THE BEACH HOUSE Is No Day At The Beach

Starring Liana Liberato, Noah Le Gros, and Jake Weber Written and Directed by Jeffrey A. Brown Shudder

What do contagion, isolation, and environmental disaster have to do with 2020? Well, pretty much everything. If you haven’t had enough of all three, you can get 87 minutes more with writer/director Jeffrey A. Brown’s THE BEACH HOUSE. Following college students Randall and Emily to his estranged father’s beach house on the northeastern coast, the film builds an atmosphere of hyperrealism as handheld shots ease the audience into the young couple’s tenuous relationship. The source of the tension? Emily wants to attend grad school for astrobiology, but Randall hopes she’ll abandon her dreams to spend a couple of years wallowing in the very beach house he has brought her to visit. The only catch is, an older couple claiming to be Randall’s family friends have already taken up residence there, and something is seriously not right with them. 

Blending drug-induced surrealism with oceanic body horror, THE BEACH HOUSE attempts an aesthetic-steeped slow burn that only teases its ultimate payoff. While props are certainly deserved by the film’s practical effects team, whose vomit-inducing depiction of a parasitic worm makes the whole experience entirely worth it, THE BEACH HOUSE ultimately fails to achieve its tonal goals. While making an effort to legitimize its strangeness with realism, the film’s oscillations between naturalistic dialogue and that which feels both stilted and incredibly unnatural get in the way of a concept with a lot of potential. 

Drawing subject-matter comparisons to both THE LIGHTHOUSE and THE MIST, Brown’s effort has a lot going for it. Yet, even with a final girl as strong-willed as Emily, the unsatisfying ending could not be redeemed. Aptly described as a ‘gross-out,’ THE BEACH HOUSE strives to be something much more. Despite its initial release in 2019, the film - like so many others - feels like a direct product of the year we have all come to know and hate. 

THE LAST OF US PART II - Love and Violence in Video Games

I went back and forth many times on whether I was even qualified to write about THE LAST OF US PART II. I am not a gamer. (Correction: Since writing this I have acquired both a PS4 and the game in question.) Before the start of COVID-19, the extent of my video game experience was Wii Sports. No joke. However, when lockdown began, I suddenly found myself with a lot of time on my hands, as everyone did. So I thought, “why not?” I made a Steam account, bought both Portal games, and tried my hand at gaming. While it took me a combined 22 hours to finish Portal and Portal 2, by the end I understood what all the fuss was about. Narrative video games do something that no other type of media can. Forget breaking the 4^th wall, they put the 4^th wall behind you.

While I knew that the majority of video games have some kind of framing story, it was my ignorant belief that the story was secondary to whatever puzzle solving or first-person shooting the game was really about. An excuse to blow heads of zombies or enemy soldiers or enemy players. And that may be true about some games, but THE LAST OF US PART II is not one of them. Reading the critical and public reception for TLOU II, I was led to believe otherwise. Critics and gamers alike complained about the game’s excessive violence, depressing storyline, and sense of betrayal from their expectations based on TLOU II’s predecessor. Many of those complaints were valid. Ellie’s ‘roaring rampage of revenge,’ following the death of her father figure Joel, sees her killing people, ‘infected’, and the occasional attack dog, left and right.

Yet after watching this game (yes, I said ‘watching;’ I, unfortunately, did not own a PS4 at time of writing) those were not the images or the impressions I was left with. To put it bluntly, this game is beautiful. Heralded as having what are perhaps the most impressive graphics to ever exist in video game history, TLOU II will show you sparkling snow crunch beneath your feet, sunlight dapple leaves and spill through windows—windows that are simultaneously reflective and transparent. And oh yeah…detached arms, disgustingly detailed zombies, and blood coming from pretty much everywhere. But that seems to be what many people have forgotten. As touching as Joel and Ellie’s relationship is, and as beautiful as the game design may be, TLOU II is at its core a horror game. Since when do horror games, or movies for that matter, need to have happy endings?

The cyclical consequences of violence are a common theme in horror content, but not one that I believe can ever be over-done. There is perhaps no theme more integral to the history of the human species than how cycles of violence are propagated over time. The same is true for TLOU II. After Joel makes the fateful decision to save Ellie from the well-intentioned Fireflies, he not only dooms the human race, but dooms himself as well. Little did he know, Abby Anderson would find her father dead in the operating room where Joel slaughtered him, and he would be hunted down until his life’s tragic end at her hand. Abby’s mission to kill Joel directly mirrors Ellie’s mission to avenge him. Anyone killed in the name of revenge has someone who loves them, and who would want revenge for themselves. However, between Ellie and Abby’s central playable campaigns in TLOU II, there is a fundamental difference: motivation.

