30 Female Directors Who Would Kill It At Blumhouse
Or make horror movies anywhere else, for that matter.
Anna Biller
Biller is a movie lover through and through, and it’s never clearer than in The Love Witch. Her well-received 2016 feature is a play on ‘60s horror and Technicolor melodrama and a winking 35mm homage to genre films past, yet it’s balanced by distinctly modern feminist sensibilities. Biller’s next film will be a reimagining of the Bluebeard tale, but in the meantime, her Twitter is home to plenty of interesting and empowering tidbits from film history that should tide you over.
Floria Sigismondi
A prolific music video director for more than 20 years, Sigismondi is making her horror feature debut with next year’s The Turning (she also directed the 2010 biopic The Runaways). Her past work includes the memorably freakish videos for Marilyn Manson’s “Beautiful People” and Katy Perry’s “E.T.” among others, and she’s also taken a turn behind the camera for Netflix’s horror series Hemlock Grove. The Turning is poised to be a hit, with Amblin Entertainment backing it, Henry James’ creepy source material, and a cast including Mackenzie Davis, Brooklynn Prince, and Finn Wolfhard.
Jovanka Vuckovic
More than a year after the women-directed horror anthology XX’s release, I’m still thinking about Jovanka Vuckovic’s wholly creepy short film, “The Box.” In it, a child suddenly stops eating after seeing what’s inside a stranger’s box on the subway. The hunger is contagious, and it drags out until it becomes unbearable for both audiences and characters alike. Vuckovic’s other shorts are equally as jarring and mysterious, and her upcoming debut feature, Riot Girls, will mix her already signature style with a futuristic sci-fi edge.
Julia Ducournau
In the vein of Jennifer’s Body, Ginger Snaps, and more, Ducournau’s film Raw makes the metaphorical gnawing hunger of womanhood literal, with stomach-churning results. Her lead, a staunchly vegetarian college freshman in vet school, goes through a transformation that is captured in vivid detail thanks to Ducournau’s eye for terrifying visuals and a keen sense of the ache of young adulthood. Raw is clever and strange and has gained enough fans to make her next project (whatever it may be) a can’t-miss.
Josephine Decker
Madeline’s Madeline is a head-spinning movie, at once a sensitive portrayal of an unstable teen’s passion for acting and a quasi-thriller that pushes the boundaries of filmmaking while telling a Black Swan-type story of character acting gone dangerous. Decker’s past horror-ish features, Butter on the Latch and Thou Wast Mild and Lovely, flew under the radar but are equally experimental and surprising. I’d love to see what form Decker’s artistry would take if she were given a budget to match her imagination.
Amber Tamblyn
The actress and activist has been in the spotlight for her work in co-founding the Time’s Up movement this year, so it makes sense that most people wouldn’t recognize her first and foremost as a director. Tamblyn released Paint it Black, a Lynch-flavored noir starring Alia Shawkat and Janet McTeer at their most wonderfully unhinged, in 2016. She also recently published a controversial suspense novel, so we know she’s got the mindset for spooky social commentary. A lot has happened since her first film, and since genre filmmaking is a great way to communicate satire and allegory, a more blatantly horror follow-up would be welcome.
Issa López
Usually a comedy director, López goes full Guillermo del Toro for Tigers Are Not Afraid, a dark magical realist fable set in gangland Mexico. The movie follows a girl who joins up with a group of orphans who are on the run from the cartel and the (sometimes literal) ghosts that chase them. The themes of lost innocence and preserved hope are universal, and López carries a difficult emotional tune for the duration of the often-tense film. Like del Toro’s works, the creature design here is great, somehow both naturalistic and clearly unreal. López doesn’t seem to have any more horror movies planned, but she’s worth staying tuned for.
Deborah Chow
Everyone’s favorite ‘70s Gothic melodrama-horror novel deserved a remake, and it got one with Chow’s Flowers in the Attic. As a TV movie, the Ellen Burstyn-led film didn’t make much of a splash, but Chow’s got plenty of pots on the fire. She’s also directed episodes of Fear the Walking Dead, The Vampire Diaries, and Mr. Robot, helming the most harrowing and emotional season one episode of the latter. The episode, which shows Elliot race against the clock to save his kidnapped girlfriend Shayla, is would tautly paced and shot with impeccable precision and terror to spare.
Veronika Franz
Franz created a genuinely frightening viewing experience and a killer twist ending with the German-language film Goodnight Mommy, her first narrative feature. The movie concerns a pair of twins who are unnerved by their mother’s change in behavior when she returns from the hospital with bandages obscuring her face. Franz is ready to keep the thrills going with a segment in the anthology The Field Guide to Evil, and recently wrapped filming on The Lodge, a snowed-in horror movie starring Richard Armitage, Riley Keough, and Jaeden Lieberher.
Coralie Fargeat
Lauded as a revolutionary new chapter in a subgenre — rape-revenge films — that needs to change to survive, Fargeat’s Revenge is a bloody good time. Matilda Lutz is incredible as Jen, a woman who survives a brutal rape and murder attempt and ends up chasing her tormentors around the desert, hell-bent on revenge. It’s astounding that this is Fargeat’s first feature film; Revenge is as beautiful as it is bloody, and easily more memorable than most of its gore-splattered contemporaries.
