‘SCARY GIRLS’ Brings Women’s Horror and Comedy Into the Spotlight at The London West Hollywood

LAPost/Los Angeles, CA (October 10, 2026) — By Richard Ren/LAPost

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Horror took on a distinctly irreverent, female-driven edge at SCARY GIRLS: Short Film Showcase of Women in Horror and Comedy, where filmmakers, actors and industry creatives gathered Saturday at The London West Hollywood to celebrate genre storytelling that embraces the outrageous, the unsettling and the unexpected.

Featuring 10 short films by female and gender-expansive filmmakers, the inaugural showcase paired screenings and filmmaker discussions with the debut SCARY GIRLS Awards, followed by a networking reception and live concert. Throughout the afternoon and evening, the event underscored a central idea: horror and comedy can be more than vehicles for scares and laughs. They can also create space for underrepresented voices to explore identity, gender, power and the contradictions of contemporary life.

The event drew an eclectic mix of performers and filmmakers whose attire was as varied as the films themselves. From theatrical, horror-inspired looks to glamorous, flamboyant and playful ensembles, the guests embraced the occasion with a sense of costume-party freedom. Their fashion choices helped establish an atmosphere in which camp, self-expression and genre spectacle felt entirely at home.

For founder Desiree Staples, an actor, host and producer who leads Designer Productions, the showcase was designed to champion women and gender-expansive artists, particularly in independent comedy and horror.

“We want to see more messy, complicated, complex, wild women, and gender-expansive actors and artists on screen and behind the scenes,” Staples told LAPost.

Staples said the program brought together 10 shorts spanning a wide tonal range, from deeply dark material to the absurd. The lineup included stories about unconventional intimacy, social anxieties and dystopian fantasy, demonstrating how filmmakers can use genre conventions to approach subjects that might otherwise remain unexplored.

“There’s just not a lot of comedy being made at the independent level,” she said, adding that she hoped the event would encourage creative people and underrepresented artists to work together and help expand opportunities for distinctive voices.

Friendship at the End of the World

Among the filmmakers interviewed by LAPost were Callie Bloom and Christopher J. Ewing, the writing and directing team behind Bounce House. Their short presents a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles through the story of two Gen Z women trying to navigate the end of the world and make a life for themselves.

The filmmakers described the project as a female friendship story set against a landscape of disorder, where even an ordinary backyard can become a meeting place amid coyotes and the strange circumstances of a recent apocalypse.

“We love any event that features horror and horror made by women,” Bloom said. She and Ewing were particularly excited to screen their work alongside other filmmakers and support a community in which women can share their perspectives on the genre.

For the pair, the showcase offered an opportunity not only to introduce their film to an audience but also to connect with fellow independent creators working across different styles of horror and comedy.

Turning Industry Anxiety Into Horror

Jasmine Osean, the writer and director of Kandie, approached horror from a more personal starting point. Shot in New York, the short explores the pursuit of validation, particularly within the entertainment industry, where freelancers and emerging artists can find themselves caught in cycles of comparison, insecurity and self-doubt.

Osean told LAPost that her own experiences with mental health challenges and comparing herself with other artists helped inspire the project. An avid horror fan who hopes to direct feature-length horror films, she saw the genre as a way to transform those feelings into a cinematic story.

The film also reflects the difficulties of pursuing a career in entertainment, from starting as a production assistant to trying to advance in an industry widely perceived as difficult to enter and sustain a career in.

Osean said the screenplay began taking shape during a difficult day when she went to a coffee shop to journal. The writing session eventually turned into four hours spent developing the screenplay. She then shared the idea with creative friends who helped bring the short to life, alongside contributors who donated their time and resources.

For Osean, that collective effort was part of the meaning of independent filmmaking: a group of people believing in a story strongly enough to make it happen. She hopes to develop Kandie into a feature-length project and further explore the emotional pressures faced by people pursuing careers in film.

