The Final Girls: We Are the Weirdos 2, 2019.
Directed by Kate Dolan, Mariama Diallo, Hanna Bergholm, Jessica Hudak, Lee Kyoung, Rebecca Culverhouse, Zandashé Brown, Sofia Carillo and Diane Michelle.
SYNOPSIS:
A collection of horror shorts, directed by some of the brightest new female voices in genre cinema.
Last year, Blumhouse head honcho Jason Blum caused online controversy when he spoke out about the reasons his studio has never made a movie with a female director, saying “there are not a lot of female directors period, and even less who are inclined to do horror”. It’s clear Blum had never met the women championed by genre collective The Final Girls, who are currently presenting ‘We Are the Weirdos 2’ – their second series of scary shorts, helmed my female filmmakers.
This time around, there are nine shorts from all over the world, including the UK, USA and South Korea. There’s also an eclectic range of styles, from curved-edge Academy ratio similar to David Lowery’s A Ghost Story to a bizarre stop-motion nightmare. Even more stylistically adventurous is the very unusual #eatpretty, which uses a near-square frame similar to that of an Instagram post to tell its unnerving story of curated perfection.
It would be easy for a compendium celebrating the women of the genre to focus on a very particular set of issues, and there are certainly stories that focus on themes of misogyny (Catcalls), motherhood (The Lady from 406, Blood Runs Down) and the expectations created by social media (#eatpretty). However, these shorts are never overwhelmed by their themes and remember to be as scary as they are socially resonant. Blood Runs Down, in particular, creates real chills from its mystery of a woman – played with a constantly shifting personality by Idella Johnson – and her daughter who seemingly experience the same events from different perspectives.
The pick of the litter, though, is Mariama Diallo’s comedy-inflected Hair Wolf. Set in a lurid, heightened barber shop and designed with sci-fi colours that wouldn’t be out of place in The Fifth Element, it follows a group of black friends as they deal with the micro-aggressions of an “Instagram hoe” white girl, played by Beach Rats actor Madeline Weinstein. Soon, other white people are banging on the windows in zombie-like fashion, but they’re demanding “braids” instead of “brains”. It’s a smart take on cultural appropriation and the fetishisation of blackness that’s as hilarious as it is horrifying, anchored by a selection of terrific performances.
Like any anthology of different stories, there are some weaker entries in We Are the Weirdos 2. The briefest entry, Inseyed, fails to capitalise on its spooky premise and fun animation style, while Korean psychological horror The Lady From 406 is a little too opaque in the end for its intriguing ideas to pay off. Even in those lesser works, though, there’s enough invention to make them well worth a watch. None of the stories here are particularly long, so there’s no chance of them outstaying their welcome.
Whether they last for two minutes or more than 15, these shorts are an eclectic mix that shows the broad range of the horror genre and indeed the bright future that this corner of cinema has with the range of diverse voices coming through.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Tom Beasley is a freelance film journalist and wrestling fan. Follow him on Twitter via @TomJBeasley for movie opinions, wrestling stuff and puns.
