Ever had a day so bad you just wanna go somewhere isolated and scream your lungs out? Then you need Scream Therapy, the new feminist horror-comedy from writer/director Cassie Keet.
Keet’s debut feature will world premiere at Los Angeles’ Dances With Films Festival at the TCL Chinese Theatre on June 23. Starring Brian Flaccus, Claire Dellamar, Geri Courtney-Austin, Harley Bronwyn, Mandie Cheung and Rochelle Anderson, the film is described as “a cathartic girls trip to the desert turns deadly when they run into some demon-worshipping incels on the hunt for a human sacrifice.”
SOLD! And the full plot breakdown is even wilder:
After Avery (Bronwyn) breaks up with her boyfriend of seven years when he expresses no plans for marriage in the future, her best friends Nora (Dellamar), Dylan (Cheung), Marybeth (Courtney-Austein), and Gillian (Anderson) whisk her away to the Wonder Valley desert for a weekend of drinking, drugs, and restorative scream therapy. Their vacation takes a sharp turn when they cross paths with Jeremiah (Flaccus) and Zachariah (Skyler Bible), demon-worshiping incels who are on a very pressing human sacrifice deadline. When the ritual goes horribly wrong (for the incels), the ladies are left with two choices: find sacrifices of their own, or have their souls ripped out when the sun rises. With only hours to complete an impossible task, the best friends will have to defeat desert psychos, conspiracy theorist lunatics, and the incel cult leader The Sovereign (David St.James) to survive.
Keet, Cheung, Flaccus and Dellamar also produced, alongside Benjamin Dunn and Chadwick Hopson.
In her director’s statement, Keet describes the very real-life horrors that served as inspiration for Scream Therapy, and how the film is a refreshing twist on some of horror’s more misogynistic tropes:
I had cooked up (Scream Therapy) while in isolation and on Twitter way too much. My feed was constantly being updated with news of alt-right incel trolls threatening our democracy and women’s rights essentially being put through a shredder. I was furious and terrified and missing my closest female friends, and Scream Therapy was a direct result of these feelings. I wanted to write a script that showed the strength and resiliency of female friendship and how it can survive anything, from breakups to abduction by an incel cult. Too many movies “about women” end up being retreads of misogynistic ideas: petty arguing, tearing each other down, and an inevitable Act Three Fight when everyone turns on each other. That’s never really rang true to me. Sure, women disagree all the time, but if you’ve ever been in a bar bathroom late at night, you know that women are each other’s biggest cheerleaders. I’ve been blessed with incredible female friendships, and I wanted the script to reflect that love and care. Scream Therapy is, at its heart, a celebration of women and their support for each other. That, and sacrificing people to demons. It is also very much about that.
Here’s the trailer for Scream Therapy – might wanna invest in some good ear plugs first!
