Zodiac Film Club

Zodiac Film Club Good looking films, complex female characters and our faves in rarely screened, cult, contemporary and classic cinema.

Beginning with a shared love of horror, pulp, thrills and mystery, Sarah Kathryn Cleaver and Jordan Storm Louise set up the Zodiac Film Club. You can expect carefully chosen screenings every month, a film for each sign. We select good looking films, complex female characters and our favourites in forgotten classics, cult and contemporary cinema to share with you, and invite you to talk about it with us afterwards.

Catherine Deneuve in Vice and Virtue (1963)
07/05/2026

Catherine Deneuve in Vice and Virtue (1963)

Olivia (1951) ⭐
29/04/2026

Olivia (1951) ⭐

Rabbit in the Pit (1969) 🐇
27/04/2026

Rabbit in the Pit (1969) 🐇

🥋🐈‍⬛ Tall, bodacious, and trained in karate, Tura Satana was as formidable in real life as she seemed on screen. Best kn...
15/04/2026

🥋🐈‍⬛ Tall, bodacious, and trained in karate, Tura Satana was as formidable in real life as she seemed on screen. Best known for playing Varla, the girl gang leader in Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, Tura’s life was both more glamorous and more violent than the B-movies in which she starred.

Born to a Japanese-Filipino father and an American mother as WW2 began, Tura had a brutal childhood in an America that hated both Japan and race-mixing. When she was 10, she was abducted and violently assaulted by a group of five men. Somehow they escaped punishment. It was then that she took up karate, the thing that would make her feel powerful, and eventually landed her her most legendary role. Later, she’d claim that she’d exacted her own violent revenge on them all. 

By 15, Tura was earning $3000 a week as an erotic dancer under the moniker ‘Miss Japan Beautiful’. Even then, Tura was tough as nails: she’d slap anyone in the audience not paying attention, and she once called in a favour from mob boss Tony Accardo to escape being forced into prostitution.

Tura moved to Hollywood in search of an acting career, where she met Elvis. She taught him what to do in bed and he proposed marriage… she declined. She landed parts in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Billy Wilder’s Irma La Douce, but substantial roles for Asian women were rare. 

But as the lead in Russ Meyer’s Faster Pussycat, Tura defied expectations: the violently erotic image of her beating a man to death in the Mojave Desert is indelibly inked on movie history. She survived being shot in the stomach by an ex, but her film career didn’t: she retrained as a nurse then a police dispatcher. After years of quiet, Faster Pussycat had a resurgence. Tura was swarmed with interview requests, appearing at fan conventions and even returning to burlesque for a final show before she died in 2011. 

Tura Satana epitomises our GIRL TRASH values: trash movies can be a source of power and pleasure for those who make them; prestige doesn’t determine success; and what is wielded against you can become the very instrument of your legend.

C u tonight to watch FASTER PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! (1965) and hear more about Tura.

Faye Dunaway went from critical darling to Girl Trash Goddess. She started out as a steely beauty, pulling noteworthy pe...
08/04/2026

Faye Dunaway went from critical darling to Girl Trash Goddess. She started out as a steely beauty, pulling noteworthy performances out of otherwise weak films. With Bonnie and Clyde, she hit it big, becoming an overnight style icon and an Oscar nominee. As New Hollywood’s golden girl, she picked up another award nod for Chinatown and finally took home Best Actress for Network.

But just five years later, Faye’s career would veer off track. Mommie Dearest was set to be a searing adaptation of a child abuse memoir by Joan Crawford’s adopted daughter, Christina. Faye secured the part of Joan by meeting producer Frank Yablan in full Crawford get-up. Though this may have been the first indicator of her uncompromising vision, rumours of being demanding and volatile had trailed her for years.

According to co-star Rutanya Alda’s on-set memoir, Faye terrorised the director, overruled costume decisions and upstaged her fellow actors, pursuing her version of perfection at the expense of everyone else. The result? Faye got the film she’d envisaged, but in alienating cast and crew, she’d removed any chance of curbing her excesses. It ended up deranged, camp and unintentionally comic.

After Mommie Dearest, Faye’s career was never the same. In her autobiography, it only gets a brief mention (she blames Perry for not having reined her in). While she’s worked solidly since (highlights include an Emmy for guest-starring on Columbo), her name only returned to Oscars chat in 2017, when she and Warren Beatty erroneously announced La La Land instead of Moonlight as the Best Picture winner.

