Menstrual Terror Takes Centre Stage in ‘The Cramps: A Period Piece’

Fantastic Fest 2025 will see the world premiere of Brooke H. Cellars’ first feature The Cramps: A Period Piece, a hallucinatory coming-of-age story that blends fantastical horror with subversive comedy. The 89-minute film, shot on 35mm, introduces audiences to Agnes Applewhite, a young woman whose attempts to escape her family’s suffocating expectations collide with her own body’s revolt in ways both grotesque and strangely liberating.

Agnes, played by Lauren Kitchen, begins work as a shampoo girl at a bustling beauty salon, much to the disdain of her pious mother and controlling sister. Yet just as she carves out her own identity, her life is derailed by menstrual cramps that overwhelm her with distorted visions and nightmarish episodes. The film explores how these moments blur reality and fantasy, disrupting not only Agnes’s sense of self but the world around her.

Cellars’ debut feature is framed as part horror, part surreal comedy, with critics already drawing comparisons to John Waters’ irreverence, Mario Bava’s gothic flair and Fellini’s dreamscapes. Casting Lauren Kitchen alongside Brooklyn Woods, Harlie Madison, Martini Bear, Wicken Taylor and Michelle Malentina, the film immerses itself in a world where bodily functions, repression and personal liberation converge in strange, uncanny fashion.

For Cellars, who has directed eight shorts since 2018, The Cramps: A Period Piece continues her exploration of horror as a vehicle for both humour and confrontation. Her award-winning short The Chills first drew attention in 2020, while Violet Butterfield: Makeup Artist for the Dead made waves on the international circuit, screening at over thirty festivals and winning multiple prizes including the Abby Normal Award at Portland Horror Fest.

Fantastic Fest has long been a launchpad for distinctive voices, with premieres of Smile, Overlord and There Will Be Blood in its history. This year’s programme is characteristically broad, ranging from the long-awaited sequel Black Phone 2 and the return of cult chaos with Deathgasm 2: Goremageddon, to restorations such as Bride of Re-Animator and underground oddities including Dildo Heaven and Crazy Old Lady. In such company, Cellars’ debut looks set to provoke both laughter and unease, a hybrid work that takes on themes of womanhood, repression and transformation with startling originality.

For more information, visit fantasticfest.com/