Spanked by a Ghost

The scouts

A horror-comedy about spectral spanking that treats the absurd with total seriousness — this is exactly the kind of genre-warping nonsense that makes people uncomfortable precisely because it *works*. Douglass isn't winking at the premise; she's building a genuine sensual nightmare from something that should be ridiculous, and that refusal to apologize is what makes it subversive.

The film's tonal balance—threading darkly comic beats through genuine erotic dread—speaks to a considered understanding of how horror and comedy share structural DNA, even if the execution occasionally prioritizes provocation over the kind of measured restraint that ages well.

The crucial move here is committing to the spanking's *physicality* and weight rather than treating it as a punchline—that sensory specificity, grounded in real contact and constraint, transforms what could've been a gimmick into something unsettling that lingers.

Reviews

So what starts off as a standard ghost story becomes an exploration of repressed, supernatural desire. As the entity becomes more aggressive, the film shifts from jump-scare horror to something much stranger.

Festivals

• Fantastic Fest, Selection
• Beyond Fest, Selection
• Overlook Film Festival, Selection
• Rooftop Films, Selection
• Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, Selection
• Cinema Femme Short Film Festival 2025, Winner