How many badass women does it take to direct a feminist horror film? Only one, of course. But Magnet Releasing, the genre arm of Magnolia Pictures, has assembled four of them for an all-female-helmed horror anthology project that’s four times as good/creepy/amazing. Each of the four segments will be helmed by a different female director, with Annie Clark (aka St. Vincent) making her directorial debut via a film slated to start filming during the next few months.
“I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to explore the genre-film medium,” Clark said. She — and the other directors involved — will have full creative license to any horror genre story that revolves around a female protagonist. No actors have been confirmed, but Clark’s girlfriend Cara Delevingne certainly has a flair for being utterly terrifying on screen.
Other women on board for the project include Karyn Kusama (The Invitation, Girlfight), Jennifer Lynch (Surveillance, Chained), and Jovanka Vuckovic (The Captured Bird). Kusama’s involvement is particularly interesting. The acclaimed director, whose new dinner party thriller The Invitation marks her first film in seven years, recently revealed that she was basically shut out of Hollywood after her critical knockout Girlfight. “My instinct is being an antisocial woman who maybe seems like she had a chip on her shoulder, or seems like she’d be really hard to work with, or maybe seems slightly crazy — that doesn’t seem like a good thing,” she told Buzzfeed. “But I feel like there’s a promise, this like whiff of excitement, around men who display those traits, as if there’s a secret to all of it. Women don’t get that free pass.”
Stay tuned for more details.
Credits
Text Hannah Ongley
Photography by Ben Thomson