Julia Kaminski's blog

Often considered to be the master of “body horror”, David Cronenberg has spent the last four decades constructing a signature style that is often copied but rarely matched. His visceral visual style and directing talent make for a great filmmaker but Cronenberg’s ability to creatively and critically observe humanity through his films make him as close to a contemporary philosopher as filmmakers really get. Exploration seems to be the goal of his films.

All right folks, as promised, I wanted to follow up last week’s list with five more picks of films that take place in movie theaters. Just a warning, I do go off the rails a bit on this list. A couple of the films are not single location and stray quite a bit from the theater setting, but bear with me.

As the largest and longest running horror film festival in the United States, we here at Screamfest are no strangers to the power of the theater going experience. Most of us cinegeeks recall some of our best memories as those spent in the darkness of movie theaters. Even now, as streaming becomes the standard, I’m optimistic for the staying power of the theater. Watching films at home, although convenient, does not quite compare to the energy of a crowd, especially in regards to genre films.

Seeing as how we are counting down the last few days of February, I’m going to take this opportunity to celebrate one more woman who has recently popped back into the zeitgeist, cult film extraordinaire, Jackie Kong. At this point the difficulties women face in Hollywood have been more than expressed, but as an Asian American woman making sleazy horror comedies in the 1980’s, writer/director Jackie Kong sure as hell had her work cut out for her. Despite her relatively few directorial ventures, she quickly established a signature style all of her own.

What’s better than a scary movie? A much shorter scary movie! Well okay, maybe not, but it will impinge on your highly coveted spare time much less. So, in honor of the weekly releases of short films on the Screamfest Youtube page, and of course Women in Horror month, here are five spine-tingling short films directed by women:

1. The Stylist Directed by Jill Gevargizian