Jennifer's Bodies 2017 Official Selection - Jo Osborne's Requital

So happy to announce that I shall be screening fellow Scot, Jo Osborne's new short Requital, a beautifully macabre look at betrayal and the consequences that can arise. 

Jo is going to be there to introduce the film, as well as partake in the Women in Horror panel as well.  After flying over to the States for Hannah's Ax Wound festival as well, you know I'm going to be squee'ing over her chilling with Hannah!  Yay! 

Obviously, I am always happy about women in horror films, but when it comes to Scottish women in horror, of course I am all the nerdier!  Haha.  Requital is clearly a very personal film, what I love even more is that Jo started the whole Love Hurts Film Festival because of this film.  The festival is happening in Glasgow on the 14th February 2017 and the line-up is sounding ace!  You can find out more information here.  :) 

Jennifer's Bodies 2017 Poster and Where to Buy Tickets!

Check out my the wicked new poster from Cara Clark of Popcorn Horror for Jennifer's Bodies 2017.  

You can now buy tickets online at YAPSODY otherwise it will be £5 on the door.   Tickets are £4 but there is a 75p booking fee added on top for purchasing through Yapsody, that way the full £4 goes to charity.  If you would rather just buy on the door, if you message me on jennifersbodies@gmail.com and I can keep tickets back for you that way as well. :)  All money from ticket sales will be donated to Unite to Care.   :) 

Check out the Facebook Page for more details, and also be sure to go drop the Popcorn Horror Facebook a LIKE as well as checking out their website too.  xo

Rose McGowan's "WOMANSWOMB" is a Must See Visual Statement Against Our Times of Dictatorship!

Holy fucking shit!  Rose McGowan is giving me all sorts of feels right now!  As an actress, she was awesome.  As an outspoken activist however...she is actually one of the most incredible and inspirational women out there leading the way today!  And as someone I totally consider one of my favourite women in horror, this level of punk as fuck awesomeness just makes me love her all the more!

"I actually used some of my own blood, put hydrogen peroxide in it, bubbled it up, filmed it, and then had a lovely Indian model in something that looks womb-like work her way out of ," she explained. "The black bars on the side of the frame represent how society squeezes women, squeezes their rights."

Like, actually LOOOOOVE!!!  She is fucking incredible! 

Her new video is a stunning piece of visceral artwork that truly echoes the real horrors of the world around us.  A world where women are still seen as second-class citizens in a world dictated to by men!   With the election to Presidential status of an inflated, uneducated orange blob with no care or concern for Women's Rights (Human Rights, Environmental Rights....any rights other than that of fellow racist, misogynistic, narcissistic, homophobic middle/upper class white wankers!), Rose has spoken out in the most incredible and genuinely touching way.  

Jennifer's Bodies 2017 - Event/Venue Details

This year's festival shall feature a mixture of feature/shorts as well as a Women in Horror panel which should be a blast!  If you are a woman working in horror/have done horror work before and would like to be involved in the panel, I would love to hear from you.  Just drop me an email at jennifersbodies@gmail.com and I shall get back to you asap.  :)  

Sunday 19th February  

Blackfriars 

36 Bell Street

G1 1LG

4pm-11pm

Tickets - £5 on the door but will be available to buy online beforehand for £4. 

Full line-up and guest list shall be announced on 31st January with announcements also as they come in.  

Jennifer's Bodies 2016 - Official Selection - Hannah Luyten's Snowed In.

So earlier on today I watched Snowed In, a horror short from a young girl from Oregon (total X Files country, haha!!) called Hannah Luyten.

What I proceeded to witness would have been a total coup for a director of ANY age.  So for this to be the  senior High School project of an 18 year old, and the fact that it kinda totally creeped me out (YEAH....ME!!)...well, that was worth a total mention and introduction in itself!!

Hell....there was a moment where the super spooky atmosphere and piercing scream even woke up my darling little Beagle~toes who was busy snoring away beside me.  :)

I'm not quite sure what spooked me out the most about this freaky deaky wee short....possibly the score.  Or perhaps the photography.  Whatever it was, it most definitely got under my skin and I cannot wait to infect other people with this wee gem!!

Anyhoo, I assure you there will be more details to come...I just couldn't resist my geeky announcement.  :) xo

Jennifer's Bodies 2016 - Official Selection - Gina Lee Ronhovde's Boudoir Starring Deneen Melody and Dominique Swain!

It is with immense fucking pleasure that I bring to you the first short selection of Jennifer's Bodies 2016 - Gina Lee Ronhovde's gore~geously filmed headfuck that is Boudoir.  

Starring previous Jennifer's Bodies featured chickaroo Deneen Melody, as well as Dominique Swain; the award-winning Boudoir is most certainly a film that everyone needs to see!

At its core, this twisted little gem is pure psychological horror at its best.  This is a girl after my own heart when it comes to inspiration.  This is basically like if Chris Carter and David Lynch went all Junior on our asses and had a baby!!  Haha.  Even just watching the trailer I was thinking "FUCK...I NEED to screen this at Jennifer's Bodies!!".  

This film is stunning both on this inside....and out.  Throughout the film I kept thinking about how beautifully it was shot...and then it ended and I saw that Frozen's director of photography Will Barrett was the cinematographer.  It all just made perfect sense after that.  That boy is so fucking talented and has such a beautiful eye for detail.  

