A brief list of films for the upcoming energies of October, ranging between comedy to horror or both, which have a heavy presence of women, both as survivor and as monster, to occupy some of the down time of the season. Please note that we tend to love the originals of everything as opposed to the remakes. Input by Murda Hill, Sun and Soph.
31 Days of Femmetastic Halloween
- Black Christmas
- The Descent
- The Craft
- Diabolique
- Gingersnaps
- Witches
- Midsommar
- The Witch
- Scream
- Rosemary’s Baby
- Repulsion
- Death Becomes Her
- Lair of the White Worm
- Misery
- Witches of Eastwick
- The Hunger
- The Handmaiden
- Alien
- The Others
- Personal Shopper
- Suspiria (honestly, both versions)
- Carrie
- Silence of the Lambs
- Hocus Pocus
- Rocky Horror Picture Show
- The Exorcist
- Sleepy Hollow
- Only Lovers Left Alive
- Jennifer’s Body
- Elvira: Mistress of the Dark
Cinematiste
The 31st movie of the list is comedic and quirky to the core. What with the news all year and the upcoming election, in order to stay reality-aware and well-read, it’s been ideal to embrace fun and fluff when it comes to films. Some favorites of the Scary Season happen to also be goofy girly movies, brimming with ghouls galore and bitchy witches. Childhood favorites are quick pick-me-ups, like Hocus Pocus (whose sequel is in production for 2021) and Anjelica Huston in Addams Family and The Witches (whose remake trailer is now available, the cast including Octavia Spencer). Teen cult classics like The Craft also received a reboot: the 2020 sequel will be available to stream on October 28. Nostalgia comes in troves regarding women finding their power through the occult. Glamour camp like Death Becomes Her, the lite-feminist single mom coven of Witches of Eastwick, sisterly love of Practical Magic. B-movie babes like Elvira: Mistress of the Dark can lead one down a huge Halloween wormhole.
One extraordinary creepy/campy comedy for the Season comes to mind: Hausu (Criterion Collection, 1977).
A surreal and ultra-dreamy Japanese film loaded with gore, experimental edits and lots of giggles, the cast is primarily women, following a group of carefree school girls who stay in a haunted house possessed by a cat and an elderly aunt with a deceptive past. It is psychedelic, sentimental, adorable and absolutely oddball. Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi, who passed away in April of 2020 at the age of 82, many of the ideas were said to be presented by his daughter, Chigumi, an endearing detail which explains some of the outer limit creativity of the film.
MuseMix
Pandora’s BeatBox is the title for our first Symposium zine, due Halloween in a limited edition run. Our (first) Full Moon playlist of October (there are two!) honors the emergent energy of Dark Femme Fire. Restraint, disintegration, identity, empowerment are common themes within this visual and written collection. These sonic sirens of electronica, industrial, experimental echo some of the lust, loss, lament of the group zine’s theme. Trance-like loops are put on the highest pedestal in this musical muse, including artists like Boy Harsher, Aurut, Shygirl, Abyss X and more.
THE FEMME MOON 