Plot
Inspired by actual events, a group of 12 year old girls face a night of horror when the compulsive addiction of an online social media game turns a moment of cyber bullying into a night of insanity.
Storyline
#HORROR is a film about the lives of six young women, Sam, Georigie, Sofia, Francesca, Cat and Eva played by our young ensemble of emerging actresses. Their world is one of money, success, ease and decadence. This is a film about the HORROR of cyberbullying. This film is a integral insight on the pressure that girls take on as they grow in a world that is increasingly dependent on the promotion and attention that social media platforms provide yet prevent bullying. as well as the roles that parents must play regarding controlling their child's use of the internet and bullying plays such a terrifying role in society. These young woman are telling this story inside a glass mansion, filled with millions of dollars of artwork, as if they were living in a contemporary museum with artworks including works by Urs Fischer, Rob Pruitt, Dan Colen, Franz West, Steven Shearer.
Writers: Tara Subkoff, Tara Subkoff
Cast: Chloë Sevigny -
Alex Cox
Timothy Hutton -
Dr. White
Balthazar Getty -
Mr. Cox
Stella Schnabel -
Sadie Seelert -
Sam
Haley Murphy -
Cat
Bridget McGarry -
Sofia Cox
Blue Lindeberg -
Ava
Mina Sundwall -
Francesca
Emma Adler -
Georgie
Annabelle Dexter-Jones -
Lydia Hearst -
Lisa
Brenna Perez -
Reporter
Jessica Blank -
Natasha Lyonne -
Sam's Mom
Country: USA
Language: English
Release Date: 20 November 2015
Box Office Details
Budget: $1,500,000
(estimated)
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Did You Know?
Trivia:
Taryn Manning and Natasha Lyonne have both worked together before as they are co-stars in the hit Netflix show Orange is the New Black See more »
User Review
Author:
Rating: 8/10
I had the pleasure of being able to see "#Horror" at the New York City
Horror Film Festival with director Tara Subkoff and the young cast in
attendance. I'm a fan of Subkoff's art, and also of many of the cast
members, so I've been waiting to see the film since I first heard it
had been announced. The plot focuses on one night in a chic, secluded
mansion where a group of privileged Connecticut adolescents are having
a sleepover. Internal bullying and cyber-obsession amongst the girls
drives the evening into increasingly dark territory, culminating in
bloodshed and murder.
As much as "#Horror" is a genre picture, it is also vital to note that
the film is in more ways a satire on cyberculture and 21st century
youth, which is reiterated time and time again with chaotic montages of
digital media graphics, uploads, and live streams at the hands of the
girls in the film. The subject matter in and of itself is Subkoff's
thematic core, while the genre fixings are merely her method of
employing the story.
The film is exceptionally shot— beautiful, atmospheric photography of
rural Connecticut winter landscapes establish the setting for the
night's antics to unfold. Snow, dead trees, and barren forests give the
film an unsettling wintry feel. The sleek and chic cubic mansion is
nearly a character in and of itself with metaphorical significance,
boxing the girls and the adult figure (Chloë Sevigny, in this case) in
their own respective worlds. The house is a beacon of wealth and
luxury, designed and furnished more as a multi-million dollar art
gallery than a home; while this does provide for flashy aesthetics
which may come across as ostentatious, the setting is vital to what is
being conveyed here; it isn't arbitrary, and correlates with the very
world that is being examined. The sterilized environment of affluence
serves the film well, and I'd imagine Subkoff wrote the script with it
in mind, or at the very least, a house much like it.
I've read some comments across the internet questioning the film's
worth as a "scary" piece of cinema—after all, it is twelve year old
girls who lead the audience through this macabre odyssey, right? As a
hardened genre fan, I did not find the film "scary," but there are some
great, disturbing images that are throttled at the audience in the
final act, and the atmospheric tension is what really took me into the
film and kept me compelled. There are visual nods to Dario Argento, and
I also couldn't help but wonder if Subkoff's choice of masks were riffs
on the "Last House on Dead End Street" or "Alice, Sweet Alice"—
regardless, they are appropriately sinister.
The cast here is fantastic. The adult figures in the film are mostly
Subkoff's own friends, including minor performances from Natasha
Lyonne, Stella Schnabel, and Taryn Manning; Chloë Sevigny takes on the
primary matron of the film. Sevigny is very much at home in the role,
and gives the boozy socialite mother an unexpected depth that at times
reminded me of Joan Crawford—her performance is understated and
skilled, which is typical of Sevigny. Timothy Hutton plays the
hysterical millionaire doctor whose troubled daughter finds herself at
the center of the girls' fighting, and is both funny and intimidating
in equal measure. The young actresses in the film are the real heart of
the picture though; as much as the film is a meditation on plutocratic
parenting (or lack thereof), the world of these girls is ultimately
what is being analyzed. The casting of young actors can make or break a
film, and Subkoff had a great eye for who she chose to take on these
roles—they are not flawless performances, but each of the girls are
commendably talented and capably handle the material.
There were moments where I did feel the film was spinning in on itself
with the repetitive montages of the girls frolicking around the house
and playing endless dress-up games, though I cannot negate the reality
or non-reality of this— I'm a 25-year-old male who came of age in a
considerably different world, when the internet and social media was
still a nascent cultural force. While these scenes do grow slightly
monotonous around the hour mark, the film then begins edging into genre
conventions that have their own digital twist.
Overall, "#Horror" is solid film, and a nice debut for Subkoff.
Employing the horror genre in the way she does is a clever mode of
storytelling, especially given the contemporary thematic center of the
film, and chilling visuals and cinematography carry it along elegantly.
It is not a film that can or should be approached as a slice-and-dice
picture, because that's not what it is— there is slashing, no doubt,
but it is secondary to what is really being dissected in the script.
"#Horror" is a far cry from the territory of last year's "Unfriended,"
and is frankly all the more interesting for it. It may be the best film
about cyberculture and youth cruelty that we've seen yet. 8/10.
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