It's been three years since we heard that Justin Simien, writer/director of the 2014 social satire DEAR WHITE PEOPLE, was planning to make a "psychological horror film with a satirical streak", but that project has never made it into production because Simien's focus has been on the Dear White People Netflix series (pictured above). That changes soon – casting is now underway for Simien's horror film, which is titled BAD HAIR, and filming will take place this summer, before work begins on the third season of Dear White People.
During an appearance on IndieWire's Filmmaker Toolkit podcast, Simien revealed that BAD HAIR follows
a girl from Compton who doesn’t have the right look. She doesn’t have the right hair, she doesn’t have the right face, she doesn’t have the right skin color. She wants to be a VJ in the late ’80s, early ’90s and she makes a bit of a Faustian bargain with this woman who takes over the network where she’s at and she ends up with this hair, this weave in her head, that may or may not have a mind of its own.”
Simien is making the film in tribute to the black women in his life, as he believes that black women are put through hell:
We make them suffer quiet little deaths just to be seen in our culture and I wanted to translate that, in my own way, into a very weird horror-satire love letter to that experience.”
He describes the film as being in the tradition of ROSEMARY'S BABY, THE STEPFORD WIVES, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, and GET OUT.
It sounds interesting; the late '80s / early '90s setting is very appealing to me, and I've definitely never seen a movie about a sentient weave before. We'll keep you updated on BAD HAIR as it finally heads into production.
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