WALKERS is a 6-8 minute short horror film following four friends on a desert road trip through the nighttime Joshua Tree, where a chance encounter with an ancient evil forces them to reckon with the secrets they've been keeping from each other. The film explores the dangerous bubble of the self: four young adults moving through a vast, ancient landscape whose world is only as wide as the glow of a smartphone or the interior of a 2013 Subaru. The "skin-walker" of the title is a double entendre, referring to the creature twitching in the shadows, but also to the characters themselves, constantly shifting their "skins" to fit into Hinge profiles, social hierarchies, and heteronormative expectations.
WALKERS is written and directed by Christina Woo, a CalArts BFA alum and LA-based filmmaker whose work has screened at SIFF, Santa Fe International, Fine Cut, and TAAFI. Christina has always been fascinated by the concept of inattentional blindness, the way we can miss a monster standing right in front of us because we are too busy arguing about our own identities. She wanted to explore the moment that insulation breaks, leaving the most vulnerable member of the group physically and metaphorically abandoned in the dark.
WALKERS is being made by a group of LA-based AAPI emerging filmmakers at a time when there is a growing demand for genre stories told from fresh perspectives. There is a clear appetite within this genre for films that root their horror in real social phenomena, stories that frighten not just because of the creature in the shadows, but because of what they imply about the world we live in.
Your contribution directly supports these filmmakers in telling that kind of story, getting it in front of festival audiences, and building the foundation for what comes next.
Learn More: https://www.instagram.com/walkersshortfilm/