This is honestly the creepiest movie I have seen in years. Two nights in a row I crawled into bed and turned it on just before going to sleep, and both times I had to turn it off and switch to something goofy and nostalgic (Friends) before actually trying to sleep, because I knew I would have horrendously creepy nightmares otherwise. After the first night, I couldn't stop thinking about it but my girlfriend spent the night the following night and she already has sleeping problems, so there was no way I was gonna do that to her. I finally finished it this morning (Halloween morning) and I'm beyond impressed with this profound feature film debut from writer/director Jane Schoenbrun.
The problem with the majority of American horror films this century is they entirely lack 2 things: creativity, and psychological depth. The only way to truly shake (a.k.a. Scar) the mind is through one of these two things...to take the brain somewhere it's never been, or to shift someone's perception of an element of reality by showing them a side of it they've never seen before. Each of these 2 things are WAGTTWF's greatest strengths and the entire film stems from these two things...unique nightmarish concepts, and disturbing psychological themes. Even more surreal is that as I type this, I realize that what I'm describing is perhaps the most prominent theme in the entire film. The film focuses on depressed, lonely, reclusive characters who are very clearly drawn to "the darkness" and seemingly seeking out something darker within it - "waiting for something to happen" - and when I say "the darkness", I mean REAL darkness, not some cheesy CGI boogieman.
What begins as a film in which you feel like you might see a ghost in the background unfolds into a relatively Lynchian surrealist abyss that lurches its way through intense topics such as psychosis, suicide, parasocial relationships, and...more. Aside from the heavy psych stuff, this might be the first movie I've ever seen that takes the concept of getting lost in a "YouTube hole" late at night and it actually potentially being some sort of portal to Hell. (One must remember, it is very likely that Hell exists within - only to be accessed through "unlocking", again - very much one of the key themes of this entire film).
Another reason the film stands out and works so well is because the film feels deeply personal - it actually left me wondering if perhaps the director related to each of the two primary characters at one point in her life. There is an intense symbiosis between the two and the shared melancholy between them is genuinely frightening. The whole concept of "The World's Fair" is one of great intrigue and even when the movie is over, it is very much up to you to decide just what The Fair truly is. My girlfriend always talks about these "backrooms" on the internet, which I've never been to or seen, but I felt that this movie very much carried the same energy as that based on the way she describes it. There's always been a corner of the internet that's harnessed the darkest facets of human interests - this film harnesses that on its surface, and explores why the people who spend their time there might be the way they are. No other film has ever done it like this.
All that aside, the movie is a fantastic showcase of how to make a low-budget film that is more effective and more impressive than 99% of movies with large budgets. Young lead actress Anna Cobb carries the movie wonderfully and offers a very impressive amount of personality and understanding to a very demanding, very complex, very ambitious script. She handled it with flying colors. I am very happy to see that Luca G has included her in his next movie, Bones And All, alongside Timothee Chalamet - she very much deserves it. If I could have 3 wishes, one of them might be to get more scripts for films like this funding - this is the most original, most intensely personal movie I have seen this year, and I feel inspired and invigorated by having seen a film that actually scared me again, at 37 years old. If I had the money, Jane Schoenbrun would be one of the new filmmakers I'd be backing.
This movie has a lot of low ratings, and a lot of people seem to find it "boring", but I can say with full confidence that this is just one of those films that a lot of people aren't going to "get". Perhaps you need to have been in a dark enough place in your life at one point in order to understand it, but trust me, this one has a lot of TRUE horror in it, and I've never seen anything like it.
The problem with the majority of American horror films this century is they entirely lack 2 things: creativity, and psychological depth. The only way to truly shake (a.k.a. Scar) the mind is through one of these two things...to take the brain somewhere it's never been, or to shift someone's perception of an element of reality by showing them a side of it they've never seen before. Each of these 2 things are WAGTTWF's greatest strengths and the entire film stems from these two things...unique nightmarish concepts, and disturbing psychological themes. Even more surreal is that as I type this, I realize that what I'm describing is perhaps the most prominent theme in the entire film. The film focuses on depressed, lonely, reclusive characters who are very clearly drawn to "the darkness" and seemingly seeking out something darker within it - "waiting for something to happen" - and when I say "the darkness", I mean REAL darkness, not some cheesy CGI boogieman.
What begins as a film in which you feel like you might see a ghost in the background unfolds into a relatively Lynchian surrealist abyss that lurches its way through intense topics such as psychosis, suicide, parasocial relationships, and...more. Aside from the heavy psych stuff, this might be the first movie I've ever seen that takes the concept of getting lost in a "YouTube hole" late at night and it actually potentially being some sort of portal to Hell. (One must remember, it is very likely that Hell exists within - only to be accessed through "unlocking", again - very much one of the key themes of this entire film).
Another reason the film stands out and works so well is because the film feels deeply personal - it actually left me wondering if perhaps the director related to each of the two primary characters at one point in her life. There is an intense symbiosis between the two and the shared melancholy between them is genuinely frightening. The whole concept of "The World's Fair" is one of great intrigue and even when the movie is over, it is very much up to you to decide just what The Fair truly is. My girlfriend always talks about these "backrooms" on the internet, which I've never been to or seen, but I felt that this movie very much carried the same energy as that based on the way she describes it. There's always been a corner of the internet that's harnessed the darkest facets of human interests - this film harnesses that on its surface, and explores why the people who spend their time there might be the way they are. No other film has ever done it like this.
All that aside, the movie is a fantastic showcase of how to make a low-budget film that is more effective and more impressive than 99% of movies with large budgets. Young lead actress Anna Cobb carries the movie wonderfully and offers a very impressive amount of personality and understanding to a very demanding, very complex, very ambitious script. She handled it with flying colors. I am very happy to see that Luca G has included her in his next movie, Bones And All, alongside Timothee Chalamet - she very much deserves it. If I could have 3 wishes, one of them might be to get more scripts for films like this funding - this is the most original, most intensely personal movie I have seen this year, and I feel inspired and invigorated by having seen a film that actually scared me again, at 37 years old. If I had the money, Jane Schoenbrun would be one of the new filmmakers I'd be backing.
This movie has a lot of low ratings, and a lot of people seem to find it "boring", but I can say with full confidence that this is just one of those films that a lot of people aren't going to "get". Perhaps you need to have been in a dark enough place in your life at one point in order to understand it, but trust me, this one has a lot of TRUE horror in it, and I've never seen anything like it.