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The Enduring Power of Beverly Marsh in ‘It’

In a genre typically considered “for the guys,” it’s time to give a nod to the ladies. Uterus Horror is a subgenre of horror films that focuses on the uniquely female experience of puberty and the act of coming into their sexuality, using horror elements to emphasize and/or act as a metaphor for that experience. These films are often ignored in theaters, but quickly develop cult followings. Columnist Molly Henery, who named and defined the subgenre, tackles a new film each month and analyzes how it fits into this bloody new corner of horror.

In the final Uterus Horror article of 2020, I discussed how lycanthropy is the perfect metaphor for young womanhood in When Animals Dream. Now it’s 2021, and I want to start the year off with something special. It’s time to talk about IT. And yes, I mean EVERY version of IT.

Most horror fans are likely very familiar with IT, Stephen King’s best-selling novel first published in 1986. From there, it was given a two-part TV miniseries in 1990, directed by Tommy Lee Wallace (Halloween III: Season of the Witch) who also wrote the teleplay with Lawrence D. Cohen (Carrie). Most recently, director Andy Muschietti (Mama) brought fans two films, IT and IT Chapter Two. The first film was written by Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga (Beasts of No Nation), and Gary Dauberman (Annabelle Comes Home), with Dauberman returning to write the second film.  

While there are variations between each version of IT, they all have the same basic story. A group of misfit kids, six boys and one girl, who call themselves the “Losers Club,” come together one summer when they realize they are all being hunted by the same evil clown. As outcasts in the small town of Derry, Maine, the group learns to lean heavily on each other. When they realize the nightmarish creatures they’ve seen are all the work of the sinister Pennywise, they risk their lives to defeat him. 

The kids believe they successfully banish the clown, but have to return to Derry as adults when Pennywise begins killing youths again 27 years later. Every version of IT tells a fantastic horror story about monsters and growing up. It is generally considered a classic coming-of-age story along with films like Stand By Me and The Goonies. Both versions – miniseries and movie – use life-changing experiences as a metaphor for the male protagonists’ journey through adolescence.

But It does not belong to the boys alone. As a collection of films, the Uterus Horror canon is meant to level the cultural playing field for non-male horror fans just as it brings attention to horror stories that highlight experiences unique to young women. While IT consists primarily of boys becoming men, there is one character who gives some feminine insight: Beverly Marsh. This superb character has been played by some great actors including Emily Perkins (Ginger Snaps), Annette O’Toole (Smallville), Sophia Lillis (Gretel & Hansel), and Jessica Chastain (Crimson Peak). 

In each adaptation, Pennywise attacks his victims by manifesting the thing they fear the most. For the boys in the Losers Club, that fear includes werewolves, mummies, lepers, evil paintings, and even giant birds. When we finally see Bev’s fear, it is something a bit simpler and much more rational than any of the boys. The thing she fears most manifests as blood.

The first time Pennywise comes to Bev, an explosion of blood covers her entire bathroom. Despite her screams, her father is unable to see it, leaving Bev (and the Losers Club, depending on the version of the story) to clean it all up. And so the blood becomes a representation of the fear of her impending womanhood. 

To put it bluntly, the blood Bev sees is period blood. She is afraid of going through puberty and becoming a woman. She fears this because of her abusive, misogynistic father and the fact that boys and men already sexualize her. Her father constantly asks Bev, “Are you still my little girl?” There is an implication of sexual abuse, more evident in some versions of IT than others. His disturbing question and treatment of Bev also indicates that once she does become a woman, she will no longer be safe around him. 

“Safe” is a relative term considering the way he already treats young Bev, but that makes the other possible abuses she could be subjected to even more terrifying. Boys in school sexualize her. Rumors spread, with the IT miniseries going so far as to imply sexual abuse from the bully Henry Bowers and his gang. She is taught very early in life that being a woman is a frightening thing.

When Pennywise comes to Bev as an adult, there are differences depending on which IT you are consuming. Bev goes to visit her childhood home, quickly learning from its elderly resident that her father had passed away years earlier. It’s revealed this is Pennywise himself, disguised as an old woman and, in the miniseries, Bev’s father. Based on her fear of the blood, it makes sense that adult Bev would now be afraid of the decaying old woman.

This is an extension of her fear of aging, evolved into a fear of becoming old and withered. Seeing her father shows that, even though she left home at a young age, the impact of her father’s abuse has lasted her entire life. Since he made her afraid to grow out of being his “little girl,” it’s understandable she would still fear him as well. 

Of all the members of the Losers Club, Bev has the most rational fear. While the boys fear monsters and imaginary things, Bev is afraid of her own biology. Despite it being inevitable, she is terrified of growing up. Much like Carrie, IT is another prime example of Stephen King bringing an uncommon degree of insight to the concept of Uterus Horror. The practicality of Bev’s dread also makes her stand out from her friends. There is a group of boys experiencing their own individual coming of age stories, but Bev’s battle with Uterus Horror becomes the most memorable of the group.

From the ‘80s to today, fans are continually drawn to Beverly Marsh. We needed her story then, and we need more stories like hers for young women who want to see themselves in the horror genre. 

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‘The Final Girls’ Finds Acceptance in Slashers

Summer camp slashers are a staple of the horror genre. From Friday the 13th to Sleepaway Camp to The Burning, choosing this adult-free setting for your bloodbath is so ubiquitous that it’s become almost too predictable. What if you introduced elements—emotional stakes, character growth, heart—that are often sorely missing from the hack-and-slash classics of the 1980s? Well, you’d end up with something a lot like 2015’s The Final Girls.

The setup is meta, and convoluted: Max (Taissa Farmiga), while mourning the death of her actress mother (Malin Akerman), is convinced to attend a screening of “Camp Bloodbath,” a fictional ‘80s slasher that featured her mom. Max and her group of friends are magically transported into the film, somehow able to interact with the characters and setting, but unable to leave. They’re forced to play out the film’s climax in the hope of escaping as the end credits roll. 

The plot itself is slick and subversive; modern, real-world characters are forced to interact with horror film clichés, inevitably leading to both silliness and cutting—but never heavy-handed—commentary. The Final Girls is a stylish horror-comedy, a neo-slasher filled with enough charm and era-accurate goofs to keep any genre fan appeased. But the film goes further, choosing to center on Max and Nancy’s (Akerman’s “Camp Bloodbath” avatar) ill-fated relationship.

What would you do if you were able to see the person you missed most in the world? Would it matter if it wasn’t really them? Upon entering her mom’s most notable IMDb credit, Max must address these understandably difficult questions. Face to face with the young, wide-eyed version of her mother, Max loses focus. Instead of letting the “Bloodbath” narrative unravel at a distance, she engages earnestly. 

While Max knows, logically, that Nancy isn’t the woman who raised her, she also sort of is. For Max, Nancy’s movie persona—a girl away from home, rushing to lose her virginity—is too real. So when she’s presented with the chance to potentially save Nancy from the killer, she takes it, daring to rewrite the narrative. Unable to save her mother in real life, Max becomes fixated on doing so in the film.

