Monster Slayer

Monster Slayer is a short documentary that tells the story of Stephanie “Monty” Montgomery’s journey in the aftermath of trauma, assault and stigma, through her gripping words and the animation of her visceral artwork and journal entries. 

In June 2018, Monty, the subject of our film, was raped at a strip club in Los Angeles where she worked. She told the management and the police, and neither party did anything. With no justice on the horizon, Monty the Monster Slayer, Monty’s ass-kicking artistic persona, took matters into her own hands and harnessed her art as a weapon against her assailant and the stigma she faced. Monty rented a billboard overlooking the scene of her assault to showcase a mural that casts her as a hero, slaying the “Monster” who raped her, and calling out the system for failing her. 

Through sharing her experience of assault along with the aftermath of injustice in both words and animation, we are able to innovatively expose abuses of power in a way that gives us access to what Monty saw, heard, and felt. There have been many animated documentaries before, but few animations were created by the main subject themselves.

In addition to all of this, the stakes addressed in Monster Slayer are high as the film questions preconceived notions about sex work, seeking to humanize and empower a community often ignored or vilified. Despite the recent #MeToo movement, the sex work community remains marginalized in discussions about sexual assault. Monty’s personal encounter with assault and the subsequent stigma she faced directly addresses the experiences of sex workers in the context of sexual assault, putting this crucial conversation at the forefront of the broader movement.