 OCTOBER 29 • 2020 | 25

PHOTOS BY ALEX SHERMAN

ARTS&LIFE
ON THE COVER

What They 
 Do in the

Newlyweds Jonathan 
Barkan and Ariel Fisher 
put a Jewish lens 
on horror fi
 lms.

GEORGE ELKIND CONTRIBUTING WRITER
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALEX SHERMAN

M

any couples have a meet-cute. Jonathan Barkan and Ariel Fisher’
s was 
a literal horror story.
 
The Ann Arbor residents met by chance in 2018, when they were 
writers and horror film aficionados visiting an all-night shoot on the set of 
Rabid, a remake of the 1977 body-horror film by cult-favorite Jewish Canadian 
director David Cronenberg. The movie is about a young woman who turns into 
a bloodsucking monster. 
Unbeknownst to Barkan, Fisher was mourning the recent loss of her aunt 
Claudia, who co-founded the Danforth Jewish Circle, a progressive Jewish 

continued on page 26