After the untimely death of “Bloodbath’s” intended final girl, Max decides the moniker should pass to Nancy, urging her to take control of her destiny and become something different. There’s a lot of not-so-subtle subtext in Max and Nancy’s relationship; themes of reinvention, reclamation, and agency pepper the narrative. But none of this feels like a wagging finger in the face of ‘80s slasher purists—it’s simply the natural, heartfelt, and sincere through line that’s present in every facet of The Final Girls.

Max and Nancy aren’t the only characters with a touching arc. Former best friends Max and Vicki (Nina Dobrev) work through the issues that caused their falling out with refreshing honesty. It creates a layered relatability that would otherwise be absent in slasher flick “cannon fodder.” In fact, when the repetitious “Bloodbath” campers are introduced to the real-world characters, they are freed, able to shed stereotypes and become fully realized characters themselves.

Promiscuous agent of chaos Tina (Angela Trimbur) shifts to an active participant in the battle against the masked killer. Dorky Blake (Tory N. Thompson) finds kinship in the transplanted Gertie (Alia Shawkat), and they develop a sweet filtration that stands in contrast to the type of courting typically found in the genre. Instances of genuine connection, atonement, and sacrifice take a high-concept ‘80s tribute into unique and heartrending territory. And at its center sits Max and Nancy, their connection so palpable that even in fiction, they find each other. 

The Final Girls is successful at many things, not the least of which is being a gory and atmospheric slasher. The inventive and absurd deaths at the hands of a machete-wielding killer are heightened by juxtaposing what is supposed to happen in “Camp Bloodbath” with what actually occurs. The audience is kept on their toes as rules are broken, or never established. Even with its total embrace of genre tropes, there’s an off-the-rails quality that comes with the uncharted territory. Couple that with an emotional core steeped in kindness and you have a whole new flavor of homage.

For those who have had to parent their parents, Max’s relationship with her mother is quite familiar. She’s a girl who’s taken on the role of friend—a confidant and a shoulder to cry on. Their dynamic is unbalanced, a child growing up too fast to meet the emotional needs of a grown woman. But their love is clear; Max needs her mother as much as her mother needs her. Having the film open with the gut-punch of Akerman’s death sets real-world stakes that have tangible weight. Death means something and the vacancy of loss is enduring. 

Directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson (Isn’t It Romantic), and written by M.A. Fortin and Joshua John Miller, The Final Girls is proof positive that male creators can craft authentic female-focused stories. Joshua John Miller, son of actors Jason Miller (The Exorcist) and Sue Bernard (Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!), appears uniquely qualified to co-pen a story that centers on an aging genre performer; it’s likely one of the reasons the relationship at the film’s center is so genuine and affecting.  

Yes, The Final Girls successfully incorporates slasher must-haves, like a creepy masked killer with a tragic backstory, blood drenched deaths, and unsupervised teenagers into a more nuanced story about loss and growth. But so many genre staples skip building emotional bases, and in the end, we don’t care when the blond gets impaled or the kid with glasses drowns. In the world of horror movies, these are just bodies on the pile, but the brilliance of The Final Girls is that it dares to make you care about the victims in slashers—and the family members they leave behind.

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In Defense of the ‘Amityville Horror’ Sequels

Once upon a time there was a house at 112 Ocean Avenue, in Amityville, New York. The house looked evil—those front windows looked almost like eyes—and sure enough, evil things happened there. Horrific things, murderous things, threatened that most beloved of Western institutions: the nuclear family. People wrote books about that house, and about the demonic patriarchs of the families who lived there, and over time, the haunting of the Amityville house passed into American myth. 

And once upon a time, as people made those books into movies, and kept making movies, things got a little silly. Both video stores and the franchise mania of 1980s Hollywood increased the desire for more familiar titles. So the Amityville Horror sequels shifted course. Instead of focusing on a single haunted home, the films became about the cursed objects that originated there and spread across America.

An evil lamp is the villain of Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes; a deadly clock terrorizes a family in Amityville 1992: It’s About Time; and in Amityville: A New Generation, the characters are tormented by a murderous mirror. And it’s so much fun.

The important thing to know about the Amityville Horror sequels—even back when the films were actually set in Amityville—is that American masculinity is always in crisis. On November 13th, 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr. killed his father, mother, and four siblings, shooting them in the head as they slept. The following year, George and Kathy Lutz moved their family into the home; less than a month later they fled in terror, having been driven out by something within those walls.

In The Amityville Horror, George Lutz is losing his grip on sanity, afraid he is going to repeat the previous murders. The Amityville Horror, then, is about the horrors of unchecked masculinity, and a family being destroyed – not by external evil, but from within.

By the time the titular evil escapes in The Evil Escapes, though, the masculine figurehead has been sidelined completely. This one opens with a team of priests exorcising the infamous home, apparently defeating whatever evil lived there; soon the objects within the house are sold at an estate sale.

It’s almost as though the film is stripping the myth of The Amityville Horror itself for parts, mailing out a theme here, packaging up a different trope for a later movie there. In this case, a lamp is bought at the sale and mailed to a woman in California. She has become caretaker for her daughter’s family after the sudden death of her son-in-law.

There is no patriarch in this family, no dangerous masculinity threatening their lives. Instead, Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes is about a home containing three generations of women. Jane Wyatt plays Alice, the matriarch, and Patty Duke is her daughter Nancy.

Nancy has daughters, too; the teenaged Amanda (Zoe Trilling) is a bit boy-crazy, whereas the much younger girl Jessica (Brandy Gold) is a perfectly creepy horror film kid. Most of the family isn’t interested in the lamp, putting it right up in the attic; Jessica, though, believes that the spirit of her father inhabits the lamp, and she sits talking to it for hours.

There are stand-ins for masculinity here, to be sure. The lamp is one; taking the place of the absent father, it looks almost human. Nancy has a son, too, named Brian (Aron Eisenberg); at one point, as the lamp begins infecting and possessing other household objects, the chainsaw that Brian is holding goes haywire. It’s a comically phallic, yet impotent moment, like Leatherface dancing in the sunrise at the end of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Later, another boy tapes a lightswitch in place so that it won’t activate the garbage disposal he has his arm down. Of course, he’s unable to make the light switch stand up, and he is mutilated.

Amityville 1992: It’s About Time sidelines its patriarch, too, although he is more of a presence than the dead father of The Evil Escapes. Here, after bringing home a clock after a trip to a certain town on Long Island, Jacob (Stephen Macht) is attacked by a dog and left bed-bound as his body breaks down from infection. His children are left in the care of his ex-girlfriend Andrea (Shawn Weatherly).

Over the course of the movie Jacob goes mad, not (just) because of the evil clock holding court in his living room, but because he is rendered inert by the manifestation of evil in the form of infection. As a result, he is unable to lead his family.

