A Banquet

Following a strange experience at a party, teenage Betsy returns home and declares to her mother, Holly, that she no longer needs to eat, being guided by a higher power. Holly, recently widowed and still traumatised by loss, struggles to hold everything together, as Betsy is examined by doctors and experts who cannot explain why she is not losing weight. Torn between love for her daughter and her beliefs, Holly is forced to face her daughter’s nihilistic epiphany. Ruth Paxton’s debut feature is a claustrophobic psychological horror sharing themes with Rose Glass’s chilling Saint Maud.

‘The film is a slow-burning psychological horror, which, at its core, is about a family dealing with grief. I’m interested in writing and directing stories that explore emotional and psychological terrains, and when it comes to horror I think we are in the midst of a trend of transcendental horror – where at the core, the monster is less a beast and more rooted in what it means to be human. Characters in films like these tend to transcend their ordinary human life in order to face up to psychological horrors and the extremities of human existence. And the human body is an ultimate source of horror, as are our psyches and their capacity for mayhem.’

Director Ruth Paxton, from an interview with Women on Hollywood.