Her diva reputation started early and has oft been corroborated. Yet many of her adversaries admitted she was a great actress, and were themselves famed for feuding, bullying and cruelty. We can see the wonders Faye does with a good script and talented colleagues - they just need to be strong enough to withstand her force.

Join us tonight to judge Mommie Dearest (1981) for yourself!

Come watch this camp classic with us this Wednesday. Mommie Dearest (1981) 🪓
06/04/2026

Come watch this camp classic with us this Wednesday. Mommie Dearest (1981) 🪓

💜 Drew Barrymore’s early years were spent growing up poor on the fringes of Hollywood, despite being born into an acting...
01/04/2026

💜 Drew Barrymore’s early years were spent growing up poor on the fringes of Hollywood, despite being born into an acting dynasty. Her father John Drew Barrymore left when she was six months old, leaving her mother Jaid to raise her alone. She began acting at 11 months old, and at 7, her role as Gertie in ET changed the family’s fortunes. But entering the world of work was just one of many ways Drew became old before her time.

Drew began drinking aged nine, was a drug addict by 11, and began the first of several rehab stints at 13. Her mother facilitated her addiction by taking her to Hollywood parties from age seven onwards. At 13 Drew wrote a recovery memoir, Little Girl Lost – somewhat premature, given that she was back in rehab before it was published.

At 14 she successfully petitioned for legal emancipation from her mother, a move Jaid encouraged as it would allow Drew to bypass child labour laws restricting her hours. She desperately wanted to get back to the stabilising influence of work, but her well-publicised struggles had scared off job offers.

Kat Shea was the only director to give Drew a chance. Rejected from prestigious roles that went to actresses with more savoury reputations, Drew was banking on her sexuality to relaunch her career. Just like her character Ivy, she concluded that entering the adult world of sexuality offered her best chance at getting what she needed. She peppered her Poison Ivy press run with quotes about wanting to play Lo**ta, and posed topless for an Interview magazine cover story. The difference is, while no-one was looking after Ivy, the production team protected Drew – using a body double for intimate scenes despite Drew’s willingness, and legal ability, to perform them herself.

Poison Ivy was one of a spate of films capitalising on Drew’s troubled teen reputation. Despite the controversy, the gambit paid off. She rebuilt her star power on her own terms, started her own production company, and financed the cult classic Donnie Darko. In 2009 she directed Whip It – something she’d first declared she wanted to do in 1992. 

Join us tonight at to hear more about Drew, and watch Poison Ivy (1992). 🌿

🐈‍⬛There aren’t many female directors in the lurid world of trash and exploitation but Katt Shea was on our list for GIR...
01/04/2026

🐈‍⬛There aren’t many female directors in the lurid world of trash and exploitation but Katt Shea was on our list for GIRL TRASH from the get-go. Her films capture the ta**ry tragedy of complex female characters in all their erotic, melancholy beauty. 

She said: “I like every single film I’ve ever made, I really do. Other people call them exploitation films, but to me what I was doing was never exploitative. I always had a strong point of view about my intention; it was never just to make money or to titillate or to horrify.”

After 7 years as an actress, she moved onto writing, having started collaborating with then-husband Andy Ruben while filming in the Philippines. The duo joined B-move producer extraordinaire Roger Corman’s camp in the mid-80s, and produced a thriller set in a strip club, then a rare sight on film. Corman agreed Katt would direct: the result was Stripped to Kill (1986), the trashy big sister to Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls (1995). 

While the film’s depiction of trans people has much to critique, it was a hit, and as a result, Katt was hired to direct Poison Ivy (1992). Slated as a “teenage Fatal Attraction”, it stars a 16-year-old Drew Barrymore as Ivy, the troubled best friend/erotic fixation of the introverted Sylvie. Katt’s take on the ‘teen temptress’ depicts the dark side of female friendships and refuses to cast Ivy as a straightforward villain. The film won a Sundance nomination and is still invoked today re: the perennially thorny issue of how to depict teen sexuality.

Katt went on to direct a sequel to Brian de Palma’s Carrie (having worked with him as an actress on Scarface), but in her latest films, she’s turned towards more family-friendly fare, including a Nancy Drew movie. She also teaches online self-tape audition classes to actors.

