You Have Her Eyes
Directed by Jordan Sommerlad & Cory Stonebrook
Screenplay by Sommerlad, Stonebrook, & Lizzy Miller.
Starring Lizzy Miller, Cory Stonebrook, & Jane Mowder.

Horror / Thriller

★★★★★ (out of ★★★★★)

Another film at Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2025 concerning the potential terrors in a heteronormative relationship is Jordan Sommerlad and Cory Stonebrook’s short You Have Her Eyes about Elle (Lizzy Miller), a woman grieving the loss of her grandmother and grappling with the looming potential of motherhood. After Elle’s significant other Jacob (Cory Stonebrook) makes her aware of a note left behind amongst her grandmother’s things, she starts to feel pressure beyond the grave about having children. She’s not so sure about being a mom, though Jacob would love to be a dad. Yet eventually time and Jacob wear Elle down, not to mention she feels hounded by the presence of her grandmother, whose desire for her to become a mother is also a constant ghost. The couple have a child. One day long after the child’s born, Elle makes an accidental discovery that changes everything forever.

The whole of You Have Her Eyes is a haunting experience with Elle feeling granny everywhere, and seeing her, too. It’s the end that holds the most awful power. The revelation, which I’m avoiding mentioning directly in any way, changes all the prior events, reshaping how we view the results of Elle’s decisions to start a family. The screenplay—co-written by Sommerlad, Stonebrook, and Miller—goes from a Gothic ghost story to a real-life tale of horror, portraying one of many horrors that can, and does, occur in a heteronormative relationship when women are subjected to the expectations of motherhood. You Have Her Eyes uses heteronormativity to haunt the audience in a couple ways, as grandma’s wishes linger with Elle, and the final revelation creates a whole new trauma to sit with while the credits roll (including a mid-credits moment to spell things out terribly clearly).