The evil clock is more on-its-face (sorry) ridiculous than the evil mirror or the evil lamp, and the intensity of the movie is ratcheted up to match. This is the most fun of these cursed-object sequels, featuring a number of gonzo practical effect gore shots tailor-made for the lawless world of the video rental store.

There’s a Final Destination-esque madcap death sequence involving an ice cream truck. Time goes wonky and people become babies. In the film’s best sequence, someone even melts into a horrific puddle of basement goo. And through it all, there’s the sweaty, evil father in the bedroom on the upper floor, watching as his wounds fester. 

In Danse Macabre, Stephen King posits that the real animus for George Lutz’s descent into madness in the original Amityville Horror is the economic peril looming over the family. Six movies later, Amityville 1992: It’s About Time literalizes that anxiety, becoming a film about the physical degradation of the father-figure in American life.

This movie is a glorious mess, but there is something elementally unsettling – something primally destabilizing to American masculinity – about that image of the father in his sick bed. His body decays as his family finds new ways to reorganize itself without him.

Themes come full circle in the Amityville: A New Generation. This time it’s a mirror that haunts the characters, transplanted from the previous film’s suburban setting to a city. A bohemian photographer named Keyes Terry (Ross Partridge) receives the mirror from a homeless man on the street. Terry is a young man who lives in an apartment building full of young artists; soon after he hangs the mirror in his loft, however, people start turning up dead.

Things are more metaphorical again; Terry comes to find out that not only was it his father’s mirror, but he fears he may have also inherited his father’s mental illness. Furthermore, in an echo of the original Amityville myth, that mental illness led his father to a family-murder spree of which Terry was the only survivor.

Horrified that he might be doomed to repeat his father’s crime—as George Lutz once feared he would be forced by fate to mimic the DeFeo murders—the photographer ends up staging an art piece where he limply re-enacts the horror of his youth for a confused crowd. “Terror Has A Reflection All Its Own,” proclaims the VHS cover; indeed, this is the terror of the original Amityville Horror, reflected and refracted down through the endlessly repetitive demands of horror franchising. 

Though still fun in a delightfully ‘90s-in-the-city kind of way, the Amityville Horror sequels offer a surprising amount of thematic richness. For all their flaws, these films demonstrate the best understanding of Amityville as a foundational, folkloric tale about dangerous American masculinity and the destruction of the family unit. They grapple directly with the resonance of the Amityville myth, and explore stories of fathers and sons and inherited trauma. And really, what more could you ask for from a sequel than that?

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‘Vengeful Heart’ and the Rise of Vietnamese Horror

Whenever international horror has a backyard party, Vietnam misses out. There’s no restriction or bad blood. With sparse-to-no official home media release and tough-to-tougher hoops regarding exhibition beyond local borders, measures from my birth country to protect intellectual properties are also a guarantee for genre titles to not discover global mainstream recognition. We make it harder on ourselves.

Such is the case for 2014’s Vengeful Heart (or Quả Tim Máu, lit. “a bloody heart”), directed by Vietnamese-American filmmaker Victor Vũ. Until now, it remains Vietnam’s all-time top grosser (85 billion VND, or today’s $3.67 million) and inaccessible to U.S. viewers – unless, of course, you’re willing to travel to Vietnam during a pandemic and subscribe to the digital satellite service called K+.

One of Vengeful Heart’s main draws should be obvious in the opening minutes. Instead of the “usual suspects” like Saigon or Hạ Long Bay, or a nondescript jungle that will promptly be set ablaze, the setting is modern-day Đà Lạt. This is a mountainous city that seems tailored for ghostly tales, complete with a mélange of abandoned colonial-French villas, tall pines, lakes, breeze and fog. The narrative sees coffee shop owner Linh (Nhã Phương) finding out why, after a heart transplant, she gets tormented by unnatural visions from her donor Phương (Tú Vi). She also finds herself pulled toward said donor’s surviving relations: widower Tâm (Quý Bình), her mother (People’s Artist Kim Xuân) and Montagnard-accented groundskeeper Hù (Thái Hoà).

While it does sound a lot like “Gin gwai (The Eye), but make it thump-thump,” the film is actually an adaptation and expansion of the eponymous 2008 play that Hoà wrote, directed and — during its early runs — starred in as the same character. The play also has a sequel in 2015, made possible because of the original’s spectacular popularity and compact, stage bound nature. 

Despite strict and specific requirements ensuring artistic content will always honor truth, goodness and beauty (chân, thiện, mỹ) — meaning paranormal-centric, superstition-encouraging material is a big nope — Vengeful Heart the play and the film still remember to unnerve. Phương is dead, but then her portrait falls off the altar on its own. On nights when Phương’s family asks Linh and her fiancé Sơn (Hoàng Bách) to stay over, the ghost would show up, blood-drenched.

In a memorable sequence, Linh spots a woman in the distance, her long hair blanketing her face, standing still on the lake’s surface. In reference to the nation’s Film Laws, created in 2006 with amendments in 2009 and remain in effect since, the film’s biggest ”infraction” is that its ghost is real enough that without it the story will not work — even if most of its appearances can be explained away as products of rough shut-eyes or imaginative minds. And whether a sighting is afoot, the measured cinematography from Nguyễn K’Linh, longing notes from Christopher Wong and occasionally neat sound design will suggest that something sinister, highly likely from the beyond, permeates Đà Lạt.

But, the cardinal rule of Vietnamese horror remains simple: it can’t be all freaky, all the time. As mentioned, Phương’s photo flies off the altar on its own, but any subsequent confusion and tension are effectively dissipated with Hù’s question: “Is it because the pig we’re offering is too small?” Lightheartedness has long been any local horror filmmaker’s lifeline if they want their work to have the intended horrifying elements and — most importantly — be law-abiding (per the nation’s Film Laws previously referenced).

Do you want to avoid secondary editing or an outright ban from the censors? Be funny. Do you desire that scary set piece to stay intact? Be funny. Or funnier. To become scarier. It’s almost an unspoken, yet generally understood relationship. For Vengeful Heart, Hoà’s character Hù and Hoà himself, a renowned comedian, are the cushion, one padded enough that, from reading local reviews, is the main driver behind the film’s box-office sweep.

So can full-fledged, humor-free Vietnamese horror be a possibility? It’s, again, the question. At a seminar on film laws in October 2019, Vũ himself said that heightened censorship for horror-supernatural films diminishes the will of creators and audiences; fellow Vietnamese-American filmmaker Charlie Nguyễn, meanwhile, observed a lack of tonally serious big-screen titles. The demand for grittier flavors is there; it’s just that the active hurdles make balancing acts a challenge.

