A performance devised for PLUS ONE, a concept-based performance event taking place as part of Queer Underground – The Monster Speaks, a solo exhibition by Melo Börner at Raum für drastische Maßnahmen, Berlin.

“Hagsploitation” is a term used by many a film critic and lover of schlocky, outrageous, trashy, and cult cinema. Originally, I encountered it in the podcast Slums of Film History:

“Slate defines “Hagsploitation” as a film that takes a formerly-glamorous older actress and turns her into a psychopath in order to drive movie ticket sales. They can be murderesses, pill poppers, corpse hoarders or ankle clubbers but any way you slice it, these old biddies aren’t taking old age sitting down.”

After falling down a rabbit hole of research (can you call it that?), watching recognised classics such as Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) and X (2022), while suffering the consequences of raging perimenopausal hormones and ADHD, I couldn’t help but turn this trauma into a fun and frightening performance in the sweaty basement of a fringe DIY art space in East Berlin. The audience was gently invited to share their rage and desperation by creating bloodcurdling screams, witchy cackles, and lines from movies such as Mommie Dearest (1981), while I lip-synced their vocal horror to camera, and live-streamed projection on the floor above. More fun than it sounds.