Two Horror Films Inspiring My Practice

Current painting in progress for upcoming show My Other Half

The last couple of weeks, I’ve fallen back into my horror rotation…

whether it’s the books I read in bed or lately what I’ve been watching—two beautiful films Nosferatu and Sinners. Both happen to be about vampires, but more deeply, they explore how folklore and mysticism help us make sense of our human nature.

What feels especially reflective of our current moment is how each film reframes a classic trope through a different lens. One focuses on gender—the horror of navigating natural urges as a woman in a Victorian patriarchy. The other focuses on race, highlighting the horrors and coping strategies of surviving as Black in the American South.

These films require multiple watches. But my main takeaway is this: we create monsters—or in Nosferatu (2024), “celestial beings”—to cope with the truth that we are all still animals, capable of violence, rage, loneliness, and sexual desire. What makes us human though, is our ability to fantasize and conjure metaphors that help us carry that complexity.

Still from Nosferatu (2024)

Still from Sinners (2025)

Since my first solo show Mga Hunghong Sa Diwata (Whispers of Spirits), I’ve been exploring identity formation through familial relationships. This veered me towards thematic realism, reimaging real moments and quotes. But while working on my last couple of shows, I’ve been formulating how to get back to folklore—and how to use it as the lens in which I examine these relationships.

Earlier this year and after the election, I was dealing with burnout, deep fear, and a collapse of my belief system—how I believed everyone is inherently good. As a result I returned to folklore in my studio practice as a way to make sense of when and where we are. And like our ancestors, I returned to folklore as a way to cope with this fear.

As the mystic in me would say, all things happen when they are meant to.