The film col­lec­tive explor­ing the inter­sec­tion between fem­i­nism and horror

Found­ed a lit­tle over a year ago as ​“the brain­child of a Sat­ur­day morn­ing What­sApp con­ver­sa­tion” between Anna Bogut­skaya and Olivia Howe, two self-pro­claimed ​“cin­e­ma nerds” who bond­ed over a shared love of hor­ror cin­e­ma, The Final Girls is a Lon­don-based film col­lec­tive explor­ing the inter­sec­tion between fem­i­nism and hor­ror, high­light­ing the work of women behind and in front of the cam­era. In that short peri­od they’ve organ­ised 15 events, screen­ing renowned clas­sics like Car­rie and Trou­ble Every Day along­side off-kil­ter fare like Office Killer and The Slum­ber Par­ty Mas­sacre, as well as tour­ing a nation­wide pre­view of Anna Biller’s The Love Witch.

Their objec­tives are clear, as Anna explains, ​“We want­ed to cre­ate a space where we could give hor­ror films the same atten­tion, care, and dis­cus­sion that is giv­en to oth­er types of films.” Treat­ing each event as a unique object and each attendee as a guest of hon­our, films are pre­sent­ed with love and atten­tion, the choic­es care­ful­ly con­tex­tu­alised and dis­cus­sions intel­li­gent­ly direct­ed. ​“It’s not just about putting on films we love, it’s about play­ing that film at the right time, in the right way, in the right place, to ensure that we can con­tin­ue the con­ver­sa­tion.” Above all though, inclu­siv­i­ty is a pri­or­i­ty, no small ges­ture with­in the often insu­lar and intim­i­dat­ing world of genre cin­e­ma. ​“We try to cre­ate a wel­com­ing space for every­one, par­tic­u­lar­ly women, and even more par­tic­u­lar­ly women who do have not yet engaged with genre.” 

With their lat­est event, ​‘We Are The Weirdos’, The Final Girls have tak­en the next log­i­cal step, mak­ing a ​“move into the con­tem­po­rary space” by select­ing and pre­sent­ing new work from emerg­ing female film­mak­ers with­in the field, and tour­ing those films across the UK. By pro­vid­ing ​“a sup­port­ive plat­form to some of the tal­ent­ed film­mak­ers that we are excit­ed about in the genre world,” their intent is to ​“show that a female take on genre and hor­ror can be var­ied in both themes and form.” The five shorts from the pro­gramme pro­filed below should serve as an intro­duc­tion to that aim.

One of the most con­fi­dent­ly made films, Jacque­line Castel’s The Pup­pet Man stacks visu­al ref­er­ences to John Car­pen­ter over the director’s own music, as well as fea­tur­ing the man him­self in a brief cameo. A short, snap­py film about a super­nat­ur­al killer stalk­ing vic­tims in a seedy dive bar that engages through­out, Castel’s film is creepy, visu­al­ly arrest­ing and mem­o­rable. It’s a slight­ly odd deci­sion to con­struct a film entire­ly out of the style of anoth­er direc­tor, but Cas­tel, act­ing as cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er as well as direc­tor, pulls it off.

Zanin de Paula’s A Moth­er of Mon­sters – a short adap­ta­tion of the Guy de Mau­pas­sant sto­ry of the same name about a girl, who, after ini­tial entice­ment, finds out the ter­ri­ble truth behind a trav­el­ling cir­cus – is a sim­i­lar­ly bravu­ra dis­play. Great set design and a care­ful, con­sid­ered approach to visu­al style helps estab­lish a dis­qui­et­ing sense of place and per­spec­tive, before every­thing col­laps­es. A fre­net­ic final sequence, shot and cut cre­ative­ly, shows the hor­ri­ble real­i­ty behind this con­struct­ed world – the dark­ness behind all of the decoration. 

The most chal­leng­ing, thought-pro­vok­ing film is sure­ly Natasha Austin-Green’s exper­i­men­tal doc­u­men­tary Dead. Tis­sue. Love. Sen­si­tive­ly tack­ling more dif­fi­cult ter­ri­to­ry than most would dare, Austin-Green’s film pro­files a young girl expe­ri­enc­ing bur­geon­ing necrophilic desire. Mix­ing the girl’s con­fes­sion­al nar­ra­tion (cov­er­ing her embrace of these trans­gres­sive desires and the dis­cov­ery of a com­mu­ni­ty that under­stands them) with a col­lage of abstract, tex­tur­al imagery, Austin-Green cre­ates a por­trait that is uneasy but nev­er judge­men­tal or exploitative.

A film that shares the same sense of queasi­ness is Suraya Raja’s Don’t Think of a Pink Ele­phant, which despite it’s strik­ing stop-motion ani­ma­tion style still man­ages to pack a vis­cer­al punch. A reg­u­lar fam­i­ly sto­ry starts to go awry as an anx­ious teenage girl expe­ri­ences vio­lent hal­lu­ci­na­tions, momen­tary imag­ined bursts of cringe induc­ing plas­ticine vio­lence that prove gen­uine­ly hard to stom­ach. Build­ing ten­sion through sug­ges­tion about how these men­tal machi­na­tions might man­i­fest in real­i­ty, Raja’s film is smart and art­ful, an orig­i­nal and pre­ci­sion-engi­neered ani­mat­ed marvel.

The over­all high­light is Amelia Moses’ messy but well-exe­cut­ed Undress Me. Deal­ing with the after effects of a col­lege girls deci­sion to lose her vir­gin­i­ty, Moses mines famil­iar ter­ri­to­ry well. Work­ing with tex­tures and sur­faces, skin, flesh and all that which lies beneath, the direc­tor alludes to more than she shows whilst still man­ag­ing to show a lot. Read­ings of the mean­ing behind the film will vary (the girl’s encounter isn’t abu­sive, and her bod­i­ly afflic­tion is not some­thing trans­mit­ted but seem­ing­ly already inside of her) as Moses skil­ful­ly avoids any­thing too laboured, right through to the final line: ​“you did this, fix it.” Some­times the most sat­is­fy­ing route is the sim­plest – a slow-build reveal, and lash­ings of thick, vel­vety gore.

‘We Are The Weirdos’ is ​“an effort to pro­mote and spot­light the work of the filmmaker’s we’re intrigued by and pas­sion­ate about,” but also a ​“mis­sion state­ment, of sorts, for women in genre both as mak­ers and spec­ta­tors,” and hope­ful­ly it will be the first of many such ven­tures. ​“After this tour, we’d like to be in a posi­tion where we can take on, dis­trib­ute and pro­mote more inter­est­ing hor­ror projects, with women cen­tre stage. We want more diver­si­ty of per­spec­tives and more adven­tur­ous pro­gram­ming.” A noble, glob­al aim, con­sid­er­ing their project start­ed so humbly, with one bright idea and two blue ticks on an iPhone.

‘We Are The Weirdos’ begins on 27 Octo­ber at the Tyne­side Cin­e­ma in New­cas­tle, before tour­ing nation­wide through to the final event on 2 Novem­ber at London’s Gen­e­sis Cin­e­ma. Full details are avail­able at the​fi​nal​girls​.co​.uk