In the game, the player experiences the same three days in Seattle, first as Ellie and then as Abby, up until the point where their two storylines converge. Now I could wax poetic for hours about how I love to see deadly women, a trope perfected in both Abby and Ellie, but that would be counterproductive to my point. What the game seeks to emphasize, in my interpretation, is the two women’s capacity for love, as well as violence. The tender moments between Ellie and Dina, Abby and Owen, and Abby and Lev (as a reflection of Joel and Ellie in the first game), demonstrate how abandoning revenge-seeking will always be the stronger choice. Ellie and Abby make different choices, and the state they each find themselves in at the game’s conclusion represents the different consequences for each choice. Abby is with Lev, and Ellie is alone.

In the brief scenes of farmland happiness between the two Abby/Ellie standoffs, we get to see a glimpse into the life Ellie could have had with Dina and their child if she had been able to break the cycle of violence within herself. Yet, she is plagued by nightmares and flashbacks to the both Joel’s death and the unspeakable acts she herself committed. It is interesting, in comparison, that Abby does not have these same flashbacks when she is shown in Santa Barbara with Lev before the Rattlers’ attack. While we know she suffered nightmares about her father’s death while in Seattle, upon saving Lev she has a final, almost pleasant dream, where she finds her father alive in the surgical suite. It is almost as if, by finding a new purpose driven by love, her revenge-fueled suffering has eased. If only the same could be said about Ellie.

Ellie could have found the same solace in JJ that Abby found in Lev, yet she easily abandons him and Dina to pursue Abby once again. And even in that second attempt, she is unsuccessful. In a game centered around pseudo-parent/child relationships, the answer to why Ellie made the choices that she did ultimately relates to her relationship with Joel. When Joel saved Ellie’s life, it would appear that he unknowingly doomed it as well. In the cut-scene where Ellie and Joel discuss his actions from the end of the first game, she tells him she will never forgive him for taking away her only chance to make her life mean something. At the end of the day, if she cannot use her immunity to the infection to save the world, Ellie sees herself as disposable—a trait which makes her such an effective killer. Ellie believes she has nothing to lose. It is only as she sits in the water as Abby and Lev ride away, that she realizes what she has lost in the pursuit of revenge.  

The extremely divided reaction to this game both surprises me and doesn’t. Fans of the first game—which I personally have no particular attachment to—are justified in being upset that they were forced to empathize with the killer of a character they had loved for the last seven years. Yet, as an unbiased party approaching this game, I can only relay how in awe I am at the gutsy storytelling, unrivaled graphics, and apparently brilliant game-play. I truly cannot wait for the day I can afford a PS4 and play this thing myself. Art that only makes people happy, and for that matter horror that only makes people happy, is not the only valuable type of art. Sometimes, the stories we engage with are difficult, and challenge us to rethink our perception of the actions of others. It is stories like these that are the reason I love to engage with horror, film—and yes—video games.

Redundant Remakes: CHILD'S PLAY (1988 vs. 2019)

I was always terrified to watch the original CHILD’S PLAY, or as I referred to it in my head, “Chucky.” It certainly came as a surprise to me that the film was not actually called “Chucky,” but I digress. However, a couple weeks ago I finally took the plunge, despite my slight phobia of creepy dolls and/or children in horror films, and watched CHILD’S PLAY (1988) directed by Tom Holland, creator of one of my all-time favorites--Fright Night. And boy was I pleasantly surprised. To be perfectly honest, I loved this film. Brad Dourif is delightfully manical as the (not titular) sentient doll, and somehow pulls off the incredibly implausible premise of a murderer’s soul infecting a child’s toy with glee. As his victim, and eventual final boy (is that a thing?), Andy has got to be one of the most adorable young horror stars and certainly gives The Shining’s Danny a run for his money.

