Final Girls in the Summer

A couple of weeks ago the Final Girls Berlin held an event-ful Midsummer weekend during which a collection of the festival's best folk horror short films were shown at the open air cinema Freilichtbühne Weißensee, as well as many super interesting talks (all free) were presented at the annual online Brain Binge event.

I missed some of the Brain Binge Events, notably and sadly the "The Hills Are Alive: Singing and Screaming in Horror Musicals" which honestly sounds like fun, "The Bleeding Edge" about Menstruation in Horror, and the "Pitch Your Idea Workshop", which is a shame because although I usually stay at a safe distance to horror, and I am an avid reviewer and observer of the genre, I in fact do have a couple of ideas of my own and could use a hand in the realization.

But anyway. I really enjoyed the "Nature Girls on Native Land" talk which was as niche a topic as it gets and which focused on lesbian couples in settler situations, such as Heavenly Creatures (1994) or What Keeps You Alive (2018). Honestly, I didn't even know this is a subgenre, but now I have a list of movies to watch, and I love that.

Equally captivating was the presentation about David Lynch by Willow Maclay who opened her talk by expressing how much the filmmaker's dead distressed her as she felt like someone from her family died 😟. The Psychedelic Horror talk opened completely new doors to me (as any event about drug induced art should), as I learned about how communities of drug experiencing people categorize their horror movies. Finally, Bodily Mortification was another event to make notes and write down even some more titles.

As to the folk horror shorts, they ranged from Australia to the Netherlands, some crazy folk stuff from all over the world. I often found myself wondering and wanting to know more about the underlying tradition or ghost story. Sometimes the nice mystery of not knowing much about these beliefs leaves a peculiar aftertaste too. In a couple of movies the folkloric element wasn't really explained, so there was really no way of knowing whether or not they are really folkloric or invented. To be fair, it might be I missed the explanation for some reason, as it's been two weeks already and I didn't have the chance to re-watch the films. For instance in Days of Spring from the Netherlands a group of innocent looking little girls follow an ever gradually crueler initiation ritual, and I hope that that's not rooted in reality. Kill Tradition (Malaysia, 2025) is another example for this kind of narration. 

I can't even clearly articulate what it is about, but what I got was that it's the story of a mother who, intentionally or not, sacrifices her daughter to some kind of supernatural entity. And boy, that one was heavy... One of my favorite short films of the whole Final Girls Berlin Film Festival is Vinegar Baths from Malaysia, and I'm saying that without knowing the background mythology. It's just a movie that completely captures the viewer through the honest, slightly comedic, slightly harsh portrayal of the main figure, a midwife and her life in the maternity ward she works, her healthy appetite and the vinegar baths she takes. I just recently found out about the mythology behind that, namely the myth of the vampiric witch Penanggalan, whose bodyless head flies at night with her trailing, glowing entrails behind her.

The feminist tone stood out in shorts like Heirlooms (Indonesia, 2023) in which a woman runs from the local ghost Pocong, only to find out that the man she seeks protection from is actually scarier - it's the Indonesian version of the bear or man dilemma. Drum Wave (Australia, 2018), Lok (Bangladesh, 2025) and Barlebas (The Netherlands, 2024) approached the woman condition with the help of the tropes of the witch in various shapes across the countries, as well as that of fertility issues. 

Finally, a shout out to Nian which gave some high-school hallway horror and a kick-ass grandma against fascism.

So, when it comes to unexpected Final Girls Berlin events, I can only say - More of these, please! Always a pleasure, always amazing selections, always good to see you ghouls.

P.S. Has anyone of you seen Backrooms and if yes, what do you think? I'm super intrigued.