New horror releases still tend to be comedic-leaning, but their freak-outs are way freakier. The Vietnamese horror projects that appeal to international creatives leave humor out of the proceedings, such as Trần Hữu Tấn’s Bắc Kim Thang (Home Sweet Home), which world-premiered at the 2019 Busan International Film Festival, or Derek Nguyen’s Cô Hầu Gái (The Housemaid), which is currently being assembled to be remade as Grave Hill written by Geoffrey Fletcher. Oh, had Vengeful Heart been made with freer hands, on top of the already-there maximized mood and awareness of the moving parts. Imagine how (much more) influential to the genre it might have been.

But it seems like good signs are coming. Two 2019 Vietnamese horror films with real ghosts in them, Cha Ma (Ghost Dad) and Lật Mặt 4: Nhà Có Khách (Face Off: The Walking Guests was its title during its limited release in the U.S.) reportedly received no cuts. In January, Hàm Trần’s possession film Đoạt Hồn (Hollow) premiered on Netflix. Although all these announcements came with caveats — Ghost Dad’s haunter is ultimately kind, Face Off has jokes, and Hollow is on Vietnamese Netflix — they suggest a loosening-up at the censorship board. Some willingness to catch up with the times. And that benefits the filmmaker who wants their film to be shown to more eyes, whether in theaters, on streaming services or both.

This is applicable to films of the past, too, like Vengeful Heart. For your introduction to made-in-Vietnam horror, and in some ways contemporary Vietnamese cinema, this is a quality candidate. You must know that we Vietnamese have the means to join any horror party; we just need more support! Especially that from beyond our borders!

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Teen Wolves Are People Too in ‘When Animals Dream’

In a genre typically considered “for the guys,” it’s time to give a nod to the ladies. Uterus Horror is a subgenre of horror films that focuses on the uniquely female experience of puberty and the act of coming into their sexuality, using horror elements to emphasize and/or act as a metaphor for that experience. These films are often ignored in theaters, but quickly develop cult followings. Columnist Molly Henery, who named and defined the subgenre, tackles a new film each month and analyzes how it fits into this bloody new corner of horror.

Last month I dove into a telekinetic Uterus Horror film from Norway, Joachim Trier’s Thelma. For December, I decided to explore another foreign film from a country that is just across the water from Norway. When Animals Dream is a stunning creature-adjacent-feature from Denmark about puberty, the changes young women experience, and empowerment. With fangs.

When Animals Dream was initially released in Denmark in 2014 and reached the US in 2015. It was the feature debut of director Jonas Alexander Arnby and was written by Rasmus Birch (Brotherhood), both of whom came up with the concept along with Christoffer Boe (Beast). The plot focuses on 16-year-old Marie (Sonia Suhl), who lives with her father (Lars Mikkelsen) and invalid mother (Sonja Richter) on a small Danish island.

As the film first introduces the audience to Marie, she is already in the early stages of some unique bodily metamorphosis. We watch as she is examined by her doctor for a rash, yet he checks other parts of her body such as her spine and her gums. This strange routine immediately hints that not only is the rash a precursor for something much bigger, but it also tells us the doctor knows what is really going on with Marie. This is only the beginning of many new experiences and changes for Marie. 

Marie starts a job at the local fish processing plant and meets a cute boy named Daniel (Jakob Oftebro) the same day. After coming home early from work, Marie sees her father and the doctor speaking in hushed voices and hiding a manila envelope. Marie notices the suspicious behavior between the two men and the knowing glances from her mother, so she steals the envelope. When Marie is alone, she checks on her rash, which seems to only be getting worse, and hair has started to grow from it. This makes Marie both angry and panicked. Her eyes change color and her spine shifts until she is distracted long enough for her anger to dissipate. That same night, Marie is plagued with violent, blood-soaked dreams. 

When Marie finally looks at the contents of the stolen envelope, the pieces finally fall into place. Inside she finds crime scene photos of men torn apart, along with hand-written notes which include drawings of a uterus and a woman covered in hair. Marie’s father and the doctor are forced to come clean. The “illness” her mother suffers from is now afflicting Marie, and the only way the doctor knows how to stop it has been to drug her mother, putting the woman in a near-vegetative state. It’s clear these men want to do the same to Marie and keep her inner animal locked away.

Marie rebels from what her father wants and goes out to a party where she encounters Daniel again. As Marie is about to lose her virginity to him, her arousal triggers her transformation, making her more wolf-like. At first, she pulls away from Daniel, ashamed of what she’s becoming, but Daniel loves and accepts Marie as she is. 

Throughout When Animals Dream it is never explicitly said what Marie’s condition is, but it’s clearly a form of lycanthropy. This isn’t your typical lunar cycle werewolf. Much like what we saw with Ginger Snaps, the filmmakers opted to take a more scientific approach. The biggest difference here is that Marie’s condition was genetically passed down from her mother. Since Marie is 16, the lycanthropic changes begin around the same time as puberty, and the changes happen more quickly when in a heightened emotional state.

Marie’s transformation isn’t quite as drastic as what we saw with Ginger Snaps, but both are permanent changes unless dulled with the use of drugs. When Animals Dream proves to be another stellar example of how well lycanthropy acts as a metaphor for puberty, especially within teenage girls. 

Marie’s decision to be who she is and not take the drugs creates an interesting dynamic between her and the other characters. We see three essentials groups and points of view. The first group is father and doctor. Both clearly believe they’re doing what’s best for Marie, but don’t take into account what she wants. This is especially evident when they sneak into Marie’s room during the night, hold her down, and attempt to forcibly inject her with the same drugs they use on her mother. This doesn’t end well as motherly instinct pushes through the drug-induced haze and Marie’s mother comes to her defense, killing the doctor. 

The second group is the Danish fishing village – or, more specifically, a small group of people who seem to be “village elders.” Marie’s father disposes of the doctor’s body, hoping no one will suspect his wife, but unfortunately the villagers are all too aware of her condition. They drown the mother while she’s home alone, barely attempting to make it look like a tragic accident.

This is also a warning to Marie that if she doesn’t conform to what the village wants, if she doesn’t pretend to be “normal,” she’ll meet the same fate as her mother. This only makes Marie flaunt her physical changes for all to see, allowing her hair to continue to grow all over her body and showing off her sharpened, bloody fingernails. The villagers react by treating her like an animal. They chase her down in the night, capture her, and kidnap her away on a boat so they can dispose of her. 

The third group is a group of one: Daniel. He truly accepts Marie as she is and wants what’s best for her. He’s the only one to come to her aid when she’s kidnapped, releasing Marie on the boat to exact her revenge on those who planned to murder her. While Daniel may have a small role in the grand scheme of the film, it’s also a vital one.

Marie and Daniel’s relationship exemplifies what could have, and should have, been with Marie’s parents. Her father clearly loved her mother, but he tried to hold back her true nature. Marie’s mother is forced into a life in a wheelchair, unable to care for herself or her daughter, just to appease the village. By having Daniel in Marie’s life, the audience gets to see the importance of embracing every aspect of those you love.