Therefore, having enjoyed the 1988 version so immensely, I had a feeling that nothing particularly good would come of the 2019 reboot--and unfortunately I was right. By replacing the supernatural elements of Chucky’s creation with an evil AI, the film removed not only the main source of humor, but also the main source of horror from the film. It is not nearly as frightening to imagine a robot stalking an aged-up Andy as it is to see an adult criminal watch a child sleep in the form of a doll. CHILD’S PLAY (2019) makes a few solid attempts at social commentary, ie. having Chucky learn to kill from watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 with Andy and his friends, or depicting the potential horrors of having one’s home controlled by a corporate AI. However, these critiques fall flat in the face of the original film’s portrayal of the consequences that follow when adults refuse to believe their children.

It is simply another weak attempt to capitalize on recent horror flicks starting a ‘Scooby-Gang’-like cast of characters (see It (2017) for a successful usage), and the poor characterization of Andy’s “friends” detracts from the film’s impact instead of adding to it. The writing of female characters and characters of color also feels more like an attempt to satisfy the industry’s desire to be diverse, when the plot could have made much better use of them. In the end, the film’s climax is unnecessarily large-scale and bombastic, while the original CHILD’S PLAY made the obviously right choice of ending Chucky’s reign of terror in the house where it started.

CHILD’S PLAY (2019) attempts to placate by bastardizing the most famous line from its predecessor (“This is the end, friend!”), but ultimately does not succeed at creating nostalgia for the original film or remaking it into something interesting and new. All the 2019 entry into the Chucky franchise ended up doing for me was solidify my belief that the original is superior in practically every way. The gags, kills, jokes, and horror sequences all land with weight in CHILD’S PLAY (1988), and exemplify all the facets of classic 80s horror films that make them great. A remake should never simply be an attempt to cash in on a famous name, but should bring something new and valuable to a familiar story. CHILD’S PLAY (2019) fails where many have failed, and neither its excessive gore nor unfortunate animatronic doll can save it.

COHERENCE (2013) - Knowing Yourself

Director James Ward Byrkit’s 2013 film, COHERENCE, is a sci-fi thriller guaranteed to blow your mind and leave you unsettled for days to come. Since it is nearly impossible to write about this film without spoiling it, I recommend watching it right now. What is so incredible about this film is that its “flaws” only serve to make it more flawless of an experience. For a largely budgetless film with an almost entirely improvised script, the actors’ stellar performances combined with some handheld camera magic serve to create a film so tense that its mind-bending concept is almost overshadowed by the gut-wrenching, visceral power it holds.

COHERENCE opens as Emily Baldoni’s Em arrives at a dinner party in the wake of Miller’s comet passing closely over the earth’s atmosphere. The comet almost becomes a character of its own, an astrological boogeyman of sorts, as Em documents strange historical occurrences during comet passings’ past. Dinner conversation quickly shifts, however, as various tensions within the friend group bubble to the surface. Sardonic and passive aggressive references to past relationships, affairs, addictions, and career failings bounce between the party guests as harsh smash-cuts in the editing break up the hyper-realistic dialogue. Yet the stakes quickly rise with the inexplicable loss of all cell service, internet, and electricity, attributed to the comet’s influence.

As freaky events unfold concerning an identical house down the street, COHERENCE quickly reveals the double meaning behind the line “we can’t trust ourselves.” While the characters attempt to make sense of the physics of the “decoherence” they are experiencing, the ‘novum’ of Schrodinger's Cat-like alternate realities is almost entirely beyond the comprehension of characters and viewers alike. COHERENCE dives deeply into what it really means to ‘confront yourself,’ and how to deal with the realization that you may be your own dark alter ego. Human logic and reason can only go so far to combat the forces of physics, when parallel universes are splitting at the seams. COHERENCE effortlessly balances the both dichotomies of fate and free will, and the horrific with the scientific.

Yet most fascinating in this film, is to simply observe the characters’ interactions with each other, and their own internal struggles, even as reality breaks down around them. When one’s closest friends and partner may not actually be who they say they are, what meaning can trust and intimacy truly hold? And if given the choice to leave your own reality, and take the place of yourself in a ‘better’ one, is it worth the risk? COHERENCE forces its audience to confront these questions and more, through a SF event that takes place in a world directly resembling our own. COHERENCE not only suggests that people have little understanding of what space-time may in fact be capable of, but that we also lack understanding of what we are capable of ourselves.

