horror genre – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

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

March 15, 2026March 21, 2026 Jennifer Merin 1000 WOMEN IN HORROR, alexandra heller-nicholas, betsy bozdech, Cate Marquis, documentaries, Donna Davies, History of cinema, horror genre, jennifer merin, leslie combemale, liz whittemore, loren king, motw, Movie of the Week, nell minow, sandie angulo chen

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.

Reviews

1000 WOMEN IN HORROR – Review by Jennifer Merin

March 10, 2026March 19, 2026 Jennifer Merin 1000 WOMEN IN HORROR, alexandra heller-nicholas, documentaries, Donna Davies, History of cinema, horror genre

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.

Festivals News

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

August 23, 2025August 23, 2025 Jennifer Merin 1000 WOMEN IN HORROR, alexandra heller-nicholas, Chain Reactions, horror genre, MIFF 2025

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.

Reviews

THE BEAST WITHIN – Review by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

July 29, 2024July 29, 2024 Alexandra Heller-Nicholas Alexander J. Farrell, Ashleigh Cummings, Caoilinn Springall, child actors, horror genre, James Cosmo, Kit Harrington, spooky movies, Stopmotion, The Beast Within

Told from the perspective of a little girl called Willow, The Beast Within follows a family on a ramshackle rural farm who harbor a great secret the child is slowly beginning to understand. Aided by her mother Imogen , Willow begins to make sense of her father Noah’s unusual behaviour, which includes unexplained excursions into the woods at night and strange absences. With the support of her doting grandfather Waylon, Willow discovers the truth about her father, testing both her loyalty and Imogen’s when it comes to just how far they will go to keep the family together.

Interviews

Caoilinn Springall chats Puppets, Horror and THE BEAST WITHIN – Nadine Whitney interviews

July 29, 2024July 29, 2024 Nadine Whitney Alexander J. Farrell, Caoilinn Springall, child actors, horror genre, spooky movies, Stopmotion, The Beast Within

Caoilinn Springall is only eleven years old and already she has an impressive resume of genre films. She starred with George Clooney as Iris in the science fiction dystopian film The Midnight Sky and was in an episode of Doctor Who. Her most recent starring role is as Willow Avery, an isolated young girl who finds out a terrible secret about her family, in The Beast Within. She shares her take on all of it with Nadine Whitney.

Reviews

SATRANIC PANIC – Review by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

September 15, 2023September 15, 2023 Alexandra Heller-Nicholas Alice Maio Mackay, australian films, horror genre, Satranic Panic, transgender

Alice Maio Mackay as a filmmaker brings so much fundamental joy to her movies. There’s an old school punk rock spirit here of finding joy in the bleak mess of it all, and perhaps nowhere else in her work is that joy more vivid than Satranic Panic – bright, eye-popping jewel colors explode on a screen further electrified by her meshing of the traditional horror film format with that of the musical. Mackay simply delights in Satranic Panic’s musical numbers – clearly as much as she does the more gruesome horror vignettes – and it is this sense of glee that render her films so effortlessly charming. A bright light in a dark world, Satranic Panic is another welcome addition to this astonishing young filmmaker’s growing oeuvre.

Reviews

GOOD MADAM – Review by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

July 12, 2022July 12, 2022 Alexandra Heller-Nicholas Good Madam, horror genre, Jenna Cato Bass, Mlungu Wam, south african films, TIFF, toronto international film festival

A horror film about the way the legacy of apartheid continues to be internalized on a personal and professional level in contemporary South Africa, Good Madamfollows single mother Tsidi who, after the death of her beloved grandmother, is forced to move with her daughter Winnie into the house of a rich white woman Diane where Tsidi grew up, and where her mother Mavis still works as a housekeeper. Good Madam is a masterclass in how horror can speak to race and inequality, set in a world of servitude presented as a terrifying, powerful and unrelentingly enduring mode of postcolonial possession – both literally and metaphorically – whose presence can be felt long after the official era of apartheid has supposedly ended.

Festivals

Women at the Nightstream Film Festival – Report by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

September 29, 2021October 2, 2021 Alexandra Heller-Nicholas Akela Cooper, Ash Blackwell, David Lowery, Greg Nicotero, horror genre, Nightstream Film Festival, The Future of Film is Female

In 2021, big name festivals hit the ground running to adapt to the practical demands of switching from in-person to online events. A group of smaller but highly reputable US genre festivals decided to use the challenges of the time to their advantage. And lo, the Nightstream Film Festival was born, a virtual collaborative event by the Boston Underground Film Festival, the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, North Bend Film Festival, and Overlook Film Festival.

Reviews

CENSOR – Review by MaryAnn Johanson

September 29, 2021October 2, 2021 MaryAnn Johanson Censor, horror genre, Prano Bailey-Bond

This is a horror movie explicitly about horror movies, in a way far more introspective and thoughtful than I’ve seen before. Censor is meta, but not like, say, how The Cabin in the Woods is meta. This is a film that examines on multiple levels how we digest horror movies, how they linger with us and, dare we admit it, how they infect us.

Festivals Reviews

MLUNGU WAM (GOOD MADAM) (TIFF2021) – Review by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

September 7, 2021September 12, 2021 Alexandra Heller-Nicholas horror genre, Jenna Cato Bass, Mlungu Wam, south african films, TIFF, toronto international film festival

A horror film about the way the legacy of apartheid continues to be internalized on a personal and professional level in contemporary South Africa, Mlungu Wam follows single mother Tsidi who, after the death of her beloved grandmother, is forced to move with her daughter Winnie into the house of a rich white woman Diane where Tsidi grew up, and where her mother Mavis still works as a housekeeper. Mlungu Wam is a masterclass in how horror can speak to race and inequality, set in a world of servitude presented as a terrifying, powerful and unrelentingly enduring mode of postcolonial possession – both literally and metaphorically – whose presence can be felt long after the official era of apartheid has supposedly ended.

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