Katt Shea drew an ambiguous, dream-like aura out of stories that would otherwise be straightforward sleaze. She brought depth to trash, while keeping us all entertained. 

Join us tonight to watch Poison Ivy (1992). 🌿

Poison Ivy (1992) 🌹Showing Wednesday 1st April as part of GIRL TRASH
29/03/2026

Poison Ivy (1992) 🌹

Showing Wednesday 1st April as part of GIRL TRASH

Meiko Kaji started acting straight out of high school in 1965, and made her name playing outlaw characters bent on reven...
25/03/2026

Meiko Kaji started acting straight out of high school in 1965, and made her name playing outlaw characters bent on revenge. She led multiple action franchises across the 70s, from Stray Cat Rock (teen delinquents), Female Prisoner 701 (women in prison), to Wandering Ginza Butterfly (gangsters) to great success. It was her role as vengeful Lady Snowblood in 1973 that won her international acclaim: Tarantino paid direct homage to her kimono-clad assassin in Kill Bill.

While Kaji couldn’t be more different from the criminal characters she’s played, what she does have in common with them is agency: she has asserted control throughout her career. She chose to leave her initial studio to escape their pivot to ‘pink’ (overtly sexual) films, and took on action roles, instead of playing the passive parts to which women had been previously consigned. Kaji also declined offers from foreign film studios, as she felt she could not give a good performance in a language other than Japanese.

In Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion, Kaji insisted on cutting her dialogue substantially, rather than shout the obscene drivel the writers had given her - enhancing her star power by proving she could captivate audiences without saying a word. She said, “I’m confident that the reason the world continues to be so intrigued by [Scorpion] is because of my decision not to have dialogue.” Kaji instead used her voice in the way she preferred: releasing records as a singer, and performing the themes to the films in which she starred.

Despite winning four Best Actress awards, by the end of the 70s, Kaji had left the film world due to overwork, punishing production schedules and underpayment. She has taken occasional film and TV roles in subsequent decades, including in the 2022 Amazon Prime Video anthology series Modern Love Tokyo.

It was, in fact, her 78th birthday yesterday: let us all give three (silent) cheers to this Girl Trash Goddess who doesn’t need words to make us sit up and listen. 🎂

See you tonight at for Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion (1972) 🦂

Allison Hayes got her first taste of the spotlight representing Washington D.C. in the Miss America pageant. She didn’t ...
18/03/2026

Allison Hayes got her first taste of the spotlight representing Washington D.C. in the Miss America pageant. She didn’t take the crown, but TV producers noticed her, and Universal Pictures signed her in 1954. 

Her time there ended with a bang. While playing a femme fatale who kills the male lead in Sign of the Pagan, Hayes was injured and later sued the studio - a fittingly lethal role that also signalled the death of her studio contract. She moved to Columbia Pictures, but her big break never quite arrived.

By the late 1950s Hayes was in B-movie territory, and she knew it. Roger Corman, her director in 1957 western Gunslinger, remembered her asking, “Who do I have to f**k to get off this picture?” She did manage to escape the shoot – by falling off a horse and breaking her arm. Her co-star Beverly Garland speculated she did it on purpose.

Hayes’s later life took a darker turn. In the early 1960s she was in severe pain and had difficulty walking. Doctors repeatedly dismissed her complaints. Reading about metal poisoning in factory workers, she recognised her symptoms immediately. With the help of a toxicologist she hired on her own dime, she realised a calcium supplement she had taken for years was contaminated with lead. Hayes campaigned to have the product banned, but died of leukaemia in 1977, before finding out her campaign had been successful.

Ironically, the films she seemed to have resented have made her immortal. Attack of the 50 Foot Woman was a drive-in hit in 1958, but its real afterlife came on late-night TV, where it was discovered by a new generation. The image of Hayes towering over highways and terrified men became pop-culture shorthand for 50s spectacle and feminine fury. Beneath the camp and giant-woman chaos, her performance as Nancy Archer - a wounded, humiliated wife whose rage finally expands to fill the entire screen - keeps the film alive.

See you tonight at for our double bill of Limbo (1999) and Attack of the 50ft Woman (1958)!

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