Premiering at SXSW as part of its Midnight Shorts Program, director Kara Strait previews the trailer for the sci-fi horror, Vibrator Girl – a cautionary satire detailing the unlikely side effects of compulsive self-pleasure. In the film, we meet an isolated young woman who is obsessively acquainted with her vibrator – until one day it starts communicating with her, and putting her body through a series of unsettling and deforming transformations.

As she attempts to regain control and reframe her relationship with masturbation, she encounters a lurid underground of corporate neurologists and orgasm gurus – all of whom have questionable intentions in regards to her wellbeing. Exhausting her routes to a positive solution, she’s left with no other option but to succumb to her vibrator’s influence – and the eerie future it has in store. A not-so-sexy reboot of the fantasy genre with a raw message at its core, Vibrator Girl uses phantasmagorical means to speak to any woman left numb, misshapen, or broken in the pursuit of pleasure.

Talking about the film, director Kara Strait explains, “This story forces us to imagine what it feels like to become alienated to one’s own body. It confronts us with the startling failure of healthcare professionals to take care of (or even listen to) women. It questions even the most uplifting and spiritual narratives about what femininity is, or should be. It’s obvious why this had to be my first film project as a transwoman – the script resonated with everything I’d shared about my transition: the dysmorphia, the alienation, the desperate need to know myself and the paralyzing fear that maybe I never would.”