have on us. sense of these concepts, as supported by ‘Black This idea isn’t exclusive to Black Auteurs but Women as Cultural Readers’, written by Jacquline has consistently shown itself in the work. HorBobo. She states “When a person comes to view ror has always displayed the fears and anxieties a film, he/she does not leave his/her histories, whether social, cultural, economic, racial, or sex- of a people, but Black Horror specifically uses ual at the door. An audience from a marginalized the medium to make sense of what plagues our nightmares. group has an oppositional stance as they participate in mainstream media.” (p. 96). In this context, the viewer of a film like Candyman, which was largely viewed by a Black audience, was able to see a humanizing iteration of traumas likely felt within their own communities, all directed by a member of their community (DaCosta).

This point can be made again through the b-plot of the story. Teyonah Parris’ character, Brianna Cartwright, the partner to our lead, Anthony, has a plethora of trauma coming into the film and leaves with more as we head out. Having witnessed the suicide of her artist father (who presumably was mentally ill) at an extremely young age and choosing not to deal with that trauma as an adult and now working art dealer, she has doomed herself to repeat the cycle with Anthony as she is left stuck to watch his mental descent until his death. This fact, compounded with Anthony’s death being at the hands of racist

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A Look at Unbridled Joy and Community at Queer Fear Film Festival 2023

BY KEMARI BRYANT

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n 2021, Tiffany Albright had recently wrapped her short film ‘Rat’, a film created virtually as a response to the Covid-19 lockdown. She sought out community after having been in quarantine for so long, and wanted to create a space for queer horror filmmakers where she didn’t see one. A simple desire to uplift the voice of a community that has so long been silenced was the only spark she needed to fan into a flame, and the rest, as they say, is history.

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Q

ueer Fear Film Festival had its first festival in an online format in October 2021.

She put out a call for entries on FilmFreeway, created a website within 24 hours, picked dates, and before her eyes a festival was born. Submissions came flowing in and they were exactly as intended — horror films by queer filmmakers. “It was sort of exactly what I wanted it to be,” she says “and the only piece that was missing was being in a theater with people”.

The next year she connected with Lawren Desai, the Executive Director at a/perture cinema in Winston Salem, North Carolina — the only year-round art house cinema in the Piedmont Triad. Desai immediately championed the idea, and thus the relationship was born. Tiffany brought in interns and staff, and a singular filmmaker with a dream evolved into a team of film lovers all working toward a singular vision. She was ready for an in-person, 2nd addition of the festival, while keeping the online screenings and Q&A’s to drive home her passion for connecting filmmakers with audiences.

There will always be audience members who relate to a world that exists outside of the “normal”.

Rocky Horror Picture Show. One year post-code he created the last horror film of his career, a film that, today, has been looked back at with a queer interpretation — a subtext that slipped through the cracks of the Hays code. Gay film historians have looked back at Bride to uncover gay and bisexual subtext, but we will never know if it was intentional or just the overtaking of his queer subconscious.

But I invite you to imagine a world where queer folks watched this film in a time where their existence was censored, imagine them relating with the idea of someone being persecuted for something they could not control, or where some“Creating that space was part of the one senses familiarity with a character coded original compulsion to do this. I wantsimilarly to the way they exist in everyday life. ed to meet people, I wanted to connect This, I would argue, is the root of queer horror and filmmakers to audiences… I just want to the reason why it is still alive and thriving today. bring people together, I want the audience There will always be filmmakers like James Whale to cheer for them, and I want the audience who draw from their experience to create allegorito collectively gasp at their film — and all cal representations of love and hate, and there will that happened.” always be audience members who relate to a world that exists outside of the “normal” — this is what Horror’s intersection with queerness can be Queer Fear Festival understands, and the reason traced back to 1934’s introduction of the Hays why it is so important.

Code — industry guidelines for censorship applied to motion picture releases. One rule in the code states: “sex perversion or any inference to it is forbidden” — a rule understood to include the mere mention of homosexuality, and filmmakers wouldn’t even think to add a queer character. The release of Bride of Frankenstein in theaters a year later in 1935 was already under immense scrutiny by the Hays office due to the controversy of the original Frankenstein, but nevertheless some things slipped through.

James Whale, the director, was openly gay and a pioneer of classic horror; in addition to two Frankenstein films he directed The Invisible Man and the horror comedy The Old Dark House, which served as inspiration for The

DAY 1

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Friday, October 13th a/perture cinema Winston Salem, North Carolina 7:30 PM

arrived at a/perture cinema to an excited buzz: about half of that buzz was from the crowd gathering for the first screening at the Queer Fear Film Festival, and the other half was the crowd gathered to watch the opening night of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Movie. Nevertheless, the kinetic energy of filmgoers entering our chapel ready to buckle into our sermon was present: the festival was here and queer, and we were ready for it.

It was a completely celebratory space — October is a high holy month for horror and all things that exist on the outside of what is seen as acceptable, and with the addition of it being Friday the 13th there were costumes galore. It was such a joy to be in a space with other individuals excited to watch independent films from exciting new filmmakers, and first up was a shorts program aptly titled “Horror Shorts”.

The programming team at QFFF put together an eclectic selection of shorts with a project I had the pleasure of working on, Live from the Graveyard written by Tiffany Albright and directed

by Sarah Hankins. A unique spin on a zombie flick, Graveyard was a super fun project introduction into the night to come. What followed ranged anywhere from a short adapting the story of Carmilla, the vampire tale predating Dracula, with major sapphic overtones, to an I Know What You Did Last Summer fan film that was fun but felt incomplete, and finally a stunning and bold rape revenge flick.

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DAY 2 Saturday, October 14th a/perture cinema Winston Salem, North Carolina 2:00PM

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n the second day of the festival I returned to the theater ready for a full day of movie watching. There was a day of shorts and two features ahead, and the audience was ready for the first showing, “Light Horror Shorts” — horror stories leaning more towards comedy and romance. It was a great choice to have this at the start of the day as it left the crowd laughing and in awe of the heart that existed in these stories of fear.

Kiersten Houser directed and starred in the short film Hunger Pang following a zombie woman who comes across an abandoned baby, the conflict comes when the hungry zombie begins to grow attached to the baby. This was a touching story that tugs at the heartstrings. Houser does double duty here as both director and lead actor, but there is a lack in neither territory — the direction is strong, stringing along a vignette of intimate moments, and her performance tracking a subhuman beginning to earth very human emotions was duly impressive. She was awarded the festival’s Golden Unicorn for Best Student Film as a recent graduate of the MFA Film program at UNC Wilmington. This film stemmed from her personal anxiety around new motherhood, and I asked her about the film and the intersection between queerness and horror: “How are we talking about the problems that we face? I think it’s maybe more common for gay filmmakers because we can see a struggle in everyday life, and we can see how scary it can be to exist as we are. For me I had anxiety about that, about getting married to a woman, and now having a child in this family that is not the norm.

This film played on the fear that I had in a fun way and helped me experiment in how it feels to be comfortable in my own skin, or in my zombie skin.”

The next showing was for Big Easy Queens, a Drag Queen take on The Godfather. Minnie Bouvee (Eric Swanson) is the mob boss of the French Quarter and has all her nemesis’ crew brutally killed, but shortly after she is haunted by a mysterious masked figure who leaves behind gardenias, reminding Minnie of a life she left behind her. This film was hilarious — a musical number beckons us into this high camp water which brings to mind the works of John Waters. I have to praise the performances, a truly sensational ensemble cast led by Eric Swanson as Minnie Bouvee – she sings, she kills, she plays a wide range of emotion and it’s such a joy to see a performer take a star vehicle in stride. Robert Leleux did an excellent job with the script, juggling many tropes while adding his own Tennessee Williams twist. Director Erynn Dalton had this to say about the process of creating the film: “We filmed this in Ft. Lauderdale, we happened to film it at the time that our lovely governor DeSantis was passing the anti-gay, anti-drag laws. It kind of just made us all go ‘well, fuck it’ – we’re gonna do this now!

We raised the money very quickly, I think, because of the climate…”

Erynn Dalton accepted the Golden Unicorn for for Best Feature Film.

The last event before the final screening of the night was a Filmmaker Dinner held at Camel City BBQ, because, if nothing else, there was a commitment to providing out-of-towners with some good southern cooking. This was a fellowship more than anything, a space for like minded film artists to break bread; to share plans for future projects and to exchange hopes for future collaborations. When seeking out to create Queer Fear Film Festival, Tiffany had three things in mind: to meet people, to connect filmmakers with audiences, and to bring people together. This years festival is a testament to that passion, and I hope that it stays to highlight queerness in horror for years to come.

