When I first started directing Jumpscare, written by Caroline Abbott, I thought I was simply making a fun, chaotic horror comedy inspired by the films I grew up loving. But the deeper I got into the process, the more I realized I was also confronting my complicated relationship with horror itself. 

I have always loved the genre: the colors, the practical effects, the theatricality, the absurdity of it all. Especially 1980s horror. I wanted the film to feel like audiences had uncovered a lost VHS tape from that era. We pushed as much as possible in camera, leaned heavily into stylized lighting and bold color palettes, and embraced the imperfections and experimentation that made those films feel so alive. I wanted Jumpscare to feel playful and entertaining while still having something underneath it that lingered.

What kept staying with me throughout making the film was this question: have women in horror actually come that far? Filmmaking has become more innovative and visually ambitious. But when you really look at the roles women still play in horror, so many of the same ideas remain. Women are still so often framed as objects, victims, fantasies, or cautionary tales. Even now, so much of horror is still built on the spectacle of women’s fear. 

As a female director, I became interested in using the visual language of classic horror not just to celebrate it, but to challenge it. I wanted to make a film that could exist inside the genre while also questioning the way the genre has historically seen women.

At its core, Jumpscare is me trying to reclaim space in a genre I genuinely love. I wanted the film to feel loud, funny, unsettling, self-aware, and visually aggressive all at once. Horror has always reflected cultural fears, whether intentionally or not, and I think it can also reveal the things society has normalized for so long that we barely question them anymore. Beneath the comedy and blood, Jumpscare is asking a bigger question about perspective, authorship, and who gets to control the narrative. The real jump-scare isn’t the blood or the violence, it’s a woman controlling the frame. BOO!