SPOTLIGHT April 2026: Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Film Critic & Historian, Filmmaker, Horror Nonna

For film female critics, it can sometimes be a challenge, but for female filmmakers, saying their careers and getting films made is a challenge is an understatement. Alexandra Heller-Nicholas has fearlessly chose to do both. She has carved out an award-winning career as an author, historian, and film critic. She is now adding credits in the film industry to those successes, and is poised to balance all that as part of a full creative life. Her neurodiversity is part of what makes her so good in so many aspects of her career. We can’t wait to see what she does next, and will celebrate each new project, as it will no doubt offer new insight and add new context to whatever she finds fascinating enough to filter through that her own unique lens.

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MOVIE OF THE WEEK March 20, 2026: 1000 WOMEN IN HORROR

Whether you’re someone who can’t get enough of movies overflowing with blood and guts or have to hide your face behind your hands whenever anything scary is about to happen on screen, chances are you’ll get a kick out of director Donna Davies’ brisk documentary 1000 Women in Horror. Based on the book by horror expert (and AWFJ member!) Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, it’s a smart, thought-provoking look at the way the genre both impacts and is impacted by women.

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1000 WOMEN IN HORROR – Review by Jennifer Merin

1000 Women in Horror is a fascinating feminist primer and analysis of the horror genre, chronicling its evolution from the earliest days of cinema to the present — 1895 to 2018, to be exact. The enlightening documentary covers the impressive history of women creatives who’ve focused on horror and have fully developed female-centered subgenres such as those base in experiences of abuse and rape revenge, challenging postpartem psysiological and psychological conditions, coming of age and dealing with aging, along with others that storytell about strictly female issues.

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Alexandra Heller-Nicholas is MIFF 2025’s Horror Maven – Jennifer Merin reports

Melbourne-based film critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas’ engagement at this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival firmly establishes her as the queen of horror genre commentators. MIFF 2025 is premiering of Canadian filmmaker Donna Davies’ 1000 Women in Horror, inspired by Heller-Nicholas’s eponymous book. Heller-Nicholas wrote the documentary and is one of its principal interview subjects. Additionally, Heller-Nicholas appears alongside horror luminaries Stephen King, Patton Oswalt, Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike and American director Karyn Kusama in Alexandre O. Philippe’s Chain Reactions. Programmed at MIFF 2025, the documentary marks the 50th anniversary of the 1974 American horror classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

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Alexandra Heller-Nicholas’ 1000 WOMEN IN HORROR: 1895-2018 (Exclusive Excerpt)

For myself and so many of my women friends – those when I was a kid, and those today – horror spoke to us on what was often a primal level about living in a world where physical threat is a constantly present reality, where danger quite possibly is hiding just around the corner. In this context, pretending the world is all sunshine and rainbows just doesn’t cut it. Any woman who has walked home alone in the dark at night and even once looked behind her or quickened her step has first-hand experience of the fears and anxieties that horror often speaks to, whether they personally enjoy horror movies or not.

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