This was a fellowship more than anything, a space for like minded film artists to break bread.

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IN CONVERSATION WITH TIFFANY ALBRIGHT Saturday, October 14th.

Chad’s Chai - Winston Salem, North Carolina 11:30 AM I arrived at Chad’s Chai to chat with Tiffany Albright over a cup of tea. Tiffany is a writer, festival director, and filmmaker — a filmmaker I have had the pleasure of working with myself. If you take a look at a list of her works and awards from various fellowships and grant funding bodies, her work ethic is clear. She is a filmmaker that fosters community in the creation of her works, and I wanted to sit down with her to find out more about her process, her inspirations, and her artistic philosophy.

On filmmaking in North Carolina: It’s easier and harder than I thought it would be before I came back. Before I came back I was abroad, but I had lived in New York for several years and didn’t have any intention of coming back to North Carolina. Once I was here again and wasn’t planning to leave anytime soon the only logical thing was trying to figure out how to be the artist I envisioned myself to be in this new context. Growing up here I was involved in theatre, but I didn’t really see people doing art professionally. That is still honestly the biggest barrier — there is not enough infrastructure for very many people to do it as their full time gig.

When you grow up watching Hollywood movies you’re like “well that’s something I could never do”. It wasn’t until I started getting into filmmaking, and going to film festivals, and watching independent films at film festivals that I realized that there was a whole world of filmmaking. Now I know that it’s a majority of the filmmaking ecosystem that is outside of that studio industrial complex.

It’s building momentum and it doesn’t feel like it’s happening for a long time, and then all of a sudden it’s happening. The only thing thing that sustains people doing indie cinema not in commercial space or studio space is passion for the project — I wanna tell this story, I want to reach this type of audience, or I just want to work with this person.

Often there is a need, and it’s impossible to make films on your own.

On the parallels between queerness and horror: For most of history the experience of being queer was disgusting. There have always been people who were queer, and there have always been people who didn’t give a shit about what other people did, but in terms of the social value and what is associate behavior, [queerness] was devious.

A lot of the connection that queer audiences has felt for horror is in the monstrous. We are literally viewed as monstrous, our desire. It is very specific to the body — the longings of the body are disgusting for queer people. So the experience of watching a monster, and reach back to Frankenstein, there is sympathy in the monster. I think a lot of queer audiences can resonate with that experience of watching something where there is both power and danger in a monster. For a long time the monsters had to die and that felt like the danger that queer people were in, that felt like a really close analogy to that experience even though it’s pure fantasy.

In the evolution of storytelling we just tell more sophisticated, more emotionally rich and complex stories because film audiences have seen so much that you just have to be a little more sophisticated. I’ve got a fourteen year old and we’ll watch older movies and there’s a simplicity to the narrative. There’s not a lot of gray area they’re exploring. We’ve evolved the stories to match the audience learning how to digest more complex content, and now we tell stories that are much more gray.

On the importance of fellowships and grant funding to independent filmmakers:

Sometimes you want to be the monster, you just don’t want it to be the only option.

We still have a connection to what is monstrous, now there are all these survivor narratives too. We’re not just the monster, sometimes we’re the final girl, sometimes we’re the other side of it.

There’a such a rich history of queer villains and there’s a little bit of pushback to that with queer audiences - why are we always the bad guy? But I think when we start to tell those stories from our perspective sometimes it’s just good to be bad.

Sometimes you want to be the monster, you just don’t want it to be the only option. That’s where I get really excited about where the genre has gone and where it continues to go.

I have a love/hate relationship with those public markers of approval for you work. One one hand, they’re important because when people see them they look impressive. So it gives you a sort of power even in contexts when someone doesn’t know you at all. If you don’t I don’t think it necessarily hurts, it’s a neutral. If you do get them it can be super helpful, depending on what it is. Money — super helpful. But I think the asterisk there is it’s not always a lot of money.

On the fellowship side: there are some that are really great, but they are extremely competitive.

Sometimes the negative of having this whole ecosystem of opportunities that people might apply to and apply to and never get anything has a deterring effect. It sort of dampens the energy of a whole bunch of indie creators who feel just like there isn’t any support for their work, and the actual secret there is that there’s not. You have to find other ways of motivating yourself that aren’t these external sources because ultimately the vast majority aren’t going to do anything for you even if you get them.

Opportunities that get you connected to people are important, probably more important that most things. I find the things that have actually helped me in tangible ways were programs that connected me to people, and there are a couple of residencies that I’ve participated in that have been truly incredible experiences. Because at a residency you just have time carved out for you to be creative, especially if it’s not your primary job. Those are opportunities that more artists should be going after — dedicated creative time.

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On her inspirations:

On her artistic philosophy:

I’m a huge horror fan. I think there are some amazing women in horror whose films I just sort of have on repeat in my head. I think about Jennifer’s Body a lot. Karyn Kusama is a huge inspiration to me. Jennifer Kent, Jennifer Reeder — I don’t know why they’re all Jennifers.

This is such a good time to be in horror. There’s work that I’ve felt really connected to. When The Babadook came out I watched it six times in the span of a couple months. Things that strike me like that I’ll rewatch and rewatch.

I read a ton, so I feel like I get a lot of influence these days from — there’s a lot of really great horror being written, a lot of really great queer horror being written. There’s so many indie publishers.

There’s so much happening in episodic form and in graphic novel form.

I am always looking for stories that feel real. I am looking for characters and experiences that have an emotional resonance. I think about this a lot, especially as a writer, what are the things that get me interested in telling a story? It’s always character.

But, the thing for me then is that’s always paired with some experience. What would happen with this character in this situation, which is why I like genre. You can’t really tell genre stories without plot. The sort of integral weaving of those things together — which is why I think horror has such an appeal to me. What do we do in the worst case scenario? When life is a nightmare, what do we do? I’m always fascinated by that question.

Humans are so strange and so irrational sometimes, but motivated in really understandable ways. Whatever weirdness is happening I want to feel like it’s real people having these experiences, because I think that makes us think about our own lives. I love the high highs and low lows of any type of genre storytelling.

They all let us have this wild experience, but when they’re really anchored in character that’s transformative to me.

I am drawn to darker stuff for sure. I’m interested in stories that don’t end well, because I think as a person I’m overly preoccupied with the idea of “what will go wrong next?”, so I feel unsatisfied sometimes if I watch a movie and the ending is too neat and tidy. Because life really isn’t like that. So there’s also some seeking that I’m doing as an artist for stories that are open to the possibilities of another negative turn happening. I like those ambiguous spaces.

I have trouble with a happy ending because I kind of don’t believe in them as a storyteller. But I think that there are places where the human experience is still hopeful and inspiring even when shit is awful.

What do we do in the worst case scenario?

When life is a nightmare, what do we do?

IN CONVERSATION WITH TIFFANY ALBRIGHT

SHORTS HIGHLIGHTS

Q

ueer Fear Film Festival had an impressive an artist, the complexities and varying levels of collection of short programs scheduled this success, and the way an artist sees themself in year. From anywhere to big and gory, simple and comparison to others — all done in the funniest romantic, quick and witty, these short films were of ways. expertly put together by the team at Queer Fear The greatest takeaway here is how strong and the audience response was very strong. As McConkey and Pineda are as a dynamic duo, a huge fan of the ways independent filmmakers bringing to mind television comedy pairs like play with the creation of short films, it was a joy the Saperstein or Dubek siblings from Parks and to watch so many artists get bold and craft such Recreation and The Other Two respectively. I complex stories in such little time. These are some hope that this short exists as a harbinger of more of my highlights of the festival. to come from this comedic partnership.

THE HOUSESITTERS One of my absolute favorite showings of the festival, The Housesitters is an outrageous horror comedy oftentimes teetering on the edge of absurd. Opening to a title card stating that the events are inspired by a true story, we follow two vapid best friends housesitting for their much more successful friend in a luxurious home with an adorable dog. Before an inkling of terror is introduced the comedy two-hander of Matt McConkey and Erin Pineda is an absolute delight. They are clearly masters of improv, playing two artists with an inflated sense of self worth and an affection for gossip and trash talk.