Redefining the Final Girl: Rebirth Through Violence

Horror, as a genre, is by and large comprised of films about the lives of women, for an audience made up of mostly women. As one of the few genres wherein women hold on average over 50% of screen-time, it is no surprise that 60% of horror fans are actually women. In my opinion, an integral part of why women love horror is what is possibly its best-known trope, the Final Girl. As is clear from the title of my blog, the Final Girl trope is one close to my heart. A term coined by Carol J. Clover, “Final Girl” is defined by the Merriam Webster dictionary as, “a trope in horror movies, referring to the female protagonist who remains alive at the end of the film, after the other characters have been killed, when she is usually placed in a position to confront the killer.” In its more misogynistic origins, the use of the Final Girl as a plot device sets up a face-off between a young woman and the male slasher villain, creating a hyper-gendered battle of the sexes meant to show how female purity can save a woman from male wrath. Yet, the Final Girls of late have not commonly been the ‘good girl’ of slasher films past.

In my opinion, the definition of the Final Girl is changing, as is her role within a film. Historically, the trope is defined situationally, and through character traits. The original Final Girl (think Laurie Strode and Nancy Thompson) is classically well behaved, studious, not promiscuous, and often brunette. While she faces off with the killer/monster, and perhaps kills them, she is not a violent character; she acts in self defense, not as an aggressor. Yet, the Final Girl has evolved since the 70s and 80s. And retroactively, the term is being applied to characters from the era who may not previously been considered Final Girls under the original definition. The ‘situational Final Girl’ is simply the last woman standing, the character in a slasher film who survives the longest, as a result of her idealized personality traits. However, ‘The New Final Girl,’ as I will refer to her, is defined by her character arc throughout the film, and how she comes out the other side--reborn and remade.

Sidney Prescott of SCREAM (1996), is a sort of transitionary Final Girl between old and new. SCREAM has a self-awareness of this trope, and purposefully has Sydney break it by having sex, and by experiencing catharsis for a past trauma by slaughtering the slasher-killer herself. It is this plot point that defines the New Final Girl in my eyes; she is reborn through violence. As a retroactive application of the term, CARRIE (1976) may hold the first true example of the New Final Girl. While Carrie may be an antihero, it is the image of a powerful woman--soaked in blood--exacting her revenge, that many New Final Girls have recreated (ex. THE WITCH, 2015). Her family and social traumas come to a head with the film’s iconic pig-blood prank, leading Carrie to achieve catharsis only by exploiting the full scope of her telekinetic power. While not every Final Girl has such literal superpowers, it is essential that she reach her full potential through violent action, and confront her past trauma with her own strength alone. This new definition of the Final Girl, brings us to 2005’s THE DESCENT.

THE DESCENT, starring Shauna Macdonald as Sarah Carter, employs the New Final Girl in all her new-found glory. After suffering the deaths of her daughter and husband, Sarah is brought down into an unexplored cave full of unimaginable horrors from which she emerges reborn, blood-soaked and badass (US ending). As perhaps the most iconic feminist horror film ever released, despite being directed by a man (Neil Marshall), THE DESCENT understands its female characters as complex: reckless and practical, physical and emotional, joyful and traumatized. Juno and Sarah become two sides of the same coin, both New Final Girls in their own right. Juno’s character arc runs parallel to Sarah’s, as she too lost a lover when Sarah’s husband died. However, Juno cannot be seen as the protagonist, as she undergoes no real personal change throughout the film. Sarah, on the other hand, is remade and refashioned by her experience in the caves. As Beth says to her, “the worst thing that could have happened to you has already happened and you're still here. This is just a poxy cave and here's nothing left to be afraid of, I promise.” By the end of a horror film, the Final Girl has nothing left to be afraid of, because the worst possible thing has already happened, and she survived it.

In recent years, the New Final Girl has found representation through the making of horror films with more intentionally feminist themes. In this vein, I particularly want to shine a light on 2019’s READY OR NOT. Samara Weaving’s character, literally a Final Girl named Grace, survives her murderous in-laws by triggering an ancient curse that leads to their gory deaths, and ends the film coated head to toe in their blood. While READY OR NOT has a high body count, it is not a traditional slasher, and demonstrates how the Final Girl in horror has become almost entirely uncoupled from the slasher sub-genre. Instead, the film is more concerned with Grace’s personal character development, wherein she finds new confidence and a sense of her own value. She learns never to bend to another’s will again.

