Some auditions change lives. This one ends them.

I love horror, yet the genre carries a deeply flawed history in how it treats female characters. Behind the camera, the genre has historically been shaped by predominantly male voices, while on screen women are frequently reduced to victims, muses, or instruments of someone else's story.

The Cold Open grew from my desire to examine that imbalance. By setting the film inside a casting call, the story exposes a power dynamic that exists both within the film industry and throughout horror itself. The audition becomes a stage where control, exploitation, and expectation collide until those roles are violently reversed.

This isn't a rejection of horror. It's a conversation with a genre I love.