Director Graham High does an excellent job mixing the comedic elements with horror, introducing that the home our main characters are housesitting was the location of a murder of a famous actress years before. Hilarity ensues as the slasher haunts the home which brings forth a really interesting conversation about being

BOY PARTS An electrifying display of style, Boy Parts is a cannibalistic visual feast. Ella May Sahlman writes and directs a revenge tale where a cult of sexual assault survivors seek out abusers to kill and ultimately eat. The audience is immediately introduced to the world which is brightly colored, brimming with unbridled femininity and a colorful ensemble of characters — a sisterhood that works outside the law to bring justice to others. The horror of it all is shown through crimson-soaked sequences of the cult feasting at a dining table on the mangled flesh of their prey, sipping red-as-blood wine from crystal glasses.

There is beauty in the terror, a juxtaposition that brings the audience in and acts as a shock to our systems.

While there is plenty of style there is no lack of substance, full of snappy comedy and quick wit with a second half that doesn’t fail to pack an emotional punch. In the midst of murdering a rapist, the assailant’s girlfriend knocks on the kidnappers door looking for her boyfriend after using “Find My Friends”. This launches us into a tale of finding community, reconditioning when separating from an abuser, and the struggle of facing unearthed traumas head on. Sahlman uses strong characters and delicate language to face the issues head on with care, crafting an impressive and original tale of revenge.

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CHAPERONE

An unnamed figure (Zachary Quinta) picks up a young man (Russel Kahn) in a car.

The figure is clad head to toe in black, and prefers to keep conversation to a minimum.

The young man brings an abundant youthful energy — a seed of hope that breeds potential for happiness, but beneath the surface lies a darker truth.

Chaperone is an interesting short film, using stark visuals to tell a harrowing, yet at the same time sweet and gentle story. The direction by Sam Max arrests you and threatens not to let go as you dive deeper into a tale that feels dangerous and erotic. The feeling of loneliness is made clear by the use of color, negative space, and the sterile feeling of the world crafted here. Dialogue and story are light, but the visuals have left me with a feeling I can’t explain for days.

GIANNA Gianna is a standout short film: a simple concept with no fat to trim in terms of story, beautiful visuals, and an incredible lead performance by Rivkah Reyes (who also wrote the short) playing both the main character Gina and her inner saboteur, the titular Gianna. Gina’s therapist (a hilarious Margaret Cho) suggests she spend a day with her inner saboteur launching a hilarious and very real battle between a woman and her toxic inner voice, also serving as a display of mental health battles and the way they affect our personal relationships.

Gianna doesn’t want anything to go well for Gina. She’s mean, she drinks, and she’s overall a pretty bad person. Director Kait Schuster crafts a brightly colored world with a soft glow that impressively sports its own visual language. She creatively finds a way to block and shoot conversations that Reyes has with herself, building up to a hilarious final battle. Reyes and Schuster seem to make a great pair, and I had such a great time with this short (and especially with the epic credits needle drop).

SHORTS HIGHLIGHTS

REVIEW: It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This

BY KEMARI BRYANT

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n 1999, the culture of horror was rocked by an independent film called The Blair Witch Project. A year leading up to its release, the “documentary” follows three students who take off on a journey into the woods to make a film.

It was the topic of message boards, people questioning and theorizing whether the manipulative promotional circuit was real or fake. Buzz grew until its release, purporting to be the real life footage of the students found and stitched together, three students who were said to have met their gruesome end.

The comparisons between The Blair Witch Project and It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This are clear - both found footage films made on a low budget by actors playing fictionalized versions of themselves - they also resemble each other due to their brave and innovative approach to independent filmmaking. The latter is a continuation of a trite sub-genre at the end of its rope in terms of unique storytelling potential, especially to the hardened horror fan familiar with the intricacies of the tropes on display, but it is the smartest and most clever use of found footage in the independent space since 2014’s Creep. The filmmakers pay homage to what comes before it, truly succeeding by an unwavering commitment to its own unique conceit, and turning left whenever you expect it to go right.

It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This follows a horror-obsessed married couple, Nick Toti and

Rachel Kempf (also co-directors and co-writers), who buy an abandoned duplex for the purpose of shooting their independent horror film. The home reveals itself to be much more intriguing than it first let on — random strangers are drawn to the building but never approach it. They watch at all times of the day in a zombie-like trance. Excited to find themselves in the midst of a real-life horror story, Nick begins documenting the adventure with the help of Rachel’s best friend, Christian.

Through an impressive display of over 20 years of archival footage we get a glimpse at the bigger picture - how Nick and Rachel met when they were young and how the three friends made low budget films with the gear they had at their disposal. Nick even alludes to a past jealousy of the relationship between Christian and Rachel, though Christian is a gay man. Through the archival footage we get a very real sense of the relationship between the three, the real life relationship that is at the heart of the story. The story gets its proper start among the revelation that Rachel and Christian historically have an interest in performing seances.

We are shown the footage of the two performing these seances in years past, eyes closed and hands held sitting across from each other, always filmed

by Nick. Each cut serves as the passing of time and we watch as they age before our eyes, Nick acting as our voyeuristic eye on the vulnerable act.

The stunning way Toti and Kempf meld their real world experience with that of the horrific narrative they crafted is enough to get you hooked. Here lies 29 | FC3K

the inception of the thought that there is excellence, or at least intrigue, to come.

The duplex where we spend most of the runtime comes with its own sense of terror. It is derelict and run-down, which doesn’t stop Rachel and Nick’s excitement as they explore the home to its deepest depths, uncovering unnerving polaroids, graffiti on the walls, and a dozen doors detached from their frames and strewn around unwittingly. A part of what makes this film unique and such a joy to watch is that our main protagonists are lovers of horror. They are obsessed with the paranormal and are experts in fright, so with each occultic twist they grow more intoxicated with thrill. This makes for a fascinating narrative journey that is in direct opposition with many pieces that fill the horror medium — they aren’t running away from evil, they are chasing it.

It’s not all fun though. Many moments are genuinely skin crawling and anxiety inducing, a display of the right ways to do a found footage horror film. The strengths of this sub-genre lie in exploration of the unknown - much of the third act is a shaky camcorder exploring the dark crevices of the creepy home with a flashlight as the only source of light, or running through the ominously empty streets of Kirksville, Missouri - but where others would punctuate these moments with a jump scare, Toti and Kempf buck against the tropes they know all too well to underline these sequences with character and heart.

This is at full display when build up leads to a three-minute seance in the attic of the haunted duplex that is done in complete silence over an abandoned altar. Three minutes of Rachel and Christian with closed eyes, their hands joined together over a flickering flame, the only source of illumination. Nick captures them silently with his camcorder that sways ever so lightly, something he’s done so many times over the years. It’s innocent, a group fascinated by the paranormal doing what comes naturally. This is an unwaveringly bold sequence crafted by artists who don’t wait for permission to break rules, who follow truth and dramatic potential rather than standard convention.

The story comes to a halt in the third act when Nick takes a moment to reflect as he vomits in a ball on the floor. Through his retching he strings along a monologue, coming to the realization

that what they’re doing doesn’t feel good. None of it feels good. A hell that they brought upon themselves because of their morbid curiosity, their macabre desire, their selfish need as filmmakers to create a film based on their experience facing the supernatural head on and willingly. This is where both Toti and Kempf really shine as performers, in particular Kempf’s mania and obsessive transformation in pursuit of the truth of what lies inside of the home. The characters bring us along on their voyage and we watch as they make every wrong decision. A classic tale of hubris, they are Icarus — chasing a story they could put on film that flew them too close to a hellfire burning sun.

This film does a lot for the evolution of the found footage film, and the real life-narrative entanglement makes for a jolting attack on the perception of the audience — we spend so much time in the story that we get lost in the question of where reality ends and where the story begins. Modern audiences have evolved with these aspects of storytelling and are privy not to be fooled as ones once were with The Blair Witch Project, but this proves that the concept isn’t a broken one.

This is a good fllm, a great horror film, and an audience is out there waiting for it: to theorize, to break down every moment frame by frame, to argue over the ending (and it is a fantastic ending). But the filmmakers never plan to release this movie online. “Our intention is to never release it widely… so you should tell all your friends about it. Maybe we’ll create some buzz and they’ll be interested and they’ll watch,” Toti made clear. He goes on to state that as filmmakers, they are interested in doing things the “wrong way”. He hopes that many will still be given the opportunity to see it, but rather travel across the US and screen the film in person. It is an alternative way of doing things, yes, but by a pair of alternative filmmakers who are working in a historically alternative genre of filmmaking.

So, this is me doing my part in this strange saga. Tell these filmmakers that their film wants to be seen so that it may rightfully live on in the pantheon of transformative horror.