When Animals Dream has everything Uterus Horror fans have come to expect and love of the subgenre. While we’ve seen lycanthropy as a metaphor for young women going through puberty before, the filmmakers still created a unique and compelling film. The fact that Marie’s lycanthropy is genetic is an important aspect that strengthens the idea that puberty, for young women, can be a horrifying experience. There’s an inevitability about the transformation that’s truly terrifying. Marie’s decision to embrace her changes emphasizes being who you were born to be, despite what society dictates. Marie is a compelling character we can root for. She shows us the power behind being true to who you are and surrounding yourself with people who accept you, fur and all.

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‘White: Melody of Death’ Sings the Horrors of K-Pop

There was a time in my life when I ate, slept, and breathed K-pop. A friend I met in high school introduced me to these infectious songs and the irresistible idols behind them. While our mutual infatuation eventually faded as so many adolescent interests do, I can’t help but think back on those years as a new age of K-pop takes the world by storm. With it being at the forefront of the all-consuming hallyu (“Korean Wave”) movement, it was only a matter of time until K-pop went global.

In its homeland, this enticing and chimeric style of modern Korean music has been (ear)worming itself into people’s heads since the early nineties; only recently did it become popular elsewhere. Particularly, more famous artists have crossed over to the West without giving up their language or culture. Along with the increasing awareness and availability, K-pop’s downsides have also come into view.

An unexpectedly cutting critique of this competitive—and sometimes soul-crushing—business can be found in White: Melody of Death, a 2011 South Korean horror film whose subject matter resonates with K-pop fans all across the board. Although the commentary is encased in a standard ghost story, there’s no mistaking the events herein as anything but keen observations about an indomitable industry.

Kim Gok and Sun Kim‘s movie presents a familiar tale of fame-chasing and all the ensuing challenges. Set in the cutthroat world of K-pop, a struggling girl group called Pink Dolls is on the verge of obscurity. Their salvation appears in the form of an unreleased demo track that turns the Pink Dolls members into an instant sensation. However, the more they perform the mysterious song “White,” the more unfortunate things happen to the members.

Celebrity life in general is demanding, but K-pop’s own unique strain includes backbreaking training, excessive promotion, extreme diets, relatively low pay, strictly monitored personal lives, and zero tolerance for scandal. South Korean society’s fixation on success is also a big concern regarding mental health; failing while in the public eye is even worse for these high-profile entertainers. In the teeth of these significant drawbacks and sacrifices, many people still aspire to be K-pop stars. So, it’s only understandable that Pink Dolls will do absolutely whatever it takes to stay relevant.

The trouble begins when group leader Eun-ju (Hahm Eun-jung) finds an ominous videotape containing a music video for “White,” an infectious song performed by an unknown source. The management quickly revamps Pink Dolls—the other members are A-rang (Choi Ah-ra), Je-ni (Jin Se-eon), and Shin-ji (Kim May Doni)—and immediately throws them into a showcase event where they’ll debut their new image and song.

This hastened and perfected re-training method underlines the manufactured and interchangeable qualities of K-pop and just how easily these groups can be made or unmade—artistry frequently comes second to marketability. Having Pink Dolls adapt another group’s music and appearance so easily shows how malleability is crucial if you want to make it in this specific business. This detail is further reinforced by the label’s callous choice to keep Pink Dolls active even as three out of four members succumb to freak “accidents.” 

The creative cannibalization peaks once there’s only one Doll left standing and she continues as a solo artist. How readily the fans are able to accept this sudden change in the wake of such tragedy is an exaggeration about the insensitive nature of fandom, but that “the show must go on” mentality can feel especially icy in the context of K-pop. No one is irreplaceable, nor is longevity ever a promise, as Eun-ju’s best friend Soon-ye (Hwang Woo-seul-hye), a former idol herself and now a vocal coach, explains so frankly as she and Eun-ju flip through the pages of a noraebang (“song room”) track book. “Where are they now?” they ask in regards to the countless idols of yesteryear.

At the very outset of the movie, we can’t help but feel for the pressure cooker conditions these performers live in. Pink Dolls has fallen out of favor with audiences; they have to rebrand and train harder at a house paid for by an enigmatic sponsor. Real-life K-pop stars are expected to have grueling work schedules like any other full-time entertainers, but the training alone is engrossing. That’s a lot of time and money spent, and the benefactors and labels expect a return on their investment.

This urgency for gratitude is depicted in White: Melody of Death through emotional manipulation, physical abuse, and sexual coercion. The idols are outright slapped as they stand up for themselves, or they’re shamed for their commercial setbacks. And when one Doll asks the aforementioned sponsor for help with her solo career, she’s compelled to return the favor in a way that leaves her wholly traumatized. So, while there is a vengeful ghost haunting the characters who dare sing that cursed song, you realize she’s not the only sizable threat in the movie.

Fans, who helped make it possible for K-pop to reach this level of renown, haven’t always had it easy when it comes to seeking out the thing they love—that first generation of international fans, including myself, had limited access to the music at one point. Today, it’s easier than ever to find K-pop. Current conveniences like the internet just so happen to shed light on a subset of fans who are so devout to and fiercely protective of their idols. White: Melody of Death bitterly satirizes this aspect of intense fandom in several scenes, but the underlying message is unmistakable.

Towards the end, the fanaticism and entitlement in combination with Pink Doll’s performances have all become ingredients in a ritual of sorts. The group’s fans are essentially possessed by the energy of it all, they lose touch with reality, and, finally, they endanger themselves as well as the celebrities they worship. It’s the movie’s own shrewd way of addressing zealotry in K-pop culture.

At last, the surviving Doll has become her own monster. Fear of failure after surrendering so much of her dignity and morality mars her ascent to solo stardom. Claiming credit for writing “White” is her greatest offense, and the movie’s viewers may have run out of sympathy by then. In consideration of the choking pressure to succeed in a world designed to break those who can’t play by the unbending rules, we can afford some leniency. After all, Pink Dolls and the ghost both fall victims to the same system.

Two of the main actors being actual K-pop entertainers off screen adds another layer to the movie given the condemnation herein. Hahm Eun-jung was part of the successful girl group T-ara before launching a solo career, whereas Kim May Doni’s personal experience in the business reflects the events of White: Melody of Death. Kim, who trained for eight years starting from the age of eleven, ultimately exited the program due to conflicts with her management.

In addition to her weight being strictly monitored and how any interaction with boys was forbidden, May felt that being critiqued in front of her peers was the label’s way of encouraging rivalry. Based on this information, it is reasonable that Kim’s participation in a movie all about the downsides of K-pop is really her seeking closure when understanding why she left the problematic industry.

What White: Melody of Death lacks in scares, it makes up for in insight. The filmmakers obviously embellish for effect, but there are shreds of truth here and there that will raise questions about something millions of people revere. Knowing what goes on behind the scenes or how idols’ lives are so orchestrated and policed, fans might reevaluate their roles in the process. The glaring flaws of the K-pop industry have only worsened since its emergence, and had I known any of these facts then, I might have felt differently about my own consumption. Even so, the burden can’t be placed solely on the fans if the labels and studios aren’t willing to make changes on the inside.

