It’s been a while since a film last caught my attention purely on the basis of its cast. Like, beyond anything to actually do with the film’s contents, I knew I had to check this one out in the cinemas based purely on who’s in it. I admittedly don’t know everyone here; I hadn’t even heard of Industry or Generation before doing my usual Googling, so I didn’t know Myha’la Herrold or Chase Sui Wonders (although, credit where it’s due, I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for them from now on). Everyone else, though? Not only is it cool just seeing this cast in a new movie on its own, but holy shit, the specific casting is downright brilliant.
Amandla Stenberg has been able to shine even when working with utter shit (Everything, Everything, The Darkest Minds, Dear Evan fucking Hansen), and as recovering addict Sophie, she adds a much-needed high point to her catalogue. Maria Bakalova, after kicking her way into the mainstream through Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, is about as close as this film gets to a true ‘innocent’ as Sophie’s girlfriend Bee, and with how the film frames her as the de-facto lead character, she gets across some of the strongest emotions of anyone here. And considering how much shouting goes on here, that’s saying something.
Then there’s the token dudes in Lee Pace and Pete Davidson, who are both excellent in their own ways. Pace, aside from his mere presence adding to the Queer vibes running throughout this, brings some solid laughs early on as the out-of-place older man in the group. Davidson just straight-up eats in every scene he’s in, right down to the single funniest moment in the film when he shows off his ‘trick’ to wake someone else up, and he adds a lot to the larger themes of the story by being, comparatively at least, the most down-to-earth of the group.
But for as much as I love all of these performances, and Maria Bakalova better get more work off the back of this… I’m gonna have to say what I’ve been seeing a lot of others already bring up: Rachel Sennot is this movie. All of the pure nervous energy she showed off in Shiva Baby is amplified exponentially here, and when she isn’t consistently flip-flopping in the middle of every single argument that takes place, she is the embodiment of just about every drug we see her (and the others) take throughout. Not since Hunter S. Thompson has someone been able to give the aura that they live and breathe cocaine as much as Sennot’s Alice does here.
So why do I say that she is the movie? Well, it’s because her connection to Shiva Baby is what got me to make sense of what this film was going for overall. Much like Shiva Baby, this is a social horror story, where the anxiety and dread primarily comes out of the characters just talking to each other. It definitely leans into the more genre-specific kind of horror in its slasher whodunnit framing and its setting of a lush mansion in the middle of a hurricane (you can almost feel the humidity once all the lights go out). But otherwise, it’s the interpersonal clashes that generate most of the engagement.
To that end, I’ve been seeing this described as a Gen-Z satire specifically, which… hmm. This could be the result of proximity bias, since I’m right on the border that separates the Millennials and Gen-Z in terms of birth year, or maybe it’s because I tend to err on the side of empathy more times than not (just look at my response to Spontaneous), but that’s not really what I got from this. Don’t get me wrong, the characters and the dialogue they’re speaking are terminally online, and it’s highly familiar along those lines… but why is that exclusive to this era? It is quite frustrating how the latest generation always ends up becoming the punching bag for everyone that came before (Millennials are still going through it, as did Gen X and even the Boomers all the way back when), and far as I’m concerned, Christopher Titus has the last word on that kind of behaviour.
However, that’s not to say that this doesn’t work as satire; just that I see its impact being more encompassing than it’s being given credit for, from the looks of it. What it mainly satirises is that terminally online lifestyle and the attitudes that result from it, and both visually and textually, it works shockingly well. The thick atmosphere of the setting, all darkened with a storm raging outside and everyone inside slowly but surely losing their shit, immediately got me thinking of what it felt like to retreat into the Internet and social media to get away from the shit happening on my side of the screen.
And with how everyone here treats each other, from the fragile egos to the quickness in turning against people they consider ‘friends’ to the chronic inability to say “Okay, I fucked up”, it reflects a lot of what I’ve experienced in Twitter fights. My understanding of social media is that it is perfectly designed for strangers to treat each other like absolute garbage, and think that it’s the righteous thing to be doing. Sure, Gen-Z and even Millennials are basically born connected to the Internet, but the vindictive attitude behind its use in that fashion didn’t start with them; it’s just easier to do without having to look the other person in the eye. Feel free to appreciate the irony of an autistic pointing that last bit out.
In essence, it feels like The Breakfast Club, updated for an Among Us audience. It involves a similar process of tearing away at all the self-imposed artifice that the characters layer themselves in, only everyone is a combination of Claire’s privilege and John Bender’s fuck-you energy. The take-no-prisoners look at the social hierarchies they all function in is definitely comparable, pointing out how fucking stupid it all is and how much it’s (more literally here) killing the people who can’t see past it.
And on the more genre-specific side of things, it’s tempting to draw a comparison between this and something like the Scream movies… except I’d argue that this goes even further than Scream ever did. Where Scream openly embraced self-awareness in its approach to the horror genre, this is more of a direct deconstruction of that genre-savvy response to what’s going on in-film. It takes the typical slasher movie paranoia that even the latest Scream played around with, and pushes it so far as to break character psychology in the process.
I’m… kinda conflicted about this whole thing. As entertainment, it passes with flying colours off the back of its terrific visuals, vibe-drenched soundtrack, and one of the most invigorating casts I’ve seen all year. But as commentary, while I definitely get a lot of what it’s saying about social media narcissism, I get the feeling I’m approaching this with a much lesser willingness to flat-out hate the characters than the filmmakers were anticipating. Yeah, they’re all highly abrasive, but rather than anything like condemnation, all I see is a situation I can relate to a little too much to actively pass judgement on anyone still stuck in it.
Don’t get me wrong, though, this is a fun movie and I definitely recommend checking it out. I just think that… well, I’ve got some more shit to think about, having sat through it for myself. But hey, if you’ve been reading my stuff for a while, you should know that I tend to like films that leave me with somewhat complicated reactions.
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