Strangeness is a quality valued and yearned for in so many sorts of movies, but rarely found – yet this really is strange, an experiment in horror form from the trans film-maker Jane Schoenbrun and executive-produced by David Lowery. It draws on a video-art aesthetic, a gamer aesthetic and a lockdown Zoom aesthetic, taking us to a world where liberation goes hand-in-hand with loneliness. It’s very unnerving and a little bit exhausting.
Newcomer Anna Cobb plays Casey, a teen who is about to take the World’s Fair Challenge; that is, to take part in an occult horror online game, immerse herself in the fantasy roleplay, and upload videos documenting the supposed changes in herself triggered by the game. This she duly does, along with other players, and it is these disjointed existences and worlds which provide the film’s drama of alienation.