Boudoir on the inside could be interpreted in so many ways, but without wanting to give spoilers away, I guess the best way to describe it is as a film of self-acceptance.  For better or worse. :)

For more information please check out the Official Facebook Page. 

Why Hollywood Needs to Pull its Finger Out its Arse and Accept That There are More Katherine Bigelow's Out There and Women Need Equal Opportunities!

So I was discussing the topic of the hardships that women face in the film industry with someone whom I have just recently made realise, that it's an actual real issue...and this individual STUDIED filmmaking!!   When he said that "surely women in horror isn't that much of a niche area", and I asked him, what should have been a really easy question to answer...name me ANY female film directors....to which I got Sofia Coppola and "that chick that did The Hurt Locker"....he kind of started to realise that he was actually pretty clueless.  Anyhoo, this conversation was continued last night so I thought I'd dig out a bunch of articles that highlight EXACTLY how bad the situation actually is.  His point was that, least things are changing, and that at least we should see it fully change within our lifetime.  Well....I would just like to point out that Hollywood admitted that there was a problem...IN 1978, and agreed to implement change!!  1978!!!  That was a year before I was born for fucks sake!  So in 35 years, yay....look how far we've come!

I think the biggest kick in the teeth came from the co-chair of Sony Entertainment, when she was quoted in an interview with Forbes Magazine last year saying THIS...

"For a woman to direct a movie in Hollywood, she has to go through so many layers of rejection by the powers that be—I suppose including myself—that it is harder to get to that point," said Pascal. "So you can't just create something. And I think there is a whole unconscious mountain… I think that the whole system is geared for them to fail."

The biggest advancement was of course in 2010, the year that Katherine Bigelow became the first woman to ever win the Oscar for Best Director!  Prior to her win, only THREE other women had ever been nominated...in 82 fucking years! 

When we look at how much technology has changed, and the way we make films in general....that's the kind of shit that when I was a kid, I thought I'd never see in my lifetime...and yet here we are today...we live in an age where technology rules all.  But yet we STILL don't have fucking equality for women working in the industry.  WHAT. THE. FLYING. FUCK!?!  How is that even fucking possible!?!  Like seriously!! 

What makes Bigelow's win all the more entertaining, is that she beat ex-husband James Cameron for Avatar.  The Hurt Locker was independently produced, on a budget of around $11 million...which is considered low budget for Hollywood.  Especially when you consider that Avatar had a budget of $425 million!  That alone should serve as enough of a statement.  

With The Hurt Locker, not only did it nab Bigelow the Oscar for Best Director, it also FINALLY got people paying attention to my beloved Jeremy Renner (who I've been in love with since 1995), and got him his first Oscar nomination too.  Yay!  

Just think...in 1984, James Cameron made the original Terminator, followed by Aliens in 1986 and then one of my all time favourite movies, Terminator 2, in 1991!  And then in 2010 he gives us Avatar!  That man alone has helped advance filmmaking technology to levels I never thought I would see in my lifetime.  

He is also an absolute lover of strong women...can we say, Sarah fucking Connor!?!  He has so much command in Hollywood, but yet STILL....no real advancement when you compare it to what he has done technologically.  And this is something that just frazzles my brain even thinking about it! 

When we think of 1978 and horror, it was of course the year that Halloween was released...and Jamie Lee Curtis became our beloved scream queen.  The daughter of original scream queen Janet Leigh.  In 1998, Jamie Lee Curtis returned to the role that made her famous, and just to add a total nerdfest for horror geeks, Janet Leigh also had a small part in the film.  One of my absolute favourite scenes is this one you see here.  I went to see H2O in the cinema on my own and actually squeee'ed out loud with delight when this played.  Talk about a Psycho nerdgasm! :)

Anyhoo, that was 20 years after the original Halloween.  Look how different everything is.  And also consider that this was Josh Hartnett's first film...followed by one of my all time favourites, The Faculty!  Look how far Josh Hartnett has come in the time since playing Michael Myers (way too fucking hot for his own good) nephew!  Yes Michelle Williams has also come into her own since then as well, and is a 3 time Oscar nominated actress...but even actresses don't get fair treatment in Hollywood...just look at the salary differences! 

Fuck, actually...look how far Joseph Gordon Levitt has come in that time!  He is now a a well respected director in his own right!  

The scary thing is...is that when H2O was released, how much had things really even changed from that moment in 1960 where Janet Leigh gave people a fear of taking a shower??

Green Street director Lexi Alexander summed it up perfectly when she wrote this superb piece, and I believe EVERYONE should read it!

If you read only one thing, please read this report from 1978, when the EEOC investigated equal-employment practices in the motion picture industry.

Okay, so we know that people have seriously acknowledged that there is a problem back in 1978, thirty-five years ago. Promises were made even back then to "work diligently" to fix the imbalance.

The fact that there has been no improvement in thirty-five years can only really mean two things:

1) Those who have promised to bring about change were insincere.
or
2) Those who have promised to bring about change were not very smart.

You choose.

And last but not least....listen to Olivia Wilde...girl speaks the truth! :)