The Stylist

• The feature is a full-length expansion of Gevargizian's 2016 short film of the same name, with Najarra Townsend reprising the role of Claire.
• Principal photography ran 19 days on location in Kansas City, Missouri, Gevargizian's hometown, including a real working salon filmed at night and local spots like Record Bar and Pilgrim Chapel.
• The screenplay was co-written by Gevargizian with Eric Havens and Eric Stolze; John Pata edited the film, and Robert Patrick Stern served as both cinematographer and a producer.
• The film premiered at Fantastic Fest on September 25, 2020, then had its UK premiere at Arrow Video FrightFest on October 25, 2020.
• The scalping effects were built practically by special makeup effects artist Colleen May, using wigs, bald caps, fake skin, and blood tubes.

Claire's scalp collection isn't about possession—it's about becoming someone who is wanted. Every woman she takes hair from is someone with a life Claire can't access: friends, lovers, weddings. The hair is a costume for a woman who believes she is fundamentally unlovable in her own skin.

The film's final moments suggest Claire has not been killing randomly but auditioning for a role she was never cast in. Olivia is the lead in a life Claire wants to occupy; the wedding is the production Claire is desperate to join, even as a stand-in.

Claire's relationship with her clients is a distorted mirror of the service industry itself: she performs intimacy, listens to secrets, touches bodies—then is discarded when the appointment ends. The scalping is the only way she can make the transaction permanent.

Claire is a hairdresser with a sideline in scalp collection. She scalps her clients, drapes their hair over her own head, and becomes them—briefly, desperately. When Olivia, a bride-to-be with a wedding approaching, sits in her chair, Claire's fixation curdles into something far more dangerous. The film follows Claire's deteriorating grip as she inserts herself into Olivia's life, attending the wedding rehearsals, wearing the hair, performing a version of someone else's existence. Jill Gevargizian's feature debut, expanded from her 2016 short, sits uncomfortably close—watching a woman whose loneliness has metastasized into murder.