Halsey's IF I CAN'T HAVE LOVE, I WANT POWER - Horror and The Mainstream

Starring Halsey (she/they) & Sasha Lane
Directed by Colin Tilley
Written by Halsey

The exact circumstances of Halsey’s rise to fame have never sat quite right with me. As an artist, Halsey doesn’t really fit into the ‘mainstream pop-star’ box in which she has been confined. Having been a fan of theirs since I was 14 years old, following the release of their debut EP Room 93, I never understood why Halsey was seemingly pulled away from their more alternative musical instincts. Raised on the emo music of the early 2000s, which I only discovered in my teen years, Halsey mixes confessional (oftentimes dark) songwriting with industrial pop and later hip-hop inspired music. Halsey’s catapult into the public eye after the release of her first album Badlands solidified her place in the pop canon of the 2010s, but didn’t earn her much critical respect. Neither did 2017’s hopeless fountain kingdom, which would be better off being remembered for deep-cuts like “Devil In Me” than for its singles. Yet, Halsey tried something incredibly new with Manic (2020), a deep dive into Halsey’s relationship with her mental health, fame, romantic misadventures, and longings for “More”. Battles with bipolar disorder, endometriosis, and other obstacles may have obstructed Halsey’s path, but in achieving a life-long goal of conceiving a child, Halsey found the perfect inspiration for a next album as bitter as it is sweet. 

If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power is the album Halsey has always wanted to make, with the collaborators she has always dreamed of. And now, unlike ever before, was the time she needed to make it. With instrumentation produced by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, IICHLIWP is “a concept album about the joys and horrors of pregnancy and childbirth,” according to Halsey. Halsey captures these sentiments in lines like, “I won't die for love, but ever since I met you / You could have my heart, and I would break it for you” (“1121”) and “I think we could live forever / In each other's faces 'cause I / Always see my youth in you / And if we don't live forever / Maybe one day we'll trade places / Darling, you will bury me / Before I bury you” (“Ya'aburnee”). The songs of IICHLIWP are the words of a future parent who simultaneously is, and will never be, ready to be a mother. 

However, what I’d like to talk about today is neither IICHLIWP nor its predecessors, but instead the accompanying film by the same name. Directed by Colin Tilley, the film–again in Halsey’s words–depicts "the lifelong social labyrinth of sexuality and birth. The greatest horror stories never told were buried with the bodies of those who died in that labyrinth." The film tells the story of Queen Lila, who mourns the death of her murdered husband, the King. As the royal court becomes more and more suspicious of Lila’s role in his death, and after an encounter with the demon Lilith (also played by Halsey), the Queen grows pregnant and finds only one ally in the blind witch/seer residing in the nearby woods (Sasha Lane). The film concludes with the birth of the baby, Lila’s execution, and Lilith assuming her throne. Lila and Lilith are clearly two sides of a whole, and two sides of Halsey as well. As they are wont to do, Halsey plays heavily with dualities in the film: life/birth and death, mania and depression, power and helplessness.  

The highlights of IICHLIWP are undoubtedly the segments backed by the songs “Girl is a Gun,” “Lilith,” and “Easier than lying.” To highlight “Easier than lying,” the scenes that take place during this song depict Lila’s escape from the castle, giving birth in the hut of the seer, and reveal that Lila was indeed responsible for poisoning the King, who was abusing her physically and sexually. By cross-cutting between the birth scene and the King’s death following an attempted sexual assault, Halsey’s film blurs the lines between pain and ecstasy, tragedy and miracle, horror and love. By portraying both Queen Lila and the demon Lilith, Halsey demonstrates how becoming a parent forced them to confront the deepest and darkest parts of themself, a process of self-discovery that appears ongoing. While Halsey has disparaged the label of “triple-bi” (biracial, bisexual, bipolar), the multiplicity of these identities is a through-line that permeates their art. Now recently out as non-binary as well, Halsey is bringing a new perspective on pregnancy, birth, and motherhood to the public eye.

However, since this is a horror blog, I feel obligated to comment a bit more on the horror aspects of the album and film. With costumes from Law Roach blending high fashion, Marie Antoinette, with a Gothic aesthetic, the film maintains an overall spooky vibe permeated by a paranoid tension. The ‘immaculate conception’ scene is certainly the most straight-up horror of the lot, but the reoccurring appearances of Lilith throughout prove both Halsey and Tilley’s horror chops. Complete with the Reznor/Ross score, the film is undeniably disturbing enough to at least be considered ‘horror-adjacent.’ In terms of music, I would point towards a track like “The Lighthouse,” wherein Halsey embodies yet another feminine monster–the Siren. 

Like Halsey, and many people I know in real life, I consider the consumption and production of horror to be an ultimately cathartic experience, one that allows the viewer or creator to explore the darkness that resides in themselves and the world around them. For Halsey, creating IICHLIWP was their way of processing the experience, trauma, and joy of pregnancy and impending motherhood. Having since given birth to son Ender Ridley Aydin, to whom the film is dedicated alongside his father Alev Aydin, Halsey continues to break boundaries between the roles of ‘mother’ and ‘musician.’ As neither myself, I am thrilled to report the accessibility and high entertainment value of the film as well; there are few audiences I would not recommend it to. While some may worry that the introduction of horror aesthetics into mainstream music (ie. Billie Eilish, Kim Petras, Charli XCX) will have the effect of diluting our subculture or community, I would instead suggest that the normalization of horror consumption can only be a good thing for us. Drawing artists away from pop and towards the alternative should be seen as a win for creativity, and not an appropriation.