What the ever-changing definition of this trope tells me most is that women’s involvement, both as fans and producers of horror content, is making an impact on the way women are represented in film. While the horror of the female experience has been central to the genre since its conception, the Final Girl’s journey through those horrors has not always been depicted with attention and care. Treating female characters as complex humans, who are not simply objects and catalysts for male characters to interact with, is what the New Final Girl archetype does best. Horror is concerned at an essential level with violence and violent acts, therefore, a film’s female protagonist must harness that violence in her ascension to Final Girl status.

Amy Elliott Dunne: The Greatest Female Villain of All Time

When I first watched the film GONE GIRL (dir. David Fincher), I was unconvinced. Gillian Flynn’s book was so close to my heart, and no movie adaptation could possibly have satisfied me. I found Ben Affleck as Nick too sympathetic, whereas in the book I was nearly rooting for Amy’s victory. However, having just re-watched the film, I can honestly say that it is nearly perfect. Rosamund Pike’s performance as Amazing Amy chills me to my core, and as true as her infamous ‘Cool Girl’ monologue may be, the loss of her “person suit” in the third act makes her the most captivating on-screen psychopath since Hannibal Lecter.

Reminiscent of a more-controlled Glenn Close in FATAL ATTRACTION, Rosamund Pike effortlessly captures Amy Dunne’s masterful destructive power. Her flawless plan, her casual decision to take her own life in her quest for revenge, and her subsequent killing of Desi Collings, all paint a picture of a cold-blooded murderess with no capacity for remorse. Desi, however, is an interesting counterpoint to Amy. Yet his need to control and possess Amy is no match for her need for control over herself. Amy Elliott Dunne cannot be trapped; she refuses to be under circumstances that are not of her own making, which was the catalyst for her systematic destruction of her husband, Nick.

With the loss of her trust-fund, and after moving to Missouri to help care for Nick’s mother, for the first time in her life Amy was without agency. As the ‘Cool Girl’ facade Nick fell in love with began to fade, Amy realized she was losing control over him as well, with the realization of his infidelity. Using the skills she developed framing Tommy O'Hara for rape, she perfectly orchestrates Nick’s arrest and almost-conviction for her murder. Only after proving his own ability to manipulate, and deference to her authority, does Amy return to him.

In the novel I felt as if they deserved each other; they were two screwed up people and yet a match for each other. But the film creates even more of a sense of dread around Nick being trapped in a house with Amy at the film’s conclusion. I fear for his safety, and the safety of their child. A true feeling of horror washed over me seeing Nick cower in the corner of a dark room, clutching their cat close to his chest, as Amy sleeps peacefully in the next room. As far as horror in GONE GIRL goes, I would be remiss not to mention Desi’s death scene, one of the most graphic sex/murder scenes in cinematic history.

Seeing the blood pour over Amy’s face, and the exhilaration she feels watching Desi die, solidifies your assumption as a viewer that Amy is truly capable of anything. Not only does she lie, manipulate, frame, and reconstruct herself so easily, but she is a killer. While there is something empowering about Amy Elliott Dunne, despite her...problematic behavior, she honestly scares me. Almost a less sadistic, Americanized Asami from AUDITION, Amazing Amy has become a household name for a reason.

I’m sure some would argue with me over whether GONE GIRL could even qualify as a horror film, however, I would counter by saying that blurring the line between horror and thriller is what many Fincher films do best. SEVEN and ZODIAC both walk this same line. If Amy Elliott Dunne is not a straight-up horror character, then I don’t know what is. While I wish the film made me doubt Nick’s innocence as successfully as the novel, it encapsulates the spirit of Amy in all of her horrifying glory.

Found Footage: The Blair Witch Project (1999) & Paranormal Activity (2007)

I must admit that my love of horror is rather new; not more than three years ago, I would have flat-out refused to watch the two films I will be discussing today. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (dir. Oren Peli) and THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (dir. Eduardo Sánchez & Daniel Myrick) are two defining films in the genre known as “found footage.” This genre has a reputation of being particularly raw due to the realism of its cinematography and performances, making it particularly frightening to audiences willing to suspend their disbelief and buy into its reality. While found footage films have a long legacy before BLAIR WITCH, its 1999 viral release was one of the first times the genre gained public media attention, thus reviving its popularity. While I was not alive during the marketing of the BLAIR WITCH, I have a feeling that it had a lot to do with how the film was perceived. The actors played characters with their own names, whose faces were plastered on missing poster circulated along with the films trailers, touting the film as real “recovered footage” from the fictional film students.

