This Old Witch From Seattle Will Host The Stranger’s SLAY Horror Film Fest – TheStranger.com

She's coming for you, Barbara. Old Witch

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Its a dream come true because were in the middle of a horror movie, she cackles, presumably while stirring a cauldron. Were all living it out, and this is the bite-sized horror that we can turn off, we can walk away from. Its very cathartic.

From killers stalking the woods to haunted toys and hexes on the president that get out of hand, SLAY promises two weeks of jump scares and goreand also a drive-in party!and our witchy host may have additional surprises up her blood-drenched sleeves.

I play your Elvira/Cryptkeeper master of ceremonies, Old Witch says, adding that Im breaking out trunks and trunks of Halloween stuff from discount bargain bins across the country. Its like that scene where Mary Poppins pulls the lamp out of her bag, except its entrails.

Because there are so many entries in the film fest (2,500 submissions!) its been broken up into two volumes, each with more than a dozen short spoopy films. Theyll be livestreamed starting this Thursday, October 15, through the end of the month.

In Volume 1 of the SLAY screenings, look forward to short films like Dead Lyft, featuring a sinister rideshare passenger; The Dirge, in which a mother discovers a malevolent presence inside her newborn child; and The Devils Dice, an '80s-style found-footage story of an unlucky artifact.

In Volume 2, theres There Can Be Only One, in which a woman decides to kill everyone who shares her name; Bill, featuring communion with a dead husband; and an exorcism conducted via Zoom in The Divorcing.

And don't miss the drive-in screenings at the On the Boards parking lot, on October 24, 30, and 31! There'll be drag-judged costume contests at each, so dress to distress.

Personally, I find horror extremely stressful because I am frightened of EVERYTHING (earlier this morning I literally jumped in surprise when a bird cheeped outside my window) but maybe thats a sign that Im so tightly-wound right now that a little screaming would actually release some tension. Worth a shot, right? Maybe after I yell at my screen for a while, Ill be too tired to feel jumpy.

Horror acknowledges the bad things in the world that its not polite to talk about, says Old Witch, who now also seems to be my therapist. When we collectively experience horror, its a release. That stress of whats lurking around the corner in real life becomes actualized on screen, and sometimes we see people surviving that. Viewing horror through that lens allows us to have that release and brace ourselves for the real life horrors which are often even worse.

This is a welcome return to hosting for Old Witch, who stepped away from the stage at the start of quarantine to focus on her children. (Her real-life kids, that is, not just her drag children.) The pandemic will make this whole season weird, she says, which is why its such a relief to have some livestreamable frights.

If it wasnt for SLAY, I think the season would have passed by, she says. Horror is a very American tradition. We love horror and Halloween, and it would be a shame to let current things destroy every celebration.

Well, when you put it that way, its our duty to be scared. Im not saying that one online film fest will single-handedly save us from all of our quarantine stresses. But it might just break the mental curse of it feeling like were all still stuck in a never-ending month of March.

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This Old Witch From Seattle Will Host The Stranger's SLAY Horror Film Fest - TheStranger.com