Editorials
From ‘Black Mirror’ to ‘Psycho Killer’, Georgina Campbell is Horror’s Newest Scream Queen
Of all the beloved archetypes, it’s our Scream Queens horror fans prize most of all. From Jaime Lee Curtis and Neve Campbell to Samara Weaving and Maika Monroe, we love to watch these empowered women battle their way through film after film. Seeming to specialize in roles that chill us to the bone, sometimes a Scream Queen becomes famous for playing a single character whose saga endures through a storied franchise, but more often than not, she stuns in a series of disparate characters stretched across the genre spectrum.
Though women have always been the heart of horror, only a select handful of actresses make it into this celebrated sorority. With the dual February releases of Gavin Polone’s Psycho Killer and Jonny Campbell’s Cold Storage (which also happens to be produced by Polone), another Scream Queen joins these rarified ranks.
Born in South Yorkshire, England, Georgina Campbell was discovered on the street at the age of 16 and recruited to lead Clair Breton’s innovative web series Freak. She’s spent the last decade building an impressive resume of enigmatic heroines in a wide variety of genre roles. From lovers, survivors, influencers, and officers, Campbell excels in creating relatable characters who manage to win our hearts in the depths of horror.
Murdered by My Boyfriend (2014)
Campbell’s first prominent role was inspired by a real-life tragedy. Based on the shocking death of Casey Brittle, Paul Andrew Williams’s Murdered by My Boyfriend is a harrowing study of intimate partner violence and the devastating cycle of abuse. Campbell stars as Ashley, a young and idealistic woman who is swept off her feet by a charming older man named Reece (Royce Pierreson). But his kindness masks a violent streak sparked by uncontrollable jealousy, and Ashley finds herself trapped in a destructive pattern of pain and shame. This heartbreaking film does not diminish Ashley while exploring her complex reasons for continuing this terrifying relationship. Campbell won a BAFTA TV Award for her sensitive portrayal of an all-too-relatable character.
Black Mirror (2017)
After appearing in a number of TV series and independent films, Campbell received her second BAFTA nomination for a starring role on Charlie Brooker’s anthology series Black Mirror. The high point of season 4, “Hang the DJ,” follows Amy (Campbell) and Frank (Joe Cole), a couple matched by a restrictive app that determines the length of their time together. After a successful first date, they’re placed in long-term relationships with other people, forced to wait until Pairing Day to see if they’ll be deemed a soulmate match. With a jaw-dropping twist, this episode explores the horror of using faceless technology to control our most sensitive decisions and the dangers of gamifying emotional vulnerability.
Barbarian (2022)
Campbell’s breakthrough performance came in Zach Cregger’s 2022 shocker Barbarian. We first meet Tess (Campbell) on the doorstep of a sketchy Airbnb. Fumbling with the lock code, she’s surprised when Keith (Bill Skarsgård) opens the door, and the attractive strangers realize they’ve been double-booked. The film’s opening act plays out like a hellish meet-cute as Keith and Tess bond over the awkward situation. But horror lurks in the pleasantly anonymous house. I won’t spoil the genuinely delightful twists and turns this bizarre story takes, except to say that Tess becomes our guiding light through a world of increasingly predatory men. Fast and salacious, Barbarian is a wild ride that introduces Creggor as an unpredictable storyteller and Campbell as a Scream Queen in the making.
Bird Box: Barcelona (2023)
From this point on, Campbell would be a hot commodity in the genre world. She followed her big screen debut in Àlex and David Pastor’s Bird Box: Barcelona, a sequel/spinoff of the 2023 adaptation of Josh Malerman’s bestselling novel. On the other side of the globe, another group of terrified survivors tries to negotiate a world plagued by mysterious entities that drive anyone who views them to suicide. Campbell follows Sandra Bullock’s celebrated performance as Claire, a psychiatrist caring for a little girl seemingly orphaned by the apocalypse. Desperate to survive, Claire senses danger when their small group absorbs a so-called “Seer” named Sebastián (Mario Casas). Though the film received mixed reviews, especially compared to its predecessor, Campbell provides the story’s heart as a brave psychiatrist in a world filled with monsters adept at murdering through mental illness.