I have long heard THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT heralded as one of the scariest movies ever made, one that scares even the most seasoned of horror fans. However, I will have to disagree. While I can appreciate the craft and ingenuity of the film, I merely found it creepy, rather than on-the-edge-of-your-seat scary. I believe the film’s low budget, and goal not to actually show the titular witch, could have been maintained while giving the audience a little bit more to be afraid of. I found it much more interesting as a depiction of what happens to different personality types when they get lost in the woods, than as a supernatural horror movie. This was mostly due to the fact that the copious scenes of Heather, Mike, and Josh screaming at each other defused much of the scares the film was trying to create. I would have appreciated a simple blurry silhouette of the entity attacking them, and perhaps to catch a glimpse of what it was doing to Josh. I will definitely give credit to the audio mixing for being the scariest aspect of BLAIR WITCH by far, but the dark, blurry, forest shots at night did little for me.

I also felt that the climactic scene in the broken down house had a lot more potential than it was allowed. Screaming, dropped cameras, and one shot of Mike facing a wall was not quite enough for me as a viewer to comprehend the full horrific experience of the characters. At the end I literally yelled, “What, that’s it??” out loud. I wanted so badly to be scared by this film, and had such high expectations, that I was probably setting myself up for disappointment. The interactions between the characters, and how they behave while being terrorized, was definitely the most interesting aspect of this film, but I’m not sure they were even complex enough for me to want to analyze. However, I had a complete opposite reaction to PARANORMAL ACTIVITY.

I enjoyed PARANORMAL ACTIVITY so much, that I have already seen it twice in 2020. It actually freaked me out, forcing me to turn all the lights on in my house when I finished it, and jump at every strange noise. Delightful. I found this movie not only entertaining, but actually interesting to analyze on a deeper level. The way being haunted affects Katie and Micah’s initially too-adorable relationship feels realistic, and many of the decisions they make feel much more plausible than those in BLAIR WITCH (Mike threw the map in a RIVER!). The slow-burn way the frights build night after night creates a great amount of tension, leading to a very satisfying final payoff, horrifically foreshadowed by Katie’s demonically tinged voice saying, “I think we’ll be ok now.” PARANORMAL ACTIVITY creates a horrible feeling of being alone with a demonic entity, knowing that there is no one who can help or save you. And while the trope of the person being haunted, rather than the house, may be overdone, it is incredibly effective in this film, shot completely within the confines of an upper-middle class California home. It is the house’s normalcy that makes the film even more frightening, making the audience feel as if this could happen to them. The overnight camera footage is also extremely effective, since it shows us what could possibly be happening in our own homes, were they haunted, while we sleep.

Katie and Micah’s performances are very compelling, and their realism is the main driving factor behind how easy it was for me as a viewer to buy into this film being “found footage.” She is empathetic and her fear feels genuine, and he is equally endearing as he is frustrating. Their differing opinions on how the demonic threat should be addressed create conflict that feels very true to life, in terms of how couples bicker in more every-day scenarios. In terms of the scares, this film also utilizes very few special effects, and in my opinion, much more effectively that THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. Slamming doors and loud banging noises make the most frightening scares, and I would argue that the demon footprints and ghost-like shadows were not even necessary for the film to be scary. Honestly Katie standing still by the bed for three hours is the creepiest thing that happens, along with her other “sleepwalking” incidents,” simply because it could easily occur in reality. While I realize that PA did not have the same cultural and cinematic significance as TBWP, I must admit that I found it both scarier and more fun to watch. I hope that in the future I will find the love for BLAIR WITCH that so many horror fans have, but unfortunately today is not that day.

My suggestion is, next time you feel like watching something scary, give PARANORMAL ACTIVITY another shot. I know I’ll be rewatching it for years to come. And even though I don’t particularly like it, I know for certain that without THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY would not exist.

The Horror of Love, on YOU

I have watched a lot of things lately that have made me question, what is horror? Most recently, that has been the Netflix original series, YOU. I watched the first season of YOU when it came out on Netflix last year, but I binged the entire first season again in preparation for Season 2, which came out the day after Christmas. What it reminded me was, horror is a complicated genre because it encompasses so many different themes and subgenres. On its surface, YOU has a classic horror premise, a woman finds out that the man responsible for her friends being picked off one by one, is the same man she has been falling in love with. But YOU complicates this premise through tone. Aside from a few brilliant horror sequences, the show is at its core a dramedy and a romance.

