With the success of last year’s showcase of emerging talent in film, specifically exploring the horror genre made by female filmmakers, The Final Girls are back with a second instalment of the shorts programme.
To celebrate Women in Horror month, the feminist horror film collective, The Final Girls are taking their programme on the road around the UK. The shorts, from filmmakers around the world each have their own perspective on what horror can be. Exploring the genre through animation, monsters, ghosts, memories and satirical viewpoints, these filmmakers each have something unique to share.
We are treated shots from our own shores, like Kate Dolan’s ‘Catcalls’ where a man cruises the streets and picks on the wrong women to exercise his quick thrill. They soon get their revenge. As well as Rebecca Culverhouse’s #EatPretty about a product photographer is who is obsessed with the perfect image and soon turning to sweeter, darker things. Shot like beauty adverts, the film captures the essence of what makes the perfect outward image while conveying the darker side to this lifestyle.
Those who had a fear of puppets were warned at the start and no wonder as Hanna Bergholm’s ‘Puppet Master’ was about a lonely woman who is turned into a puppet by a handsome stranger. But the beautifully filmed puppetry was heartbreaking more than terrifying, at least after the first initial shock.
Animation was also featured in the line up with a fantastical stop motion animated ‘Cerulia’ from Sofia Carrillo which featured Cerulia of the title venture back to her old house where her childhood memories still live, waiting for her return.
The centrepiece short of the evening was the only short with a comedic edge matched only with its undertone in truth. Mariama Diallo’s brilliantly named ‘Hair Wolf’ was pitch perfect at every step. Set in black hair salon, the staff fend off the strange monster like threat, the white woman trying to take away the ‘lifeblood from black culture’. Both zombie and witch like, the woman invades and turns them one by one with a selfie claiming that its ‘viral’. A brilliant film that fits so well into the horror genre, it worries me.
Monster are real, whether they are creatures that roam the streets at night seeking revenge or in your own home, someone you know, someone close to you, maybe even under your bed. The nine shorts we get to see, explore the fantastical and the so real it feels like a dream. We are the Weirdos is hopefully going to become an annual event in the film calendar so we get to see more shorts like this.
So that you don't miss out, tickets for the tour can be found HERE.
So that you don't miss out, tickets for the tour can be found HERE.