Lovely, Dark, and Deep (2023)
That same year, Campbell would star in Teresa Sutherland’s feature debut, Lovely, Dark, and Deep. Lennon (Campbell) is a backcountry ranger tasked with searching for hikers lost in the dangerous Arvores National Park. Years ago, her own sister went missing in the same dense woods, and Lennon has been drawn to the source of this tragedy, holding out hope for her rescue. When the experienced ranger also loses her way, she discovers that the forest is home to otherworldly entities who thrive on a steady source of stolen souls. Now Lennon must decide how far she will go to protect this dangerous secret, knowing other families will suffer the same devastation that once ruined her life. Campbell received rave reviews for her steady performance, grounding a gorgeous, yet fantastical story.
The Watchers (2024)
Next, Campbell would lose herself in another sinister forest in The Watchers, Ishana Shyamalan’s directorial debut. Adapted from A. M. Shine’s harrowing book, the story follows Mina (Dakota Fanning), a lonely courier who becomes trapped in a glass-walled enclosure known as The Coop, where a small collection of survivors are observed by hordes of hidden beasts. Ciara (Campbell) is a fellow captive waiting for her husband to return from an ill-advised rescue mission. Though not the film’s marquee star, Campbell breaks our hearts as Ciara must accept his inevitable death while denying his frantic doppelganger begging to be let back into the Coop. The story takes several twists and turns, but we’re anchored by Campbell’s human reactions to this increasingly mythological threat.
Influencers (2025)
In 2025, Campbell co-starred in Influencers, a sequel to Kurtis David Harder’s surprise 2022 hit. Roughly a year after escaping the island she’d been using as a deadly trap, CW (Cassandra Naud) has found a seemingly happy relationship. But she’s tempted back into her old predatory patterns by a captivating influencer named Charlotte (Campbell). CW’s deceptive tactics once again threaten to destroy the safety she’s built, and old friends come calling as the gorgeous predator zeroes in on another influential victim. Campbell dazzles in a showy role that morphs with Charlotte’s unusual fate. She stands out in this exciting film, bringing complexity to a character that could easily become a vacuous stereotype.
COLD STORAGE, StudioCanal 2023
February presents Campbell in two starring roles, which sit at opposite ends of the genre spectrum. Psycho Killer sees the empathetic actress tackle a tricky role as a recent widow determined to find her husband’s killer, a masked man dedicating his murders to Satan. Grisly and bleak, Campbell navigates a range of emotions while grounding an overwhelmingly sadistic story. On a much lighter note, she co-stars with Joe Keery as low-level managers of a self-storage facility in Jonny Campbell’s futuristic horror comedy Cold Storage. She and Keery lead an all-star cast of disparate characters clumsily trying to save the world. This dual release is a microcosm of Campbell’s multifaceted talent.
With multiple projects on the horizon, including buzzy genre title The Shepherd, it’s safe to say that for this newly minted Scream Queen, the best may be yet to come.
Editorials
Before ‘The Blair Witch Project’, ‘Alien Autopsy’ Showed How Real Found Footage Could Feel
The line separating artist from con man is a lot thinner than you might initially believe. While I think we can all agree that lying for the sake of profit is actively malicious behavior, isn’t it also true that the faux documentary aspect of The Blair Witch Project is half the reason why that film became such a cultural phenomenon? After all, if there’s one thing filmmakers have in common with stage magicians, it’s that misleading and misdirecting audiences is simply part of the job.
That’s why I’ve developed a habit of mostly ignoring the moral quandaries behind many of film and television’s biggest “hoaxes” in favor of appreciating the narrative elements that drive productions like Mermaids: The Body Found and even Animal Planet’s highly underrated The Cannibal in the Jungle. However, if there’s a definitive case of a highly publicized broadcast fooling the world into taking it seriously, it has to be Fox’s infamous 1995 TV special Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction.
It’s been over three decades since that eerie footage first haunted television screens right at the peak of the ’90s ufology craze, and in that time, the video has taken on a life of its own. From countless parodies and references in everything from The X-Files to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (as well as John Dower’s recently released tell-all documentary The Alien Autopsy Scandal, which I’d highly recommend to genre fans everywhere), there’s no denying the legacy of the Alien Autopsy video. However, I rarely see the tape discussed as what it truly is: a highly convincing found footage film directed by a passionate stage magician and brought to life by masterful practical effects work.
That’s why I’d like to invite readers to join me on a deep dive into one of the most infamous broadcasts of all time in an attempt to reevaluate the footage as a fascinating narrative experience rather than a complete hoax.