W

hat do you get when you take the style of Sergio Leone, the classic vampire lore of Nosferatu, add a contemporary feminist twist, and translate it all into Farsi? Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a masterclass in blending genres to create an entirely original work. The Iranian-American director’s debut feature film premiered at Sundance back in 2014 and has since garnered an impressive following. Released to positive critical response, many consider Girl one of the best recent additions to the Vampire Horror genre. Borrowing from Spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s, the German Expressionist movement, and Iranian New Wave Cinema, Amirpour took these familiar languages and gave them

new meaning through their amalgamation.

Amirpour had a somewhat uncommon upbringing. Born to Iranian parents in Margate, England, Amirpour’s family moved to Miami, Florida, and then Bakersfield, California during her childhood.

She attended San Francisco University for Painting and Sculpture for her undergraduate, and then UCLA for Screenwriting. Amirpour said she encountered a significant culture shock upon moving to the US in the 1980s. Her parents never encouraged her interest in filmmaking, but she would make small films on her father’s camcorder, heavily influenced by the celebrities and commercials of the era. Amirpour directed several award-winning short films, including a short form version of A Girl

A Girl Walks Home at Night and Ana Lily Amirpour’s Mastery of Blending Style

BY MADELINE SAINTSING

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Walks Home Alone at Night, which won “Best Short Film” at the 2012 Noor Iranian film festival. Inspired by the original short film, Amirpour expanded the screenplay and developed the full-length Girl, which was her first feature film.

The story follows inhabitants of a fictional Iranian ghost town known as “Bad City.” The town’s population ranges in all manner of seedy individuals, from thieves to pimps to junkies, and at the center is the story of two young lovers. Arash (Arash Marandi), a young man caring for his heroin-addicted father, Hossein (Marshall Manesh). And The Girl (Sheila Vand), a mysterious vampire woman who prowls the streets of Bad City, tormenting and attacking its population of sleazy men. The two meet and ignite a romance, but The Girl’s thirst for blood and vengeance complicates their relationship.

Stylistically, the film is a mashup of Spaghetti Westerns and German expressionism. Sergio Leone, another international director influenced by American filmmaking, was known for redefining the American Western in the 1960s with his “Spaghetti Westerns.” These films portrayed the cowboys of the American Southwest but were directed by Leone, who is Italian, and were shot in Italy and other parts of Europe. Amirpour was clearly influenced by Leone’s work. Girl alternates between sweeping wide shots that serve to establish location and relationships, and intimate close ups that reveal thoughts and emotional states of characters, a technique Leone would often use.

The scene where The Girl meets Arash as he wanders the streets at night can be compared to the iconic shootout scene in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. The wide shots give a sense of distance between subjects, but the close ups elevate the danger as viewers try to guess what a character’s next move will be. In Girl, rather than guns, The Girl herself is the weapon and

the audience awaits her decision to slaughter or spare Arash. Cinematographer Lyle Vincent and Amirpour’s choice to shoot with anamorphic lenses distinguishes this technique from its predecessors by giving the shots a more unique look. The lenses make the wide shots even wider and morph close ups, often bending the edges of frames and distorting faces to give an otherworldly quality.

Similarly, drawn out sequences, a hallmark of Leone’s style, serve to elevate the Girl’s horror as well as its love story. The scene when The Girl kills a pimp named Saeed (Dominic Rains) feels painfully long as we watch the pathetic man trying to seduce The Girl, but it makes his eventual gruesome murder all the more satisfying. On the other hand the slow, often wordless interactions between Arash and The Girl effectively heighten their romantic tension and leave viewers on the edge of their seat, wondering if The Girl will strike again. Amirpour leaves plenty of space for interpretation while maintaining a specificity that satisfies the viewer.

The decision to shoot the film entirely in black and white, as well as the prevalent use of long dark shadows, was a direct nod to the 1922 German expressionist film Nosferatu. Amirpour disclosed she required her actors to view the film as preparation for shooting. Nosferatu is known as the original movie vampire and the nod gives the audience familiarity, while Girl distorts typical vampire horror structure. Many classic vampire tropes that originated in Nosferatu are maintained. The Girl only goes out at night, she uses fangs to feed on her victims from their neck, and her reflection is never seen in any mirrors. However, the overdone maiden in distress is traded for a vigilante exacting revenge on everyday monsters. And the protagonist falls in love with the vampire instead of trying to slay her.

The inclusion of elements of Iranian New Wave Cinema reflect Amirpour’s unique per-

spective as an Iranian-American film director.

Though set in Iran, the film was shot in Kern County, Southern California to avoid censorship laws. Typical of films made after the Iranian Revolution, it centers on the working and lower class, showing their day to day lives and struggles.

Though the film has minimal dialogue, the few lines are in Farsi. Some of the women dress modestly, covering their heads when in public. The Girl wears her Chador and Atti (Mozhan Marnò), a sex worker, covers her head with scarves. Arash continues to care for his addict father out of filial piety, the practice of caring for and staying with one’s parents is prevalent in Iranian families.

These are all good examples of traditionalist values common in Iranian cinema.

This traditionalism, however, is contrasted to contemporary sentiments and feminist values.

Centering on a female protagonist recontextualizes the film’s multiple genres. The Girl is a dynamic, independent character who relies on herself for survival. She takes justice into her own hands, much like the protagonists of Westerns, but exists in a moral gray area dissimilar to the standard hero.

The film was released to a market saturated with vampire stories. The Twilight Saga had just reached its end and Jennifer’s Body had been released a few years prior. The Vampire Diaries was on its sixth season on the CW and True Blood was all the rage on HBO. The sexy side of vampires had gripped American pop culture. Girl was a much needed variation, carrying none of the objectification common in its contemporaries.

Characters are often presented more modestly, foregoing overtly sexual costuming. The trope of punishment for sexual promiscuity, often seen in horror, is avoided all together. In fact, a point

was made to especially humanize Atti. Despite her role as a sex worker, she is never portrayed as an object and maintains her dignity throughout the film. The main women of the film are more powerful and in control than their male counterparts. And their complexity shines through in their personal conflicts. Perhaps the most iconic scene in the film is when The Girl rides down the street at night on a skateboard, Chador flying in the wind. Amirpour, an avid skateboarder herself, actually did the skating for those shots. The scene shows true liberation for The Girl. She is unbothered and free.

Perhaps the genre blending is best encapsulated in the film’s soundtrack. Amirpour tapped Oregon-based artist Federale to compose a theatrical score that captures the same moody ambience of Ennio Moricone’s work in The Man with No Name Trilogy. In between are songs from Iranian indie rock bands like Radio Tehran and Kiosk, and new wave from artists Bei Ru and Farah.

The atmosphere of the film is largely shaped by a soundtrack Amirpour cultivated with intention.

There is a clear perspective that permeates every moment of A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, and that perspective is Ana Lily Amirpour’s, without a doubt. She borrowed from her predecessors certainly, but her unique point of view is entirely her own. That is the key to effective genre bending: honoring antecedents in the canon while also honoring one’s distinctive vision. Though stylistically akin to a Spaghetti Western and by definition a Vampire flick, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is, nevertheless, difficult to categorize. An “Iranian-American Feminist Vampire Neo-Western” comes close, but “A Film by Ana Lily Amirpour” is perhaps the best description of all.

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A Close Up on Jay Najeeah

BY CAMERON LINLY ROBINSON

H

oward University’s current Film Graduate student Jay Najeeah has been making moves in the independent film scene since 2019. Their current project, Hag–which Jay has been writing since she was 17 years old–is based on the Gullah Geechee folklore surrounding the “Boo Hag”. Jay’s work explores Black southern folklore, grief, and trauma through the lens of horror. I had the chance to sit down with Jay Najeeah and discuss their influences, artistry, and journey through filmmaking.

I was delighted to hear the story of how Jay discovered her passion for directing. She was in an Acting for the Camera Class while getting her undergraduate degree in Theatre. They told me about an important moment in this class where everyone was performing monologues, and Jay was in front of the camera performing Mozelle’s monologue from Eve’s Bayou (1997).

“So, I’m doing it. I’m like, ‘Okay. I hated that. Thanks.’ I go behind the camera.

I’m watching everyone else, and I’m like, ‘Wow! I am so much more happy behind this camera watching this thing come to life.’”

So, Jay joined a film club that was created to give the students more experience writing,

directing, and acting for film. She was a staff writer for the group, but one day one of the directors dropped out, and Jay jumped in to replace them!

“They threw me at this script called Flavor of the Week and we just gunned it, and I literally fell in love. It was the best thing I’d ever done, and I was like, ‘Oh, I wanna do this forever. Cool.’ And from there my trajectory in my program, even though I was a theatre student, was mostly directing, it was theatre directing, but also film directing.”

