ABOUT ACCESS:HORROR
Who We Are
Horror belongs to disabled people too.
Access:Horror is a disability-led horror and experimental film festival for people who like their cinema strange, sharp and a little unhinged. Founded in 2023 by filmmaker and disability advocate Ariel Baska, it grew out of one very simple frustration: too many festivals made disabled filmmakers fight to enter the room before anyone even got to the films.
So we built the festival differently. Disabled filmmakers get to make strange work, show ambitious work, scare people, make them laugh and take up space without access being treated like an afterthought. It is baked into the program, the platform, the venues and the way the festival runs.
And because this is horror, we get to do all of that with blood, monsters, bad decisions and the strange bodies the genre has always been obsessed with.
Mission
Horror has always been obsessed with bodies that do not behave, minds that do not fit and people the world decides are too strange. Disabled people know those stories well. Access:Horror hands the camera back and asks: what happens when we get to make the monster, survive the monster, become the monster, or decide the monster was never the problem?
We program through a disability-first lens, but the point is still great horror: films with teeth, ideas that linger, filmmakers worth discovering and conversations you actually want to stay for. Access is part of the machinery that makes that possible, not a separate program bolted onto the side.
Meet the Team
Ariel Baska — Founder & Co-Director
Ariel Baska is a Deafblind disability advocate, multi-award-winning filmmaker and festival director. They have worked with Anarchists United, SXSW and the Academy Museum as a filmmaker, speaker and adviser. Their horror memoir short Monstrous Me has received support from Southern Documentary Fund, Sunny Side of the Doc through ReelAbilities, and The Chimaera Project, and is executive produced by Lilly Wachowski.
Dr. Heather O. Petrocelli — Co-Director
Heather is a film critic, researcher and author whose work spans film studies, queer theory and public history, including the critically acclaimed book Queer for Fear: Horror Film and the Queer Spectator. A lifelong horror obsessive and multiply disabled queer scholar, their programming, critical writing and filmmaking experience shapes Access:Horror.
Caris O'Malley — Co-Producer
Caris O'Malley is a librarian by day and a horror completist by nature, the kind of person who'd rather sort 700 slasher movies by holiday than relax. As Co-Producer of Access:Horror, he puts that instinct to work building a festival that treats accessibility as part of the craft, not an afterthought, and gives emerging genre filmmakers room to be as strange as they want to be. When he's not wrangling festival logistics, Caris runs the Holiday Horror Database (holidayhorrordatabase.com), a growing catalogue of 700+ horror movies sorted by holiday, because even Arbor Day deserves a slasher. He is the author of The Egg Said Nothing, and by day serves as Deputy Director of the Spokane Public Library.
Washawn Jones (she/her) — Co-Producer
Washawn Jones is a nonprofit advancement professional, producer, and lifelong storyteller with a passion for independent film. As a Co-Producer of Access:Horror, Washawn brings her experience in fundraising, event production, community engagement, and relationship building to help create an inclusive platform celebrating emerging and established voices in horror.
Through her work with Access:Horror, she is committed to supporting filmmakers, amplifying diverse perspectives, and creating meaningful opportunities for audiences to experience bold, innovative horror. She believes film has the ability to challenge conventions, spark conversations, and bring people together. Beyond Access:Horror, Washawn serves as a fundraising leader in educational spaces, where she leads fundraising and advancement initiatives supporting educational opportunities for underrepresented young people. She is passionate about building communities, championing creative voices, and using storytelling to inspire connection and change.