By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Get the first look at a creepy highlight from the surreal new horror feature.
Below you can see an exclusive excerpt from LUCID featuring the “Hair Monster,” plus photos and video from behind the scenes of its creation. LUCID, which world-premieres tonight at 9:35 p.m. at the Fantasia International Film Festival, was shot on 35mm and 16mm film and is an expansion by directors Deanna Milligan and Ramsey Fendall of their LUCID short film, a 2023 Fantasia Frontierés Market Shorts to Features and Sitges Fanpitch project. LUCID stars Caitlin Acken Taylor, Amber Dandelion, Georgia Acken (THE SACRIFICE GAME), Bobby Cleveland, John Luna and Vivian Vanderpuss, who created the Hair Monster; screening before the feature will be Georgia Acken’s short film LOOK.
The LUCID synopsis: “Mia’s [Taylor] life is messy. She’s a frustrated art student struggling to pass a crucial point in the term. Her professor is hard to please, and he needs ‘something with heart’ in one week. Lashing out at inanimate objects, as well as at herself and her peers, she lacks inspiration and believes she’s a terrible artist. Working at fast-food joint Bitchin Chckn, and being the class outcast, don’t help either. When she tries a special candy elixir, Lucid, to open her mind, Mia ignores instructions not to overdo it and eats a full serving of the candy, opening up memories she didn’t know existed, and learns there’s more than a creative block at play. Her brash actions pave the way for a nightmare-fueled journey to finding inspiration, meaning, and self-discovery.”
“The Hair Monster is as much a character as it is a visual metaphor,” says Milligan, and the directors further describe it as “a towering, otherworldly entity that merges maternal symbolism with the surreal spirit of a Miyazaki creature. Designed as a distorted embodiment of the film’s enigmatic Mother figure, the monster was brought to life by Canadian drag icon Vivian Vanderpuss, known for her theatricality and transformative presence. Moving gracefully in stilettos and adorned in layers of cascading wefts of hair and morphing body pieces, Vivian’s performance as the Hair Monster is both mind-blowing and ethereal.”
They continue, “LUCID is a boundary-pushing vision of the subconscious, filled with tactile nightmares, hand-built horrors and drag-driven transformation. With a mix of DIY ingenuity and professional creature craft, the film aims to carve a unique space in the world of indie genre cinema. Also featured is the unforgettable Fried Chicken Monster, a wearable piece of grotesque performance art sculpted by special effects artist Jenna Clarke. With gory chunks of deep-fried flesh and a deliberately handmade, art-school aesthetic, the creature was designed to feel as if it were created by the film’s protagonist–an obsessive artist losing touch with reality. Actress Amber Dandelion performs from within the suit, imbuing it with raw physicality and tragic absurdity. The surreal world is further enhanced by an intricately crafted doll, a pivotal prop in the film’s narrative, designed by stop-motion artist Peg Serena. Known for her work on CORALINE and Guillermo del Toro’s PINOCCHIO, Serena brings haunting realism to the doll, which plays a key role in the film’s blurring of innocence and horror.”