From that point on, Jay had caught the bug, and nothing was going to stop her! Now, in her final year of Grad school at Howard University (the only historically Black college or university that offers a graduate degree in film!) Jay has directed seven projects and produced several more. It’s an impressive body of work that they have accomplished in a very short period of time.

Born and raised in South Carolina, Jay’s work has always centered the Southern aesthetic. She told me, “Everything about the Black South has always been so vital to me as a creator.” Specifically, their work falls into the genre of Black Southern Gothic. We talk-

that go undealt with and that weigh down a The genre of Southern things family, and in the end it follows the family and sucks Gothic has always been the energy out of someone dealing with trauma.

“I… love is the wrong word, but love is the word an exploration of ecI’m gonna use, this urban legend because it’s scary, but it’s also, like, it’s cautionary. You have centric or frightening to take care of yourself, and you have to look back at what is behind you to be able to move stories that reflect dark forward.” feelings of other-ism They mentioned to me as well, their interest and alienation. in being able to preserve this story and tradition

ed a little about their background in pedagogy of the oppressed, which is a practice created by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire that works to humanize marginalized peoples and questions the beliefs that dominate and oppress said groups. Jay shared that this work combined with discussions on power and privilege, as well as the principles of Black feminism is what inspires her work.

“I’m always laying in this super fun trifecta of these three things that have definitely raised me, and in the center of that is me as a queer creator being able to blend those things into stories that either I’d wish I’d seen or stories that I’d wanted to go a little further. Plus, I love scary stuff.”

The genre of Southern Gothic has always been an exploration of eccentric or frightening stories that reflect dark feelings of other-ism and alienation. Jay brings their own history and upbringing to this genre with her current work Hag, and the precursors of this film, The Way She Fell Apart and Indigo Child. These stories are based on the South Carolinian and Gullah Geechee oral tradition and legend of the “Boo Hag”--a creature that feeds on grief, distress, and trauma in the people that it is attaching itself to. Jay introduced me further to the belief in the Gullah Geechee tradition that there is a soul and a spirit. The soul being what moves on to the afterlife, and the spirit being what either becomes your ancestor or becomes the hag.

The spirit that becomes the hag is representative of all of the negative unsaid truths that exist within these close-knit southern communities that hold these legends. It is all of the

that means so much to them and their community through film because it is a legend that has predominantly been passed down through word of mouth.

By transforming these oral traditions into film, she is both upholding those stories but also sharing them with folks who may not know about them.

Jay has had a long journey from Flavor of the Week to Hag, both stylistically and thematically. We discussed Jay’s first mid-feature, Affinity, which follows the lead detective on a case following serial murders, one of which is his sister. The film centers on a relationship that he forms with a mysterious woman who may be more closely tied to him than he previously thought. She talks about the cinematographic inspiration of this film and how at the time of its creation (2019) she was toying with genre and style, and exploring neo-noir and German expressionism.

It wasn’t until after a somewhat creative dry spell during the pandemic, that Jay found themselves questioning their craft. This also coincided with their admission to Howard University.

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“And I got to Howard, and we began to talk about cinema, the waves of cinema, and not just the general, ‘Oh, the French new wave,’ and the na na na na. We talked about Black film, and the levels of Black film that we moved through, and where we are now. [...]

So, from there I really dug into myself and what I wanted to say with my stories.”

may begin to overcome those fears and accept who they are and how they move in the world.

She creeps even closer to the horror genre with The Way She Fell Apart. With this film, Jay started to really explore elements of horror and lean into some of those tropes. In this short, we see the depiction of a woman going through pain and suffering, and that is manifested in several ways in this film, some of which are truly As they began exploring their cinematic voice grotesque and horrifying. You can really see Jay at Howard, Jay created It Was Lovely, which was playing with style and imagery in an exciting a horror short about a wedding that was eerily way here, and she begins to bring some of those empty, aside from the bride and groom, and where Southern Gothic images to the forefront of her the bride doesn’t know who she is marrying or why work. she is there. The film is very simple and contains However, Jay does say, “I won’t say my work eerie shots of the chapel, the stained glass, the is scary. I will say they invoke fear.” Throughout empty pews, and of course the lone bride in her our conversation, it was made clear that Jay’s starkly red wedding gown. There aren’t any specif- work goes beyond just being jump scares. It is a ic depictions of horror, yet it certainly carries the much more complicated evaluation of fear, trauessence of this kind of scary story. This was when ma, grief, and pain. This leads us back to Hag, Jay really started to experiment with the things Jay’s current work. This film follows a Black that scare her and ways in which she could use film woman who discovers that she is pregnant. Layand horror specifically to explore that. With their ered on top of this, is the traumatic reality that piece, Human, Jay went on to play with how one her mother died in childbirth. The fear and grief

“I think that people minimize the South to the trauma inflicted on it by white supremacy. But there’s so much in the South that I think should be heralded, should be communicated, should be expressed.

surrounding these events is what creates the “Boo Hag” figure which follows her throughout the film. Jay went on to clarify what this movie is really saying, and how it is so much more than just a horror film.

“Like the movie’s a horror movie. It’s scary.

There’s spooky scaries, oh, a jump scare!

Whatever. But the movie is about women, and how women meet each other where they are in these times of grief and trauma.”

Another exploration of their fears, Hag explores community, and specifically how the lead characters’ community surrounds this woman as she experiences this pregnancy and the haunting of the Boo Hag. She becomes trapped by the pain that she is unable to talk about and to share, yet she exists with these other women that know her trauma. Jay also shared with me how she wanted to create a film about the Black South that wasn’t centered on racism, white supremacy, or slavery. Rather, she wanted to center Black queer women in the South and explore their relationships with one another and how they come together in opposition of this evil force that is attacking them.

to the trauma inflicted on it by white supremacy. But there’s so much in the South that I think should be heralded, should be communicated, should be expressed. And I think–I hope that this film does that.”

Jay Najeeah’s work is tied together by complex analyses of Black Southern Gothic Folklore as an exploration of trauma. At least, this has been the theme of their early work.

Who’s to say what their career has in store?

I’m so excited to see where they go and what they accomplish on this artistic journey. All I know for sure, is that you should keep Jay Najeeah on your radar, as they are one of the most promising young filmmakers of our time!

“I also, I’m just excited about this movie because I’m able to talk about the South through my lens. Like, it’s not the South

talking about slavery, and, oh, people are racist, yes, I’m very aware people are racist.

I grew up there. I know there’s racism.

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Inside the Neglected Emotional States of Ari Aster

BY KEMARI BRYANT

A

floating camera makes its way through a room painted in bright primary colors one that could be inhabited by a toddler if not for the young adult who soon after comes into view. As the camera makes a half circle around our subject the focus shifts to something in the background, the figure of a doting mother watching as her whole world packs up a box to leave, and with it, taking a piece of herself. As the camera cuts closer to the teary-eyed mother we begin to see her take in the memories of a life fully lived with her child who is now a man, and fear filters through the interstices of her joyful facade. The opening of Munchausen by Ari Aster sets the table for a sort of fairytale, but the story Aster has in store is much more akin to Hans Christian Anderson than it is Disney. See, this is a world where the possibility of gaining independence, going off to college, and finding a wife is as much of a fairytale as it is a falsehood — a mere possibility in the rolodex of probable events, but if it is up to mother, which it is, she will keep son close and dependent by any means necessary.

Ari Aster knows about writing overbearing mothers. However, to boil Bonnie Bedelia’s portrayal of a poison wielding mother faced with a decision to either see her son off to college or to drop a few drops of “Feel Bad Sickness Prompter” into his sandwich to keep him by her side for just a bit longer down to overbearing would be a gross oversimplification. She turns out as a tragic figure, above all. This 2013 short film has no dialogue and is set entirely to music, yet the mother’s fear of loneliness creeps through just the same. The mother sits in her cold, blue living room with her husband, who is shown more in his own world with a tool to the back of a clock than showing his wife affection. When a memory floods in with her son the lights shift, her world turns warm and, for a second, the idea that everything is okay is something that has manifested itself right there at her fingertips. Why would she ever let that go away?

She is in an altered emotional state and acts flippantly on her fear, making her son sick so that he will stay at home with her. This is

where the real horror kicks in: a son who can not keep down neon green vomit, a mother rushing through the halls late at night at the sounds of his coughing, floral wallpaper filling the screen as a music sting comes to a crescendo. The horror lies in her decision, a decision she could never take back no matter how hard she tried and how deeply she begged for it. Her son’s corpse lay cold in a coffin because she could not dare face the possibilities. The last shot of the son’s childhood action figure lying in a dying flower garden pushes in slowly from above: a boy dead from his mother’s love.

