August 3, 2023
Directed by Samuel Bodin
Written by Chris Thomas Devlin
Peter (Woody Norman) was a shy, withdrawn 12-year-old boy who can hear the hushed voice of a girl calling herself Sarah from behind his bedroom wall. His parents (Antony Starr and Lizzie Caplan) dismissed Peter's scary experiences as merely imaginary. At school, Peter was a loner and a target for bullies. After seeing a disturbing artwork drawn by Peter depicting a girl crying for help, teacher Miss Devine (Cleopatra Coleman) visited his house.
The most disturbing aspect for most of this film was not actually Sarah behind the wall, but it was the portrayal of Peter's parents as insanely unbalanced people. Kids lean on our parents for love and support, but with mad parents like this, poor Peter indeed. Yet it was not completely clear whether his parents are truly sociopaths, or were these horrible images of his parents merely "suggested" to Peter by the girl behind the wall, which made things more thought-provoking.
Antony Starr had already shown us that he can play it pretty dark as superhero Homelander in Prime Video series "The Boys." Pretty Lizzie Caplan may look like a typical housewife on the outside, but once she goes into crazy mode, she was very scary. The build up in the first two acts may be slow, but all hell broke loose in the final act when Sadako-like Sarah got out of the wall. The degree of violence, especially with kids, involved, will make you flinch. 7/10.
Directed by Beth de Araújo
Written by Beth de Araújo
The "Daughters for Aryan Unity" was an organization of women who wanted a venue to freely air out their grievances against people of color. After their meeting, the leader, school teacher Emily (Stefanie Estes), invited members Leslie (Olivia Luccardi), Kim (Dana Millican) and Marjorie (Eleanor Pienta) over for a drink at her house. En route, they encounter Asian-American sisters Anne (Melissa Paulo) and Lily (Cissy Ly), and things turned ugly.
Being so loud and noisy, this ironically-titled film was so intensely uncomfortable to watch that it can be classified as horror, sort of like a lower-budget "Get Out" (Jordan Peele, 2017) which also tackled racism. Things started out so calmly, but when that swastika carved on Emily's cherry pie was onscreen, it was crystal clear what this film was going to be about. Surprisingly for a film written and directed by and starring women, the white males were the voice of reason here.
For non-whites, it was definitely not easy to be immersed in that toxic, violent, white supremacist environment. The ambitious style of Beth de Araujo to execute the scenes of her debut film as one continuous shot in the style of "2017" (2019) or "Birdman" (2014), made the proceedings even rawer and more urgent. The degree of chaos certainly went further than expected. But the ending, while thrilling, still left things pretty much hanging in the air. 7/10.
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