Modern horror films can fall flat when they try to infuse pop culture sentiment into a terrifying flick. “Influencer horror films” is a new genre that tends to fall in that hit-or-miss category. Mainly because creatives struggle to find a way to include those themes without coming off forced. Some stories don’t fare well when they pull from a social media angle. Australian horror, Sissy, is not one of those films. Through a gen-z lens, writers and directors Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes were able to offer a satirical look at the horrors of online personas through the horror medium in a gory and relatable way.
Cecilia (Aisha Dee) is a health and wellness influencer with a following that boasts more than 200k followers. While shopping for a few essentials at the store, she runs into her tween bestie Emma (Hannah Barlow). Emma and Cecilia were best friends before another person got in between their sisterhood, causing the friendship to break up. Shocked and delighted to run into Cecilia — who she remembers from her school-age nickname Sissy — Emma invites Cecilia to her bachelorette party. It feels like old times as Cecilia and Emma sing karaoke of their friendship theme song, “Sister” by Sister2Sister. Although it’s been years, the friendship feels like it never missed a beat. It’s just like Emma’s fiancé said, “I think that real friends are like stars. You can’t always see them, but you know that they’re always there.”
As Emma recovers from too many cocktails, she invites Cecilia to her “hens weekend” — a bachelorette weekend getaway — at a remote cabin in the mountains. Cecilia scrolls Emma’s socials to get reacquainted with her old friend through snapshots of her current life. She is giddy until she runs across a name she remembers all too well — Alex (Emily De Margheriti). You guessed it, Alex bullied Cecilia and is the reason for the destruction of their friendship.
Cecilia digs up her and Emma’s time capsule hoping to reignite their friendship flame at the hen’s weekend. On the way there, she discovers that Alex has set up the getaway and will be hosting the event. When Cecilia walks in and sees Alex, Alex goes ballistic. She was also unaware that Cecilia was going to be in attendance. Eventually, Alex calms down, and the festivities resume.
Cecilia has clearly done a lot of work to push through her childhood years and makes a conscious effort to get along with Alex. However, Alex isn’t ready to let bygones be bygones, from continuously calling her “Sissy” to mocking her influencer status. The next day, Cecilia overhears Alex telling the group of friends why she dislikes Cecilia and how she got the scar on her face. Even after that, Cecilia still tries to be the bigger person. But when Alex takes Cecilia’s phone and threatens to expose the truth of her past to her thousands of followers, positioning her as a fraud — Sissy snaps.
Sissy is a welcomed contribution to the slasher genre. Barlow and Senes craft a stellar and unassuming psycho-thriller in this female-driven horror flick. We’re bodies deep before we realize we’re even in a psycho-thriller which is part of the fun and makes Sissy’s snap so effective.
Dee shines as a final girl. Her ability to juggle personas between the evolved and healed Cecilia and the traumatized and defensive Sissy was effortless. Dee fluently switches between the two identities and brings a likability to both. The writing allows the audience to experience this rollercoaster with Cecilia. We descend into madness with her. By the time she gets fed up and snaps, we snap, too. And, we start to cheer for the demise of whomever she deems an adversary.
It’s Heathers meets American Psycho, sure to be a cult classic. Cecilia has been able to craft her own safe place in social media — something many viewers will be able to relate to. Despite her past, social media has allowed her to fabricate her identity and only let people see the parts she feels are the best. Any time her safe place — her new image — is in jeopardy, Cecilia has to destroy the threat at any cost.
From the film’s first few minutes, we see how Cecilia differs from the person she is IRL. After completing her social media post, we see her step out of the frame of her iPhone camera to walk around her messy apartment. There are dishes in the sink, and she sits down to watch trash TV while eating cold pizza from the night before.
Several choices in the film aided in a sort of lack of identity within Cecilia. When she arrived at the bachelorette weekend, she pulled up in a yellow car with pink hair, which Emma said she wanted in the video from their time capsule. Almost as if her relationship lies within her friendship with Emma.
Despite being an influencer, she couldn’t influence the people in her life to believe that she was anything but what they already knew of her.
Sissy wants to do good, and she is actually trying to maintain the image of Cecilia. Still, her rooted self continues to unearth, especially when put into these triggering situations, which explains why she’s more comfortable in social media safety. It’s not just safe for her, but it’s safe for others, too.
The first meeting with Emma cut to an extreme closeup switching back between Cecilia and Emma as if Sissy had just come face to face with her past.
Each time Cecilia felt triggered or upset by something happening within the real world, she’d rush to her phone to view the likes and comments from her followers. The victims in the film acted as real-life personifications of online trolls and haters. And anything that didn’t comply with her narrative had to be deleted and blocked. In the end, Cecilia’s rebrand is temporary because, like deleted tweets, who you are will always resurface.
Some scenes are a little campy and stray from the already established vibe Barlow and Senes set up. Tiny embellishments of social media flare infused into the movie lifted the film’s mood.
It’s a comedy, it’s a slasher, it’s a warning — it’s all that and more. Sissy could quickly become the next slasher franchise.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
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