‘Sissy’ Fantasia Fest 2022 Review – A Horror Film I Would Subscribe To Any Damn Day

Plot Summary: Teen best friends Cecilia and Emma run into each other after a decade. Cecilia is invited on Emma’s bachelorette weekend where she gets stuck in a remote cabin with her high school bully with a taste for revenge.

The second feature film by directing duo Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes, Sissy, has gained a fair amount of buzz on the festival circuit. Give me a good horror movie any day, sure, but what really got my attention is its focus on LGBTQ characters. Also, it is co-directed and largely starring only women. Was the film worth the hype? Yes, and then some!

With little effort, this movie is able to establish clear characters and tone within the first ten minutes. After watching a sea of movies that feel bloated and overwritten, you really start to appreciate a lean and efficient piece of storytelling. This savage satire focuses on content creators, influencer culture and the cult of personalities. This is by no means a new concept for horror, but I think the film overall does a fine job at critically looking at and skewering its subject. I give the filmmakers a lot of credit for really swinging for a bleak yet darkly comic frame work and never swaying from it. I am delighted to report that the movie never gets stale, and Barlow and Senes have a few nasty twists up their sleeves. I really love how this movie plays with genre tropes only to smartly subvert them and misdirect the audience in the first act. From there, they keep throwing us curve balls which left me feeling uneasy throughout the entire runtime.

Overall, it’s clear that with some very solid set-ups and payoffs and foreshadowing sprinkled throughout there is a lot of good screenwriting going on here. And while, yes, the characters in this movie are mostly stock slasher fodder, I appreciate the fact that our main pair, Cecilia and Emma, do feel like real people. This is also one of the rare movies that showcases the effects of bullying among women and, in a larger sense, how women are often pitted against one another. This kind of story is typically only seen through the male lens, so I found it interesting to see a woman’s perspective on this. This theme of sisterhood is cleverly woven throughout the core narrative. Without spoiling anything, I will say that the finale is utterly bleak, jaw-dropping but also very much in line with the sardonic and morbidly playful vibe the film gives off. Matching this is the excellent old school FX work that reminded me of prime-Tom Savini. The best part is it’s used sparingly so when we do see it happening its rather shocking.

Visually, this movie is really fantastic, and you can see real attention has been paid to lighting, atmosphere, staging and shot composition. It also has really great flourishes that impressed me. For example, there is a moment when glittery nail polish transitions into stars in the night sky, which is brilliant. The solid screenplay and FX are anchored by some great acting. Aisha Dee gives a whirlwind performance, and she is tasked with doing the bulk of the emotional heavy lifting. I think that it would have been very easy to completely make a cartoon out of Cecilia. While she can go a bit over-the-top, it never feels like she crosses a line in terms of the tone that Barlow and Senes establish. I only hope that Hollywood wises up and casts her in some big projects. Co-director and star Hannah Barlow actually has the less showy role, but nonetheless still turns in a captivating performance. Honestly, there is not a single bad actor in this group and everyone feels like they are on the same page.

As much as I adore the film, it is a bit rough-around-the-edge. While I love the social commentary, I feel like this aspect could have been taken way further. The idea of influencer culture as fodder for a slasher has been done before. In fact, this movie feels very much like a project called New Year, New You, which also has a former bully, a successful influencer and an ending that is almost exactly the same. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the filmmakers copied that film. However, in the age of re-contextualized slashers in the digital age, you really have to work harder to say something meaningful in a new and fresh way. Its solid screenplay, acting and visual style lets me forgive some aspects that are on the shaggy side.

Darkly funny and shocking as hell, Sissy is the real deal. It’s a horror film I would subscribe to any damn day!

Sissy had its Canadian Premiere at the 2022 Fantasia International Film Festival. 

Directors: Hannah Barlow, Kane Senes

Runtime: 101m

Cast: Aisha Dee, Daniel Monks, Emily De Margheriti, Hannah Barlow, Lucy Barrett, Yerin Ha