Aster has cemented himself as a leading voice in modern horror, and one of the most significant auteurs to develop in recent years.

His films have a track record of bold direction, strong visuals, and unique stories. They also all have one thing in common: they deal with complex and difficult human emotions, and that alone is its own horror.

Aster made his feature film debut with 2018’s Hereditary, a horror film as much as it is a family drama, and a stark generational shift in modern horror. Hereditary follows a grieving family who is haunted by a demonic entity following the loss of their mysterious grandmother. This film follows the same track as many of Aster’s films — he has a vested interest in uncovering the hidden emotions of individuals, the things that took root in someone’s subconscious due to family, traumas, and circumstances which fester

and grow until they are threatening to erupt.

The title provides us with much of the information that he explores in the film: what are the things passed on from parent to offspring that cannot be controlled?

In the opening shot we move through an art studio full of miniature pieces, pushing in on a dollhouse until one room fills the screen — the dollhouse becoming the space that our characters occupy. This is the first indication of what we are to uncover emotionally: a lack of control, the feeling that someone is always above planning out your next move.

Our main character is Annie (Toni Collete), a mother of two who has recently experienced the loss of her own mother. In an early scene Annie outlines the distant relationship with her mother, explaining her deep history with mental illness and loss: her mother had dissociative identity disorder and dementia, her father had psychotic depression which caused him to starve himself when Annie was only a baby, and her older brother had schizophrenia and hung himself at the age of sixteen.

Immense loss and context for our lead, and at the root of it all she finds herself to blame.

The conflict between Annie and her mother is the driving force in the film, though the mother is never seen. I want to take a moment to relate this to the psychological concept of the archaic mother — a psychoanalytic influence rife in horror, but also in many of Aster’s works. In horror, the archaic mother is often used as a monstrous form, terrorizing and playing on innate castration fears. In Barbara Creed’s book “The Monstrous Feminine” she describes the archaic mother: “The archaic mother is parthenogenetic mother, the mother as primordial abyss, the point of origin and of end”. This Freudian psychoanalytic theory is concerned with the mother of infancy, the one of socialization that gives to and raises a child — oftentimes playing on the fear of being destroyed by what created you.

Annie’s mother is a clear representation of an archaic mother. The story is concerned primarily with the things passed down gener39 | FC3K

The archaic mother in Hereditary is unseen, yet she has a firm hold on every event that occurs, moving around characters like Annie gently placing the dolls in her miniatures. ationally, things that are outside of our control.

The archaic mother in Hereditary is unseen, yet she has a firm hold on every event that occurs, moving around characters like Annie gently placing the dolls in her miniatures.

This is juxtaposed with Annie’s own internalized fear of motherhood. During a nightmare sequence these fears are explored in the following dialogue with her son, Peter (Nat Wolff): “I never wanted to be your mother.”

“Why?” “I was scared. I didn’t feel like a mother, but she pressured me.”

“Then why did you have me?”

“It wasn’t my fault, I tried to stop it!”

“How?” “I tried to have a miscarriage.”

“How?” “However I could, I did everything they told me not to do but it didn’t work! I’m happy it didn’t work.”

“You tried to kill me!”

“No, I love you! I love you. I didn’t, I was trying to save you!”

The scene ends with the two characters covered in paint thinner and set on fire, a piece

of recurring symbolism based on the revelation that Annie once covered herself and her children in the paint thinner in an attempt to kill them and herself. This plays further into Annie’s lack of control over her life, only becoming a mother because of pressure from her own maternal figure. Peter’s response in this sequence is also a continued example of the archaic mother as he exhibits castration fear and more generally castration anxiety which leads to a tremulous relationship between mother and son.

Mary Kelly describes the way castration fear manifests itself in women in her article “Women-desire-image”: “When Freud describes castration fears for the woman, this imaginary scenario takes the form of losing her loved objects, especially her children; the child is going to grow up, leave her, reject her, perhaps die. In order to delay, disavow, that separation she has already in a way acknowledged, the woman tends to fetishise the child: by dressing him up, by continuing to feed him no matter how old he gets, or simply by having another little one”. (Kelly, 1984)

Therefore, we can assume that Annie’s castration anxiety is connected to the control her mother has over her children, and the fear that she will influence them in some way. She explains that she would never let her near Peter, but when her second child, Charlie (Milly Shapiro) was born she allowed her mother to be a part of the child’s life. With all of the present information we can conclude that Annie’s castration at the hands of the archaic mother was successful upon Charlie’s death.

Charlie’s death is the catalyst for Annie’s downfall — it is the singular event that causes her to be overtaken by grief, and for her to lose all foresight, causing her to fall directly into her mother’s Machiavellian posthumous plot and allowing for evil to enter her home and family.

These emotions are so strong that they control every aspect of her life — Annie unwittingly assists in her own transition into an archaic mother, represented by her possession and subsequent attack on Peter towards the end of the film.

Midsommar is an intriguing succeeding addition in Aster’s roster. In many ways it’s as if Aster wanted to move away from his previous film in every way that he could in terms of style, but all of the thematic richness is still present. Midsommar follows an American couple’s journey with a group of friends to Sweden for a midsummer festival. The conceit is simple enough, and this time around Aster trades out complicated familial emotions for domestic dysfunction. However he still inspects the way that trauma can affect personal relationships, this time putting a magnifying glass on the idea of loneliness vs. community in the process of healing.

The first shot we see is a beautiful painting that instantly tells the audience they are about to enter a dark, gothic fairytale — a haunting melody backed up by harp strings sets the stage for the story to come. The painting outlines every story beat, a young woman suffering immense loss goes on an adventure and finds community, ending triumphantly. It acts as a dark prophecy of sorts. Dani (Florence Pugh) has just experienced a traumatic event: her sister has what appears to be a psychotic break and, according to Dani, is in the midst of a bipolar episode when she murders both of their parents and subsequently commits suicide. Dani lays on the couch in the arms of her boyfriend who considered ending the relationship hours before, letting out a gut wrenching scream that breaks through the stratum of our hearts. This is only the beginning of our story — we’re left to watch Dani put the pieces back together of a life seemingly without hope.

This film is a great marker of Ari’s work in visual storytelling. Ari Aster uses movement of the camera in such intelligent ways, never settling for a simple push in or an expected zoom, but always using intentional choice to express camera movement as an extension of the filmic language. For the first part of the film Ari smartly shows Dani’s isolation from

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her boyfriend and his group of friends. In a scene between Dani and her boyfriend, he is shown in the reflection of the mirror in darkness while Dani is shown standing beside the mirror in a warm light. A later scene shows Dani and her boyfriend framed in a reflection, while the group of friends sit across them on a couch in opposition. At the end of this scene, when Dani is reminded of her family’s death she begins to break down. We cut to an overhead shot as she rushes away to the bathroom — choosing not to stay with her emotions but to serve as God’s eye, an objective look in at her frayed mental state.

This is the unique sandbox that Aster plays in — an intelligently abstract look at big emotions. He often changes a character’s position in the frame to represent an altered emotional state — the camera here exists on an expressionistic plane, serving as our eye into the story and a peek into the complex feelings that inhabit them.

Beau is Afraid (2023) is Aster’s most com-

plete demonstration of craft thus far in his career. An extension of an early career short Beau (2011), Beau is Afraid follows an anxiety-ridden man named Beau who goes on an epic journey to attend his recently deceased mother’s funeral.

What intrigues me to evaluate is the inception of ideas that were able to take their full form twelve years later. In Beau, the titular character is on his way to the airport to visit his mother when his luggage and keys are stolen out of his door after he leaves them momentarily. Without a key and unable to make his flight, the next sequence of events is an anxiety that evolves into paranoia. His mother berates him for not being able to make the visit, and he goes through all manners of trouble to secure his home from the evils of the world he’s convinced himself are against him. In the end when finally asking his mother for a ride home, it’s revealed that she is really some furclad monster.

Practically the entire shot is adapted into the feature film Beau is Afraid, serving as the seed from which the rest of the journey grows.

Only, the mother here is a different sort of monster. She is Mona Wasserman (Patti Lupone), a wealthy businesswoman responsible for a large conglomerate empire. For much of the film she isn’t seen, much like in Hereditary, but her presence here is felt through her phone calls with Beau and through the character himself. Beau is a result of having been raised by Mona — his anxiety, his depression, and his paranoia are all tied to her overbearingness and tight control of his life as a child and adult. She is another example of the archaic mother, a monster made from her own fear of losing him.

