The Stylist

The Stylist: Beauty, Obsession, and the Horror of Emptiness

The Stylist is a quiet scream. Directed by Jill Gevargizian and based on her own 2016 short film, this 2020 psychological horror explores loneliness, identity, and obsession through the lens of a woman who makes people beautiful—then steals their lives.

Claire is a hairdresser. She is polite, reserved, even gentle. But beneath her soft voice and delicate hands lies a deep, aching void. At night, she kills her clients and scalps them, wearing their hair like masks to escape her own self.

Najarra Townsend delivers a chilling and tragic performance as Claire, bringing humanity to a character who might have easily been reduced to a cliché. Her pain is palpable. Her desire to belong is real. And that is what makes her terrifying. She does not kill out of malice—she kills to become someone else, if only for a moment.

Visually, the film is rich and textured, drenched in moody lighting and soft pastels that contrast sharply with the violence at its core. Every frame feels intentional, from the sterile beauty of the salon to the grotesque intimacy of Claire’s rituals.

The Stylist is not a slasher film. It is a character study soaked in blood and longing. It explores the horror of being invisible, the slow suffocation of loneliness, and the toxic idea that perfection means becoming someone else.

This is a film that lingers—not with shock, but with sorrow. Claire is not a monster in the traditional sense. She is a mirror. And in that mirror, we see the twisted reflection of every unspoken desire to escape who we are.