The killer in question, Joe Goldberg, is played flawlessly by Penn Badgley, who makes the character sympathetic and charming one minute, and repulsive and insane the next. Joe keeps the audience captive in his own mind through a first person narration, just like he keeps his victims trapped in a glass cage. Season 1 of this show challenges the viewer’s concept of who Joe is by following a scene of Joe being a good mentor to his abusive neighbor’s son Paco with a disgusting reminder of what he is really capable of: masturbating in the street to the sight of Beck through her open window, or plotting to murder another person in Beck’s life who he deems a threat to their relationship.

But what YOU does best of all is depict Joe’s girlfriend/obsession/victim Beck as an extremely complex human being, a good person who does bad things, but still does not deserve to die by Joe’s hand. Beck cheats, lies, helps Joe to cheat, and tolerates toxic friends, all which infuriate the audience, and Joe. Yet, when she ends up in the glass prison herself, any sympathy the audience might have held for Joe disappears, because it is frankly sickening. Elizabeth Lail’s performance is captivating and heartbreaking, and the story she writes from within “Bluebeard’s Castle” hits hard for every girl who hoped the perfect romance would make her life complete.

 I loved Beck’s character from her first scene on screen. She’s an MFA creative student, a book lover, and woman struggling with very real problems, like manipulative friends, a difficult family, and creative and monetary pressure academically. Lail is magnetic as Beck, but Joe’s idealized constructed image of her is clearly a fantasy. It is no surprise that he snaps when that fantasy is broken. In Season 1, YOU paints a near perfect picture of what gaslighting, manipulation, and signs that point towards potential violence could look like. Hearing Joe justify his own stalking and murder to himself is both enlightening and despicable. The cautionary tale ends with Beck’s crushing poem, which I will include below, before showing the audience the true extent of Joe’s potential for evil. 

It is for all of these reasons, that I found Season 2 of YOU a little disappointing. As television, it is incredibly well-made and entertaining. However, it does not carry the thematic depth that Season 1 holds. Season 2 bombards you with Joe’s tragic backstory, and his only two kills are desired by the audience. Joe kills a mob-ish man out of self defence, and Henderson, a known child molestor. I was gratified when I thought Joe killed Delilah, proving once and for all that killing was his deepest instinct. However, that death is credited to Love, who is revealed to be a psycho all on her own. Love and Joe are apparently soulmates, bound by their shared murderous tendencies. Their fairytale ending results in them moving in together, about to have a child. Although I must admit, it was a nice touch not to let the audience forget what Joe really is, by hinting that his fixation will shift to a woman sunbathing in their neighboring yard. 

What I love most about this show, is that at least in Season 1, YOU refuses to romanticize Joe’s actions. While the audience might find themselves falling for the “everythingship” or “I wolf you,” the horrors that Joe is capable of are always in the back of your mind. There are no excuses made for his actions, aside from his own denial, and seeing Joe transform from the perfect boyfriend into a vicious killer is chilling. I will admit that Love herself can actually be quite scary, and possibly a perfect match for Joe, but somehow her storyline serves to validate Joe to the audience, rather than the other way around. It says, “see! It’s ok this time! She’s a killer too!”. I do believe that YOU’s intentions are good, and a nuanced audience would look at Love and Joe as a horror show of their own making, but many viewers may not be so mindful. Season 1’s victories lie in how well Joe is depicted as a horrible person, even from within his own mind. 

So I return to my first question, is YOU horror? And I believe the answer has to be...yes. Every time Joe talks about what love is to him, that’s horror. Every time his gaze falls on a new woman, that’s horror. To hear Beck grieve her stolen life from within the cage, that’s horror. And most horrific of all is imagining Love and Joe as parents...enough said. The self contained nature of the Season 1, building dread and tension with precision, creates a stomach dropping feeling of horror when Beck finds the box in Joe’s bathroom ceiling. In that moment, you know with complete certainty that she will die. And despite all of her flaws, I mourned Beck. Because she was a real woman, with so much potential, who Joe dared to kill out of his own twisted, selfish, love.