Enjoyment of the music doesn’t necessarily mean someone condones the unsavory side of the K-pop business. The fans remember what drew them to the music in the first place, and if they’re like me, it was that instant sense of community that’s both overwhelming and unmatched. The distinct way this hobby deepened my relationship with the friend who introduced me to it, is something I wouldn’t trade for the world. Like with Eun-ju and Soon-ye, the friendships formed from K-pop are ultimately more important than the music.

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‘Bit’ Marks a New Era for Vampire and Trans Cinema

As we sluggishly crawl – crestfallen, exhausted, and bloodied – towards 2021, it is time to think back on the hell of a year we’ve lived through. I’m sure I am not the only person that has spent a lot of their time holed up inside watching an endless wave of movies, and it has fortunately been a great year for releases. As I sit here in my pajamas, hunched over my laptop with the steadfast positioning of a couch gargoyle going over the inevitable ranking of my favorite films of the year as is expected of film Twitter, I keep thinking about Bit above all others.

All the way back in April – or 1856, as it’s hard to tell this year and time is meaningless for vampires anyway – Bit was released with little promotion or attention. As a result, I have spent every possible opportunity since then screaming about how much I love this film. Don’t get me wrong, I can objectively look at everything I have seen this year and say that Bit is not the “best” overall film, but – subjectively speaking – there are so very few films of this or any year that speak to me as personally as this one does.

Laurel (Nicole Maines) is a young woman moving out of her hometown to Los Angeles, where she gets mixed up with a gang of women from the wrong side of the grave. She is bitten, thrown off a roof, and left to turn or die. Laurel is granted the option to turn, but now she must face the world as a creature of the night alongside her new brood of intersectional vampires, led by the white leather jacket clad Duke (Diana Hopper).

From the first taste, this seems like a familiar vampire story that we have seen before, albeit one told with the added complexities of our current, more socially conscious world. It’s something of an all-female retelling of The Lost Boys, with the inclusion of a racially diverse cast and a trans lead so as to check all of the “woke” boxes needed for a film to be commended in our modern filmscape. At least, that certainly is the opinion of the surface-level internet cynics who bombed the film on IMDB even before it was released just because it was uncompromising in not trying to cater to them. The film is a boogeyman that stalks men at night, threatening to be a worse version of everything they love because it is, in their minds, “dumbed down for women.”

I’m settled comfortably in the opposite camp. Bit handles its story and themes with such expertise that it is doing something we have never truly seen in horror before – and it is all centered around the treatment of Laurel.

Typically, in the horror genre, transness is handled…um…poorly. Most commonly seen as “killer crossdresser” types, these roles are played by cisgender people and the only control these characters have over their narrative is rooted in villainy. Trans women in particular are repeatedly told that we are allowed to exist only as monsters and only if there is an understanding that we are not real women. Either the character is written with some declaration that they are “not actually a woman” or because the moviegoer is aware that they are played by ultra-famous cis male actors.

Even in best case scenarios where the character is sympathetic and trans people find catharsis in them (like myself with Sleepaway Camp), this is only incidental and often because other options are so sparse. In rare other examples, trans people typically fall victim to the “bury your gays” fate that befalls many queer people in all forms of fiction.

This is horror, so I understand that we need to have some sort of body count. I want to make it clear that I don’t want special exceptions to be made for queer characters to survive until the end of the film every time. The equality that I yearn for in my soul says that trans characters have the right to get killed off in as many exciting and fun ways as cis characters. However, that also means we deserve the opportunity to be the final girl/boy/person, and we have never been given that chance.

Cinema is currently at the crest of a cultural shift where we are finally getting to see trans characters fight back, but there is a lot of responsibility with that. There is added context that needs to be considered when writing marginalized characters. We are far beyond the point where table scraps in the way of representation are “good enough,” but are also nowhere near where we can casually throw trans characters into whatever cookie-cutter scenario that a non-queer character could fit into as if that works. That might be equality, but it definitely isn’t equity.

That being said, Bit technically kills its trans lead in the first 30 minutes. She becomes a literal movie monster, and not once is any variation of the word “transgender” even used in its crisp 94-minute runtime. There have been so many viewers – including members of the LGBTQ+ community – that don’t even realize that Laurel is trans. This film does everything that you are “not supposed to do,” and yet writer/director Brad Michael Elmore does everything right.

There are very commanding and obvious reasons why Duke leads our vampire girl gang. I agree with a lot of what she says and she is just effortlessly cool. However, she is also a chaotic demagogue of white feminism and wants to speak for everyone based on her own experiences when she absolutely should not be. Without delving too heavily into the whole of sexism, there is a very fine line between Duke being seen as secondary and Laurel being seen as a monster without either of them being vampires entering the conversion.

Laurel did not ask to be a vampire, nor do most people. Where she differs from others – and even the rest of her brood – is that there are decades of messaging saying she as a trans woman is dangerous. She was just a small town girl, living in a lonely world and trying to have a nice, normal life in the big city after some rough formative years. Then just when she looks like she has found her place? CHOMP. She now has to live as the threat that every bigot fears trans people as, albeit not in the exact form of “man-eater” they envisioned.

This is the genius of Bit. We get to see the two most defining takes on trans characters – or at least characters perceived as trans – within this realm, as both the victim and as the killer. Both make sense for Laurel’s journey and the film tackles these issues like they are prey with jugulars ripe for the biting and slays it!

Moralistically, Laurel does not want to kill anyone, but she has no choice. That is the new reality of her life. She will be a monster whether she wants to be or not because people made her that way. Even as she staunchly thinks that she can go without feeding, the scale cannot be weighed on the opposite side with equal force to counterbalance other people. Even without vampirism, trying to be a perfect example for what a trans person is supposed to be will only end in failure. In Laurel’s case, she snaps and kills her brother, turning him into a vampire to save him but in turn cursing him just like how she was.

Laurel is by no means a perfect person, but to me, she is a perfect character. She is complex and deconstructive of horror’s past transgressions in a way that I cannot compare to anyone else like me on screen. In a film that is as deep or as shallow as you want to make it, I love that her story and character are influenced by her transness without being central to the film. I’ve heard a few people criticize the lack of saying the word “transgender,” but I don’t feel like this movie needs to out its main character in order for it to solidify the representation it is providing.

Bit is stylish, punk as fuck, progressive, and so many other things that I love but above all else it is hopeful. Screw internet trolls and toxic feminists! This movie says trans women don’t stay dead and, even if you try to vilify us, we still get to define what we want our destinies to be. This is a resurrection into a new era where trans stories are defined by our lives, not our deaths. 