The TV Special That Convinced Millions It Was Real
Ray Santilli next to Extraterrestrial replica in ‘The Alien Autopsy Scandal’
For starters, regardless of whether or not you believe that there was in fact an extraterrestrial crash in Roswell during the summer of 1947 and that some form of autopsy was performed on the victims, the producers behind the black & white recordings, Ray Santilli and Gary Shoefield, insist that their video was a “restoration.” Though I’d argue that the proper word is “remake”of genuine footage that was too damaged to air on television. That’s why the duo went on to recruit filmmaker and eccentric magician Spyros Melaris and sculptor/monster designer John Humphreys to bring their version of the autopsy to life and sell it to the highest bidder.
This is where the story of the Alien Autopsy as a narrative experience really begins. Melaris claims that his approach to the faux recording consisted of striving for extreme period accuracy in both shooting equipment and setting while also planting subtle details that would initially seem like mistakes but could later be revealed to actually fit the time period. That being said, the filmmaker was under the impression that the short would be released for free as a PR stunt, with the team later producing and selling an informative documentary chronicling exactly how the footage was faked and commenting on how easy it is to manipulate public perception with a good old-fashioned magic trick.
This obviously isn’t how things went down, and that’s likely the reason why Melaris has since distanced himself from everyone else involved with the project. Yet, no amount of behind-the-scenes drama can undermine the genuine effort that went into making the short as impressive as it is. From the sourcing of real animal organs from a local butcher to make the organic part of the creature more lifelike to the highly detailed sculpt that made use of a hollowed-out underlayer that could be filled with fake blood and assorted viscera, there’s a reason why so many Hollywood specialists are still impressed with the artistry on display here.
Of course, the believability is only half the story, as I think that the best part of the autopsy is how Melaris builds on the existing tension by obscuring certain details and often embracing the chaos of what a real examination of extraterrestrial life could feel like. The camera often goes out of focus at just the right time to make certain effects hit even harder, and we can only speculate as to what the hazmat-suited doctors are gesticulating about during the operation. There’s a real air of mystery to the whole thing that almost makes it feel like a cosmically terrifying, cursed film containing forbidden knowledge that civilians were never meant to see.
So when Fox’s Fact or Fiction brings in the specialists to comment on the film and its otherworldly subject, it’s no surprise that we end up with one of the most memorable mockumentaries of all time – albeit one where the participants are unaware that the footage they’re commenting on is basically a large-scale practical joke. A joke that the network was obviously in on, as many participants claim that the TV special cut out significant portions where guests point out that they believe the footage to be an elaborate hoax.
The Lasting Impact of the Hoax Turned Cultural Event
Regardless, I remember going to bed terrified after watching reruns of the special and thinking about the respected pathologist who claimed that the body was almost certainly inhuman, with even effects maestro Stan Winston commenting on how difficult it would be to recreate some of these visuals through practical puppetry. That’s not even mentioning Jonathan Frakes’ dramatic hyping up of the disturbing imagery as if he was talking about the tape from The Ring, with his spooky demeanor here likely being responsible for his later role as the host of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction a few years later.
Personally, I’d argue that the Alien Autopsy phenomenon had just as much of an impact on me as a horror fan as The Blair Witch Project, a film that was almost certainly influenced by the success of this immensely popular hoax (to the point where they even produced their own TV special commenting on Heather’s found footage). Even if Fox didn’t intend to produce a narrative feature about the aftermath of the Roswell crash, the end product still holds up remarkably well as a highly entertaining mockumentary exploring the idea that we may not be alone in the universe.
While neither Santilli nor the rest of the production team has ever commented on this, I also think it’s very likely that the idea of a faux Alien Autopsy could have been influenced by Dean Alioto’s The McPherson Tape/UFO Abduction. I’ve already written about how this granddaddy of found footage was co-opted by rogue ufologists who began selling bootlegs of the tape at conventions as if it were real evidence of a close encounter, so it’s not that much of a stretch to imagine that Santilli and company could have heard about this phenomenon and been inspired to come up with their own highly profitable hoax.
At the end of the day, it’s unlikely that the Alien Autopsy film is recreating any real footage from Roswell, but I can still appreciate the short and the accompanying television event as a standalone horror story that still influences the way we see found footage to this very day.
After all, the possibility that something could be real is often much scarier than finding out for sure – and that’s why I think Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction is still worth revisiting three decades down the line.
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