Ariel McCleese is a feminist horror writer-director based in Los Angeles. Her work carves out space in horror for women, trans, and non-binary people as agentive subjects rather than passive victims, activating the unique potential of the genre to speak to stigmatized themes. Following its West Coast premiere at the Seattle International Film Festival, her short film LADY PARTS won the coveted Best Short Film prize at Queer Fear Film Festival and the award for Best Production Design at Brooklyn Horror Festival. LADY PARTS screened at seventeen prestigious festivals worldwide and will be released this summer on the leading horror shorts streaming platform Alter. Her prior short films HEXATIC PHASE and DAUGHTERS OF WOLBACHIA have been showcased at independent horror film festivals across the globe, including Final Girls Berlin and Wench Film Festival in Mumbai. Her screenplays have placed in internationally-recognized competitions including The Page Awards, The Screencraft Fellowship, and Killer Shorts. McCleese’s upcoming maternal horror short PINKY is currently in post-production.
Alongside her filmmaking, McCleese is the founder and editor-in-chief of award-winning literary magazine Bloodletter. With a dual MFA in Fine Art and Critical Theory from University of California Irvine, Ariel weaves her passion for the visual arts, feminist horror theory, and community advocacy into the groundbreaking publication, which has amassed a readership of over 15,000 in 110 countries around the world.