Anna Biller on The Face of Horror: ‘My films teach men about women’
Filmmaker Anna Biller discusses her latest feature, The Face of Horror, a colour-saturated adaptation of the 200-year-old Japanese ghost story Yotsuya Kaidan, in which a wronged bride exacts supernatural revenge across a meticulously constructed medieval setting. The film follows her 2016 cult classic The Love Witch, which employed tarot-derived aesthetics and sexploitation references to explore female agency through occult means. Biller articulates the project’s feminist stakes within a contemporary landscape of resurgent misogyny, arguing that contemporary patriarchal structures echo medieval hierarchies. She reflects on the decade-long production timeline, the challenges of authoring overtly feminist cinema in an increasingly hostile cultural moment, and her meticulous approach to production design, costume, and visual language. The interview positions The Face of Horror as a midnight cinema work that combines Hammer horror traditions with serious thematic engagement regarding women’s vulnerability, complicity, and rage.
Original article published on Dazed — AI-generated summary. Visit the website to read the full article at the source. Image via Dazed.