‘Brainscan’ and the Paranoia of Video Game Violence

In 1994 there was nothing more scary than the specter of video game violence. Technology-based horrors are nothing new, but the mid-90s offered up a timely and extremely specific subgenre: the VR-horror film. John Flynn‘s Brainscan (1994) encompasses a very specific—and essentially harmless—fear of video games that haunted the minds of parents and the American media.

An evolution of computer genre flicks like The Lawnmower Man and Ghost in the Machine—as well as a precursor to the many internet horror movies that would follow—Brainscan is an especially interesting entry into the tech-horror canon. Unlike its counterparts, this film presents a very literal adaptation of the fear that fictional violence could become horribly real. 

The panic around video games peaked in 1993. After the releases of Doom, Mortal Kombat, and the ridiculously campy Sega live-action game Night Trap, the United States Senate Committees on Governmental Affairs and the Judiciary held a series of congressional hearings about the dangers of video game violence. Echoing the precedent set by the notorious Wertham hearings—which saw the comic book industry establish a self-censorship body in response to claims that comics were corrupting the youth of America—the 1993 hearings focused on the danger of realistically representing violence in video games.

The outcome of the hearings led the gaming industry to create the Interactive Digital Software Association, which would later lead to the invention of the Entertainment Software Ratings Board in 1994. 

Brainscan came out in the months preceding the creation of the ESRB. As a result, the film directly reflects the most scandalous claims of the congressional hearings and parents groups everywhere. Edward Furlong stars as Michael, an isolated teenage horror movie fan who’s always looking for the next extreme thrill. His father’s huge mansion is home to Michael’s basement, a comfortable dungeon where the high school student sequesters himself away from the rest of the world. Not only is he a loner—classic gamer trope—but he also spies on his hot next door neighbor.

His insular life takes an unexpected and potentially fatal turn when he sends away for a new immersive virtual reality game called Brainscan, which promises to be his most brutal and personalized gaming experience yet.

At first, Brainscan is surprisingly dark. The game Michael plays begins with a strange swirling on the screen that appears to hypnotize the player and cause his avatar to commit brutal murder during his first voyage into the virtual reality system. But the horror comes when he realizes that the murder he committed in the game actually happened. There’s a bleakness to that reveal, one that could easily haunt and horrify, but instead director John Flynn and writers Brian Owens and Andrew Kevin Walker go in a different direction.

The introduction of the Trickster (T. Ryder Smith) takes Brainscan into solidly silly territory, even as Michael becomes connected to a series of murders and is hunted down by Frank Langella‘s cynical Detective Hayden. The practical weirdness of Trickster—and Michael’s virtual reality experience—immediately brings to mind Paul Verhoeven‘s class war action masterpiece Total Recall, which makes a lot of sense when Brainscan finally reveals its hand. 

Before it gets there, though, the film wants us to be scared of the loss of agency that Michael suffers. This is not a psychological reaction to the game—there’s nothing so deep here. Instead, Trickster is a physical manifestation of the “bad influence” parents and censors were so worried about. Here’s a near-mythical creature that tempts your children with the promise of escapism and adrenaline, only to trick them into committing violence.

Just like the original argument that fictional violence causes real violence, the existence of Trickster takes away any parental culpability, instead laying sole blame on the games and their terrifyingly omnipotent ability to cause violence in their innocent and uncorrupted offspring. 

It’s interesting how Brainscan also foreshadows the fear of the internet; the vast unknowable world and dangers that it represented in the 90s. While Trickster is a totally ridiculous reinterpretation of classical figures like Loki, in the tech-heavy world of the movie, he can also be read as the “dangerous stranger.” Which was, and still is, a key part of parental fears around web usage. Never knowing who’s at the other end of a chat window, or monitor elsewhere. A figure we were all taught to be afraid of, Trickster lures Michael in with lies, only to put him in danger and use his trust to cause all manner of harm. 

Although the “stranger danger” part of internet fear wouldn’t become common until a fair few years later when people began to have easy access to the internet in their homes, it’s really interesting how interchangeably this analog for the panic of video game violence could have been reused to showcased the fear around the horrors that lay on the world wide web. 

The actual mechanics of Brainscan are revealing too. Of the games that caused the North American congressional hearings, this is closest to Night Trap. That game featured a live-action movie of kids being killed by vampires, that the player could stop by watching via CCTV. It’s probably the least well-known and least notorious of the games, but it’s definitely the easiest to put to screen. In the original Mortal Kombat game, the avatars were glitchy and adapted from computer generated images of real fighters, giving it an always unreal feel.

But in Brainscan, Michael’s violent experiences within the game always look as if he’s actually there, making it feel far more real (and less like a videogame). It makes sense narratively, but ages the movie in a unique fashion; many remember the shock around the brutal fatalities of Mortal Kombat, but only a few horror-gaming diehards recall the story of Night Trap. 

Much like the arguments and scandal that inspired it, Brainscan doesn’t actually feature a child turned evil by video games. In a final act twist that takes the controversial Dallas “it was all a dream” device and skews it towards gamers, we learn that nothing that happened since Michael entered the game was real. The actual experience of playing Brainscan comes from the program reading what your deepest fears are and crafting a narrative around them. In Michael’s case, this was the violence that he committed in the games becoming real.

Although we saw him kill and eventually get killed, those events all took place within the game, and Michael wakes up absolutely fine. Now, though, he is fully aware of the powerful computer-generated narrative he has experienced.

It’s a strangely lighthearted—and extremely tropey—reveal, especially after the brutal death Michael suffers at the hands of Langella’s detective. But it makes sense if we think of Brainscan as two different movies struggling for dominance. One is a grimy B-movie that explores a loss of agency while trying—and failing—to get away with a heinous crime. The other is a PG-13 sci-fi parable about the danger of falling for the lies of others, especially strange, demented men you meet in the gaming world (or as it would come to be years later, on the internet). 

Ultimately, the final reveal works as a fitting—if unintentional—commentary on the nature of the hearings and the panic around video game violence. Michael’s experiences, though terrible and scary, are simply based on his own fears. Just as the imagined horrors of video game violence seemed terrifying to worried parents everywhere, the events of Michael’s narrative are entirely imagined. Somehow, the fabric of society remains intact.

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Episode 30: Lindsay Traves Succumbs To a ‘Fugue’

What kind of a movie does $20,000 buy you? If you’re writer-director Tomas Street, it buys you a sharp little thriller about memory loss and heists gone wrong. In his 2018 debut feature Fugue, Street and a team of motivated actors were able to stretch every dollar and craft a surprisingly sharp thriller in the vein of early Christopher Nolan films like Following and Memento.

As a work of micro-budget filmmaking, Fugue is a triumph. But this is no damning with faint praise – there are plenty of things to like about the movie beyond the hustle of its creators (and the incredible beard of lead Jack Foley, also known as Fashion Santa to the Toronto crowd), and we are here to talk about them all.

On this week’s episode of Certified Forgotten, the Matts are joined by lawyer and film critic Lindsay Traves. Traves shares her winding road to film criticism – from her legal career to copious amounts of night school – and dives into Fugue, one of her favorite festival finds from the past few years.

