BLEEDING JUNIPER

Logline: After her first few months away at college, Juniper ("June", a queer witch) returns home to the highly religious town she grew up in. With a new taste of freedom, she must learn to stand up for herself and face that her hometown was never truly her home

Director Statement: In 2020, I became fascinated by the psychology behind tropes we often see in the horror genre. I came to understand that, as many of these stories were written from the cis white male perspective, a lot of what we see as "scary" in these movies is a horrific version of the feminine, the female body, or bodies that do not conform to simply male or female. Though this says a lot about the male psyche, it made me wonder what cinematic fears would look like from other perspectives. I played with the idea of witchcraft-- something that historically was turned into something monstrous due to the cis male narrative, though was a very real practice that was not innately evil. In order to explore these ideas, themes, and perspectives, I wanted to tell a more modern story of someone who's witchcraft is very normal and loving. Who's fear comes from toxic masculinity, rejection, and internalized sexism or homophobia. And more importantly, the arc of overcoming the internalized hate and disgust of oneself or one's body.

In The Monstrous Feminine, Barbaa Creed writes "But the feminine is not a monstrous sign per se; rather, it is constructed as such within a patriarchal discourse that reveals a great deal about male desires and fears but tells us nothing about feminine desire in relation to the horrific..."(63). The feminine is not a monster, not scary-- but it is made as such out of ignorance and control as a way to excuse assault and apathy. My underlying aim in the creation of this story is to show the power of the feminine, and the fear experienced by those that can identify with Juniper, or by those that have simply experienced an environment that tells them they are not allowed to exist as they are.