I began this journey in 2011 after completing my Master’s degree, at the same moment I was becoming a new Black mother. My original academic work focused on women in French horror cinema and feminist genre theory, but after the birth of my daughter, the work began to shift emotionally and intellectually. I found myself asking deeper questions about Black women, representation, survival, memory, and our place within horror cinema itself. I wanted to leave behind something meaningful for her. Something that acknowledged that we existed in this genre not only as side characters, victims, or stereotypes, but as layered women, creators, thinkers, survivors, and icons.
What began as graduate research slowly evolved into a years-long personal, scholarly, and creative journey across the country. Between 2011 and 2016, I traveled to conventions, screenings, archives, universities, festivals, and interview locations while balancing filmmaking, research, graduate work, marriage, motherhood, and professional life. This project became deeply woven into my personal life and identity. There were moments where my daughter sat beside me in the edit bay while I logged footage, transcribed interviews, or organized research. There were moments where my husband and family supported long nights in libraries, research trips, conventions, screenings, and interviews that slowly expanded this work far beyond a traditional thesis project.
As my research deepened, I became increasingly interested in the historical “waves” where Black visibility in horror cinema became culturally noticeable. I often describe these periods as distinct eras: the early race and religious horror films of the 1920s and 1930s, the Blaxploitation and Grindhouse movement of the 1970s, urban horror of the 1990s, and the modern resurgence of socially conscious Black horror cinema. While mainstream horror history often centered white narratives and white heroines, I wanted to explore the women, films, performances, and stories that existed underneath and alongside those dominant narratives.
The deeper I went, the more I realized how overlooked many Black actresses and creators had been despite their impact on the genre. One of the greatest revelations during this process was discovering the importance of Ganja & Hess. While many now recognize it as an art-house classic, for me it represented something much larger: a refusal to flatten Black identity, Black spirituality, Black womanhood, and Black emotional life within horror cinema. My relationship with the work of Marlene Clark and Beverly Bonner especially became central to this project and ultimately helped anchor the emotional core of my research. Through conversations, interviews, screenings, and ongoing dialogue, both women profoundly shaped how I understood Black women’s place in horror history and why preserving these stories mattered.
Along the way, I had the privilege of interviewing and speaking with actresses, directors, producers, composers, scholars, historians, programmers, and horror enthusiasts whose generosity and insight helped shape this work immeasurably. Special gratitude goes to Marlene Clark, Beverly Bonner, Gloria Gifford, Sam Waymon, Chiz Schultz, William Crain, Dr. Robin R. Means Coleman, and Dr. Isabel Pinedo, among many others whose voices contributed to this evolving archive and body of research.
I also owe deep gratitude to my advisors and professors at Long Island University Brooklyn, including Maureen Nappi, Larry Banks, Claire Goodman, and Marjan Moggadam, whose support and mentorship helped me continue building this work beyond the classroom. Over the years, genre communities and festivals also embraced and encouraged this journey, including Graveyard Shift Sisters’ Ax Wound, Etheria, Final Girls Berlin, Female Eye Film Festival, New York City horror meet-up groups, Grindhouse communities, scholars, collectors, cinephiles, and fellow filmmakers who continuously challenged me to think more critically and deeply about horror cinema and its cultural legacy.
What started as a thesis became something much larger than academia. My Final Girl exists as part living archive, part film scholarship platform, part cultural reflection, and part personal journey. It is both research and love letter. A continuing exploration of Black women in horror cinema and the histories, performances, creators, and stories that inspired me to keep digging deeper into the genre and into myself.
I dedicate this work, this archive, and this continuing journey to Marlene Clark and Beverly Bonner.
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