This week’s Staff Pick Premiere comes from visionary filmmaker Mariama Diallo, and presents a heck of a horror premise: after a vampiric culture vulture invades a Black hair salon, the staff of the salon must stick to their roots — or be swept up one by one. “Hair Wolf” is a short chock-full of the hilarious and the bizarre.
From Blue Magic to the Maury Show, the Black cultural capital Mariama liberally weaves throughout the script is simultaneously genius and ironic, stretching the film across both horror and comedy. “Hair Wolf” is steeped in an inventively surreal world, and filled with subversive choices.
These choices, addressed with comedic ease and deft precision, give foundation to the themes and tones Mariama so expertly balances. Winner of the 2018 Sundance Film Festival Jury Award for US Fiction short film, "Hair Wolf" makes its Vimeo debut just days after the premiere of Mariama's first feature, "Master," at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.
Ahead of the premiere, we caught up with the director to chat inspiration, tone, and challenges when making the film:
On inspiration:
"It was a Sunday morning in Brooklyn. I was with a friend, and we were out early to take my dog out. As we were chatting, I glanced down and noticed a box braid lying on the ground. Having absolutely nothing to offer by way of conversation, I pointed it out to my friend and said, 'Braid.' However, in that fateful moment, my friend misheard me as saying, 'Brain.' We found this to be hilarious, and started joking about the intersection of Black hair and zombie horror. There was something about it that just immediately grabbed me, and I couldn’t let the joke go. By the end of the day I had started working on the script for 'Hair Wolf.'"
On tone:
"I think there’s an absurdity inherent to the American concept of race that can lend itself to a sort of grim comedy. I wanted to mirror that with 'Hair Wolf,' where reasonable people find themselves in an entirely unreasonable situation. The premise of the story — a white vampire lusting after Black aesthetics — is ridiculous, but the subtext and the menace is real. Balancing this was crucial. It was really important to me that the film not exist on a purely comic level, and strike a balance. I grounded Eve and Cami in reality, and centered the climax of the film around their friendship and lived experiences."
On challenges:
"It was very difficult to find a hair supply store that was willing to let us shoot! This was by far our most difficult location to secure. Brooklyn is chock-a-block with hair supply stores, so it seemed like it would be an easy get, but it was a very difficult sell to convince a shop owner to close their business early in the name of art."
On the genre of "Horror"
"I really, really enjoy horror stories. I have a few ideas I’ve been mulling over, and one that I’m about to get started writing very soon. I hope that horror continues to evolve in all directions. I really like the personal, emotionally analytical kind of horror that you see in 'Hereditary,' 'Let the Right One In,' and 'Get Out,' and I also am really enjoying some of the more unabashedly 'B' kind of horror that you get from a film like 'Malignant.' I hope the genre doesn’t coalesce around one 'type' and just continues to invite a multitude of voices."
On advice to aspiring filmmakers:
"Create. Don’t live in your head. Find your community and start creating at the level that you are able to sustain."
On what's next:
"Getting back to work on a new script!"
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