Lindsay Traves

Twitter: @smashtraves
Instagram: @smashtraves

Selected Works:

“Harley Quinn and Anti-Semitism in Progressive Spaces” (WhatToWatch)
“The Future of Horror Hinges on the Friday the 13th Lawsuit” (Certified Forgotten)
“With The Craft: Legacy Dropped on PVOD, Blumhouse Shows How It Values Female-Made Horror” (Pajiba)

You can rent Fugue on Vimeo or Apple Movies. Check out the rest of our podcast episodes on our Podcasts page.

Hell is Other Roommates: Proximity and Peril in ‘2LDK’

Believe it or not, the delightfully manic portrayal of all-out domestic war in Yukihiko Tsutsumi’s 2LDK is the product of a bar bet. Tsutsumi and fellow Japanese director Ryuhei Kitamura challenged one another to see who could produce the better film while adhering to a series of debilitating conditions. Dubbed the “Duel Project,” their wager tasked veteran directors to write and direct a feature-length film that must include the following: two principal actors/actresses engaged in a battle to the death, shot in a singular principal location, completed within the week to see which of them could better transcend the arbitrary limitations with more artistry and originality.

While Kitamura’s supernatural flavored Jidai-geki Aragami is by no means a disappointing film given the circumstances, Tsutsumi’s 2LDK victoriously conquers its arbitrary obstructions and finds relevancy beyond the context of its “made on a dare” origins.

The abstruse title references the real-estate jargon describing the layout of Japanese apartments (2 bedrooms, Living Room, Dining Room, and Kitchen = 2LDK) and confirms to the audience that the entirety of the film will be confined to a single unit. Welcome to the home – and inevitable battleground slash final resting place – of aspiring actresses Nozomi and Lana (Eiko Koike and Maho Nonami), who are positioned as so diametrically opposed to the other it borders on the ironic. Nozomi presents herself as homely, intelligent and reserved; a newcomer to Tokyo from the rural Sado Islands who holds performance arts in the highest possible esteem. She is contrasted with the boisterous, vain and shallow Lana, a born-and-raised city girl who has coasted through the industry on her looks and connections. Both have auditioned for the leading role in an upcoming blockbuster, and both have been informed by the producers they’re the final two in consideration.

It isn’t long before these mismatched young women do away with the feigned pleasantries. What begins as biting and annoyed inner monologues escalates to petty bickering in the vein of common roommate squabbles (hogging the bathroom, playing loud music, and using each other’s beauty products without asking). Soon their living situation hits a boiling point and their domestic quarrel devolves into an all-out melee that includes swords, a chainsaw, and whatever more common household objects can be repurposed as weapons. The violence of their confrontation hits extreme levels of absurdity as psychological and physical torture stem from the role that came between them, leading – through jealousy and spite – to mutually assured destruction.

The mounting tension between Nozomi and Lana is aided by Tsutsumi’s claustrophobic visuals. While the condo is quite spacious for a solitary set, his camera always pushes into his principal characters until they consume the frame and settings blurs behind them. The trading close-ups between Nozomi and Lana gives the impression of a formal tug-of-war for supremacy. The audience becomes swallowed up by their interpersonal rivalry to the point where we feel trapped in this apartment along with them, underlined by the layered dialogue where every pleasantry is followed by their bitter inner monologues.

Take for example how we are introduced to the first “trivial” offense that sets their night indivertibly down a warpath. The hyper-fixating type, Nozomi discovers a hair belonging to her self-serving roommate on her personal bar of soap and forcibly confronts the offending party. Framed in a suffocating low-angle close-up of her towel-adorned head, she sets off on an affronted tirade about proper roommate etiquette. Lana, reclined on the floor and shot from a responding high-angle close-up of her bewildered face, drowns out this speech with an inner-monologue pontificating about her roommate’s mental state. The distressing proximity of this shot and reverse shot we endure as the audience – absorbed by both women through smothering close-ups and unfiltered access to their thoughts – overwhelms us and reduces the space of the apartment down to just these two people. 

The uncomfortability of 2LDK’s exaggerated sense of closeness resonates differently in our newly claustrophobic times. Knowing we could be stuck with the people we live with for months on end, the stress of confinement and uncertainty can turn any environment hostile. While Nozomi and Lana’s shared captivity in their condo is dictated by the narrative and further arbitrary conditions of Tsutsumi’s production rather than the existential crisis caused by COVID-19, it does not prevent their simmering frustration with one another from feeling fresh and engaging. When circumstance has designated our roommates as the only other living soul we can interact with in person, the petty grievances and arguments of yesteryear can feel like vindictive slights in the ethos of lockdown.

This is why the flurry of violence that erupts between Nozomi and Lana in the film’s second half no longer feels like it is a transgressing of a mental breaking point. Through the hyper-stylized fight scenes of frenzied handheld cinematography, frenetic cutting, and a discordant soundtrack as the two make weapons out of their apartment’s gaudy décor, their prolonged final confrontation resembles cartoonish absurdity. 

Most famously showcased in the sequence where Lana procures a chainsaw (somehow on hand in their apartment), the film briefly resembles slasher cinema. The exaggerated register of the flurried shaky cam and intensive close-ups suggests entrapment as the maniacal Lana stalks Nozomi through the apartment, sawing through whatever stands between her and carving up her roommate. The overstimulating presentation offers a reprieve from the shocking suddenness of their susceptibility to savage violence and makes light of how easily the provocation to a fatal duel emerges from their routine roommate quarrel. 

Their battle even culminates in a scene befitting the chambara genre with the two of them at arm’s length, bloodied and bruised from the melee, each with a blade pointed at the other’s jugular vein. After an unexpected moment of respect and camaraderie over a battle well-fought, the film ends the only way it could have. The maniacal pleasure Nozomi and Lana take in “clearing the air” between one another through exaggerated brutality, finally dropping the pretense of forced pleasantries and airing everything out with each ruthless strike, ends on a peculiarly tranquil moment almost resembling Shinjū (Lover’s Suicide). In the end they each got what they wanted: they never have to deal with their roommate ever again.

2LDK in 2020 is a cathartic release. Not only in how it indulges the desire to purge one’s pent-up frustration from your less than ideal living situation, but also in the initiative that was inspired by its production. Overcoming the challenging obstructions of the “bet” that produced it, 2LDK serves as a testament to the kind of revealing creativity that can flourish under times of tensity and obstruction. Thinking about film production in the times of the COVID pandemic, it has certainly forced many emerging and established filmmakers to get used to the idea of debilitating obstructions (masks on sets, shooting from home, daily virus screenings, etc) being attached to their productions moving forward. It is nice to be reminded of an example where someone was able to overcome all their obstructions and make something that still resonates to this day. One imagines what would be produced by Tsutsumi if the wager were made in this year as opposed to way back in 2003. 

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