When Insecurity Becomes a Monster

The short Dadda, directed by Aimee Hoffman and produced by Julia Colchran, with Anastasia Solovieva serving as line producer, uses surreal body horror to examine gender expectations and resentment.

Hoffman described a story about a husband who becomes jealous of his wife and begins believing that his hands have shrunk. Seeking help from his friends to make them larger again, he sets off a chain of increasingly uncontrolled events.

Beneath its bizarre premise, Hoffman said, the film comments on online communities and public figures who encourage men to blame women and feminism for their personal frustrations. It also examines relationship dynamics shaped by longstanding social expectations, particularly when a woman earns more than her male partner.

The filmmakers said the production was completed while they were at the American Film Institute. Colchran recalled the challenges of mounting an ambitious short within a school-production setting, including working with a child actor and creating the film’s striking prosthetic hands with a special-effects makeup artist.

Those practical effects became one of the production’s most memorable elements, giving physical form to a story in which private insecurity grows into something grotesque.

A Dystopian Fantasy With a Punk-Rock Edge

Love Bailey and Matt Boman brought a sharply theatrical sensibility to Tranz Panic!, a music-video-style project set within a larger dystopian world they are developing for The Battle of Transmecula.

The filmmakers said the project grew out of frustration with authoritarian impulses and attempts to control people’s lives. Their response was to create a confrontational, satirical and deliberately exaggerated fantasy, using music, glamour and provocative imagery to turn fear into a form of defiant performance.

Rather than presenting their characters simply as victims, Bailey and Boman wanted to create a story that felt empowering, irreverent and unmistakably rock ‘n’ roll.

They were especially eager to see how a live theater audience would respond. While they had seen reactions to the project online, the SCARY GIRLS screening offered an opportunity to experience viewers’ responses together in a shared space.

Giving the Bed a Life of Its Own

Lizzy McGroder, writer and co-director of Bedfuck, described her short as a feminist horror story about a woman who develops an intimate relationship with her bed. The project explores female intimacy through an intentionally strange, surreal premise that McGroder also regards as an ode to her own bed.

The bed itself functions as a character rather than a conventional piece of furniture. McGroder explained that a physical performer worked inside the sheets to move it, while a voice actor was added during postproduction to give the character a distinct voice.

The result, she said, was an unusual figure with human qualities and an almost ancient, ethereal presence.

McGroder, whose next short involves puppets and the story of a best friend, said she is drawn to surrealist storytelling. Her contribution exemplified the showcase’s willingness to make room for films that resist easy categorization and use strangeness as a creative strength.

A Showcase Built Around Creative Possibility

The 10-film program also included Wall Udder, directed by Alexandra Hayden; Open Wide, directed by Sam Fox; SKIN, directed by Urvashi Pathania; Burnt Orange, directed by Sharmila Ray; and Debbie Walks Her Duck, directed by Nikki Braendlin.

Together, the films illustrated the range of approaches available to women and gender-expansive filmmakers working in horror and comedy. Some drew on social satire and contemporary anxieties, while others leaned into surrealism, unconventional relationships and exaggerated genre imagery.

The inaugural SCARY GIRLS Awards were another central part of the event, with honors including the Trailblazer Award, Visionary Award, Fearless Performance and Outstanding Achievement. The program was followed by the Monster Bash networking hour and a live concert, extending the gathering beyond the theater into a broader celebration of independent creative work.

For Staples, the turnout reinforced the appetite for stories that allow women and gender-expansive artists to be complicated, funny, frightening and unapologetically unconventional.

At SCARY GIRLS, horror was not limited to what lurked in the shadows. It also became a platform for examining social pressures, challenging familiar expectations and building a creative community around stories that might otherwise struggle to find a stage.

In a genre where the unexpected is part of the appeal, the showcase’s most enduring contribution may be its insistence that a wider range of filmmakers deserve the opportunity to surprise audiences.