The feature film expands on the inkling of story and takes it all further, without fear of jumping into the waters of the absurd. Aster creates an out-of-the-box world for Beau to inhabit. Everything that stems from this story: every conflict, every character interaction, everything is a manifestation of Beau’s anxieties. It’s as if Aster posed the question “what if the entire world was out to get you?”, and

there begins our story.

This film lays out all the intricacies of a toxic mother-son relationship, particularly that of a narcissist mother and her mentally ill son.

Mona wants to do what’s best for him, and by doing this settles for always keeping him close and in her sight. Mona exhibits signs of the “Jocasta mother” — psychoanalyst Theodor Reik saw the Jocasta mother as one with an unfulfilled adult relationship of her own and an over-concern for her child instead, which was a primary source of neurosis. Mona’s unevaluated emotions regarding her son situated her as the ultimate evil in Beau’s story.

Finally, I want to take a look at one of Aster’s early short films: 2014’s Basically, a hypnotic showcase of existential dread. An actress, Shandy Pickles (Rachel Brosnahan), walks the viewers through the highs and lows of her privileged life. Much of the short consists of wide shots where Shandy monologues directly to the camera — in juxtaposition to Munchausen which is a film with no dialogue, this is a film that’s only monologue. Aster uses Shandy’s positioning in the foreground as opposed to side characters hanging in the background or on the edges to show her superiority complex. She is completely superficial, a stock version of an LA actress not interested in anything you have to say. The writing is snappy, in many shots she shares personal details like her parents ugly divorce and the way her “renaissance man” father left them for an environmentalist in Maui. As she strolls through her home people wash windows from outside, or a homeless man strolls up and stares.

This is just her world and we’re living in it.

As we journey deeper into the story, a character who is interested in the world at large is revealed. She has deep, existential questions, and though many are superficial, they open her up to ask questions that resemble something real. In one scene she shares with the audience a tale of an artist ex-boyfriend who she left. What starts as a story told with annoyance evolves into a moment of vulnerability; the same ex reveals to her he has leukemia. A wall is broken down and we see a glimmer of

“Is it possible to take that feeling and just live in it… or is the chase the whole thing? a real person, a person concerned with someone other than herself. “And now when I think about it…” Shandy begins “I mean, I guess I really dodged a bullet” — she corrects herself, ashamed of showing a real emotion.

She exists in a world that is full of ego and selfishness, a world that is uninterested in uncovering emotions. The last shot of the short, we see her through a mirror and she retells a story of being in her high school’s play. She explains that at one point in the second act she felt all of her ego and self-consciousness fall away — she was lifted out of herself. Empathy?

The audience wonders if that’s the feeling she struggles to put words to. Then, she ponders: “Is it possible to take that feeling and just live in it… or is the chase the whole thing?”

This is the question that ends the film, and a question that makes Aster’s filmography so richly intriguing. He explores characters with big emotions, varying mental states, and they all chase happiness — or rather an escape from all the emotions that ail them. Annie, Dani, Beau, and Shandy are all stuck in their emotional state and are rarely seen in a true state of happiness. Instead, what makes these characters so interesting is watching their pursuit as they attempt to avoid the loads of grief, trauma, and mental illness on their trail. The embodiment of these things, the “other” in these films, is where horror exists, and the reason why we connect so much with these pieces is because they are the same evils that stand between us and our own happiness every day.

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What An Excellent Day for An Exorcism: The 50th Anniversary of The Excorcist

BY CAMERON LINLY ROBINSON

Y

ou hear stories of women clutching their pearls and fainting at the sight of the Phantom in the 1925 silent film The Phantom of the Opera, an early adaptation of Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel, ‘Le Fantôme de l’Opéra’. The film tells the story of a young opera singer, Christine Daaé (Mary Philbin), who becomes the obsession of a mysterious masked man that desires to coach her to stardom (Lon Chaney). This obsession becomes scary when he kidnaps the singer and demands her affection, crescendoing with the aforementioned scene where the Phantom’s mask is forcibly removed by Daaé to reveal a horrible disfigurement, which terrifies Christine, and apparently the audience of the time. The tale goes that the grotesque image of what is revealed was so horrifying that several women in the audience exclaimed and promptly fainted or left the theater in disgust and horror. However, the film was a success, and became the 5th highest grossing film in North America in 1925 (the only Horror film to make the top ten list). It took almost 50 years for a film to horrify the general public with graphic images in a similar way. The Exorcist, directed by William Friedkin, has been cited as the scariest film of all time by many critics, and its release was followed by many stories that mirror those of the audience reaction to The Phantom of the Opera. The popularity of Horror films is in-

dicative of humanity’s need for emotional release and in-depth evaluation of our innermost fears and desires. It’s masochistic and depraved, while also being so incredibly human, and this dark side of all of us is what connects us to each other.

1973’s The Exorcist came about at a time when horror as a film genre was not taken seriously by the public. The studio had very little faith in this film, and after a supposedly “cursed” production that took twice as long as what was intended and went way over budget, Warner Bros executives were worried about breaking even in the box office. However, despite mixed reviews in the media, The Exorcist was a massive box office success. People stood in line for hours to see the film.

The New York Times published accounts of audience responses similar to those reported about The Phantom of the Opera. “A number of moviegoers vomited at the very graphic goings-on on the screen. Others fainted, or left the theater, nauseous and trembling, before the film was half over. Several people had heart attacks, a guard told me. One woman even had a miscarriage,” (Klemesrud). The Exorcist terrified audiences across the nation. This terror bred a fascination with the horror genre, and legitimized the form.

The story follows film actress, Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn), as she seeks the help from two Catholic priests, after her 12 year old daughter, 45 | FC3K

Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair), begins exhibiting signs of demonic possession. When you think about the tone of 1970s America, it’s clear that the concept alone could cause an outrage. There was a cultural war going on that pitted the older, and more religious generation, against their children, who were questioning religion and sometimes leaving it altogether or starting new religions (the 70s would go on to be none as the decade that popularized cults). Furthermore, with a rise in Rock and Roll, parents were fearing the impacts that the occult was having on their good Christian children. All of this created the perfect environment for a film about a child being possessed by the devil, and subsequently exorcized, to have a huge impact on society. Not only did this film push the boundaries of what kinds of stories can be depicted in mainstream media, it went on to show some of the most terrifying images ever seen on screen; such as a child stabbing her own genitals with a crucifix, yelling horribly obscene things like “Your mother sucks cocks in hell!”, and the 12 year old girl (while possessed) going so far as to push her own mother’s face into her crotch. These depictions were wildly controversial, and certainly outraged a portion of the population. Yet, still The Exorcist has managed to be one of the most celebrated and influential horror films of all time.

These depictions opened the gateway and gave permission for so many filmmakers to explore tortuous, terrifying, and blood curdling stories and ideas. For a nation that seemed to be appalled by such imagery, these films prove time and time again that there is something in our psyche that makes us unable to turn away when we are faced with haunting visuals of blood, guts, and gore.

A modern audience would probably look at The Exorcist and think that the gore is pretty tame compared to current horror franchises like Saw, Final Destination, and The Human Centipede, but it must be understood that these films owe everything to William Friedkin’s original work. Additionally, our continued fascination with all things vulgar and scary begs the question: why? What are the abject horrors that we face every day? How can movies help us explore them? The Exorcist is clearly a response to the cultural argument that as time passes, we stray further away from God. The character of Father Damian (Jason Miller) is representative of a society that is losing its faith.

Professor of Cinema Studies, Barbara Creed states, “Whereas Regan-as-devil is powerful,

Father Damien as a representative of God is weak and impotent. Not only has he lost his faith, he is thinking of leaving the Church,” (Creed, 148).

And it is that loss of faith that creates a world in which an innocent child can be possessed by a demon. This analysis reflects common fears of the time, but as time passes, our fears change–and so do our movies.

October 2023 saw the release of The Exorcist: Believer, a reboot of the original film franchise made 50 years later. At the time of my writing this, the movie has just been released in theaters, and the response is overwhelmingly negative. That’s not to say that it won’t be looked upon differently in years to come, but it is fair to say that in our modern oversaturation of media it is important to make a good first impression. And critics do tend to judge remakes and reboots with a heightened rigor compared to original films. The question always comes back to: why was this remade? What was missing in the original that the filmmaker thinks we need a reboot? And you cannot deny that one of the main reasons films see reboots is because they draw an audience and ultimately make money, even if the general consensus is that the movies don’t live up to the original. Where

the original Exorcist film broke ground with a script that shocked and horrified audiences, The Exorcist: Believer was tasked with the challenge of meeting that expectation and exceeding it, while also paying homage to the now-classic film. The film plays well as a modern scary movie. Admittedly, the plot is a little clunky, but it isn’t exceptionally bad by any means. The simple fact that its predecessor is one of the most prolific horror films of all time was leading this film to the slaughter from the beginning. The best way to honor The Exorcist 50 years after its release would have really been to create a truly unique original story that pushed the boundaries of horror even further.

The public fascination with the horrific exhibitions displayed on screen in The Exorcist, and in perhaps a less impactful way in The Exorcist: Believer, relates to our first example directly.

In response to the public reaction to the film, The Phantom of the Opera (1925), it was stated, “During the silent and early sound period, film reviews clearly regarded “feminine” responses to horror as the appropriate responses, responses that demonstrated the effectiveness of a horror film, not a rejection of it,” (Brown and Jancovish, 64). In this, the “feminine response” is in reference to the fainting, puking, turning away, and leaving that was reported during viewings of horror films.

There is an expectation that audiences are going to see scary movies to be scared and to see things

We gain power over our fears, and are able to exist in a community of people who share these fears with us. that will make them flinch or jump or scream.

And yet, scary movies prevail. With this activity, we are able to see our worst nightmares come to life, and live to tell the tale! We gain power over our fears, and are able to exist in a community of people who share these fears with us.

That’s all part of the fun–masochistic, but fun!

The Exorcist was one of the first modern horror films to bring our obsession with our fears to the forefront. Its success is evidence that we rely on movies like this to fulfill some deep and twisted curiosites, while examining our own pain and having some kind of cathartic release in the process. We are so strange to have such fascinations, but it is what connects us and makes us human.

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Ranch Water

by Lone River F

or these two classic 1970s slasher flicks, I decided to pop open some cans of Ranch Water. Ranch Water, traditionally, is simply tequila, soda, and lime juice. However, these Lone River Ranch Waters are flavored hard seltzer that are based on this classic mixed drink. For our double feature of Black Christmas and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I found these easy to drink, refreshing sippers to be the perfect beverages.

While watching Black Christmas, I drank the flavor “Prickly Pear”.

This was a nice soothing wintery drink that goes well with this tense and dramatic horror film.

For The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I chose the “Spicy” flavor. This was very reminiscent of the Texas heat and pairs well with the horrifying gore on screen.

*Drink pairings based on films covered by the Film Club 3000 podcast

B

ased on the classic 1970s cocktail, the Harvey Wallbanger, this is Wayne’s Barnbanger as a pairing for Ti West’s X.

The original cocktail is made with Galliano L’Autentico, an Italian liqueur with a distinct herbaceous and botanical taste with a vanilla finish. Nowadays, this may be difficult to find in your liquor cabinet, so I decided to recreate some of these flavors in a much more accessible way.

I added lemon juice to the recipe to create some more complexity in flavor with the sourness of the citrus. It’s also super easy to make vanilla simple syrup at home! All you need to do is combine equal parts water and sugar with a little bit of vanilla extract. Bring it to a boil and whisk until the sugar is dissolved.

The addition of the bitters adds just that little bit of herbaceousness that you would get from the Galliano. The egg white creates that sexy foam on top. This is the perfect slightly sour, slightly bitter, and slightly sweet cocktail to sip on in between takes on any adult film.

Wayne’s Barnbanger MIXOLOGY BY CAMERON LINLY ROBINSON

1.5 oz vodka 1 oz orange juice 1 oz lemon juice .5 oz vanilla simple syrup 1 egg white 3 dashes angostura bitters Add everything (except for the bitters) into a shaker and shake... hard. Add a couple of pieces of large ice and shake again... even harder.

Strain into whatever glass you like, dash the bitters on top and enjoy!

The Last Scream

T

he Last Scream is based on the Classic Prohibition cocktail, The Last Word. Similar to how scream pays homage to so many old horror films, the last scream is my take on this beloved beverage. The original drink is made with equal parts gin, green chartreuse, lime juice, and luxardo liqueur. Instead of using Green Chartreuse, which is an ancient liquor that has a bold herbaceous taste. I chose to make my own herb liqueur.

To do this, I infused vodka with rosemary and thyme overnight.

I simply put about 1/2 cup each of fresh rosemary and thyme into a mason jar, filled it with vodka (about 2 cups), and let the entire mixture sit overnight in a dark, dry, cool place. This produced a lovely spiced vodka that gives this cocktail a nice complexity. This pairs really well with the botanical flavor of the gin and the soothing sweetness of the honey!

I must admit that this may be my favorite cocktail invention I have ever made. The result is a super easy to drink drink that is well balanced with sweetness, citrus, while also being well grounded with the herbs. Just like Scream, you never really get tired of this refreshing drink, and you find something new with every watch... or sip.

1 oz london dry gin 1 oz rosemary & thyme infused vodka 1 oz honey .75 oz lime juice luxardo cherry juice Combine the gin, vodka, honey, and lime juice in a cocktail shaker with a good amount of ice. Shake until the shaker tin gets cold and frosty on the outside. stain into a glass with a big rock. Spoon in a little luxardo cherry juice until a dark layer forms at the bottom of the glass.

“ 1.5 oz tequila 1 oz lime juice .5 oz orange juice .5 oz vanilla simple syrup 3 dashes angostura bitters Candied lemon wheel to garnish Combine the tequila, lime juice, orange juice, and simple syrup in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake hard until the outside of the tin is cold and frosty.

Strain over ice and dash the bitters on top. Garnish with a candied lemon wheel.

Mother-ita! You Bitch!” This is obviously a riff on what I consider to be a perfect cocktail, the Margarita–which hits every major flavor profile (sweet, sour, salty, and bitter)! So, it’s a pretty big deal for me to be using my first marg recipe, but I thought Alien was worth it! Not to say that Alien is a perfect movie, but it does have a wonderful balance of great acting, brilliant direction, a complex and well crafted script, and super tense cinematography that makes it truly horrifying.

To pair with the tension of this film I wanted to up the bitterness and ground the sweetness a little bit. So I used vanilla simple syrup to give the sweetness a little bit of a floral taste that I think grounds it some, and I added some dashes of bitters on top to up the bitterness of the cocktail. Overall, the cocktail is a slightly sweet, but mostly bitter and sour drink that will keep you on your toes as you watch the crew of the Nostromo collide with the Alien!

Mother-ita!

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“She is abject ter She alone looks face, but she alon strength either t long enough to b kill him

rror personified. s death in the ne also finds the to stay the killer be rescued or to herself.”

- Carol J. Clover 51 | FC3K

E

very issue we will leave you with a list of movies to watch compiled from suggestions given by our Contributors.

Add these movies delving into the horrific glory of the body, of gender, and of sexuality to your watchlist — and come out on the other side a survivor.

THE BIRDS (1963) / DIR. ALFRED HITCHCOCK DR. JEKYLL AND SISTER HYDE (1971) DIR. ROY WARD BAKER THE GORE GORE GIRLS (1972) / DIR. HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS GANJA & HESS (1973) / DIR. BILL GUNN TORSO (1973) / DIR. SERGIO MARTINO BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974) / BOB CLARK THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) / DIR. JIM SHARMAN SUSPIRIA (1977) / DIR. DARIO ARGENTO THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE (1982) DIR. AMY HOLDEN JONES SOCIETY (1989) / DIR. BRIAN YUZNA MISERY (1990) / DIR. ROB REINER I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (1997) / DIR. JIM GILLESPIE PRACTICAL MAGIC (1998) / DIR. GRIFFIN DUNE AUDITION (1999) / DIR. TAKASHI MIIKE AMERICAN PSYCHO (2000) / DIR. MARY HARRON JENNIFER’S BODY (2009) / DIR. KARYN KUSAMA TRAIN TO BUSAN (2016) / DIR. YEON SANG-HO GERALD’S GAME (2017) / DIR. MIKE FLANAGAN ASSASSINATION NATION (2018) / DIR. SAM LEVINSON BIT (2019) / BRAD MICHAEL ELMORE SPEAK NO EVIL (2022) / DIR. CHRISTIAN TAFDRUP PEARL (2022) / DIR. TI WEST NOPE (2022) / DIR. JORDAN PEELE NANNY (2022) / DIR. NIKIYATU JUSU INFINITY POOL (2023) / DIR. BRANDON CRONENBERG PERPETRATOR (2023) / DIR. JENNIFER REEDER

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