If you've ever felt like you don't fit in and for some reason want to be reminded of that in a horror setting, boy do I have some movies for you…
After moving to a new area, twelve-year-old Ben is dropped off at water polo camp for the summer. Desperate to fit in and make friends, he reluctantly joins in with his teammates to mock Eli, a boy with severe eczema. They all claim Eli has the ‘plague’, and that if anyone dares to touch him, they’ll catch it too.
I haven’t stopped thinking about this movie since I watched it. The script is so good; I usually find it difficult to sympathise with characters who feel pressured into becoming bullies, but I was so immersed in Ben’s story that I was unable to tap into my adult brain to remind myself that he had other options, and that the pain of childhood is temporary (sort of). The young actors were very convincing as both bullies and victims. A deeply uncomfortable watch with an immense soundtrack.
All My Friends Hate Me begins with the main character, Pete, reluctantly saying goodbye to his girlfriend to celebrate his birthday with old university friends at a country estate, which is owned by one of them. He hasn’t seen these friends for years and believes he no longer has anything in common with them. What ensues is an suffocatingly awkward and dark movie about class divide, competitiveness, and arrogance disguised by politeness.
This movie is aimed at a particular generation of university goers. I’m thinking early 2000s, the apathetic millennials who drank too much and did party drugs and were probably the last truly naïve generation to enjoy university as an experience - basically before loans fucked young people over. Pete seems to look back on his university days with embarrassment and regards his old friends with an element of pity, yet he’s also desperate to impress them and be accepted by them. While the ending had one too many plot twists, this is a very funny (and very cringy) reunion-gone-wrong movie.
Set in the 90s, a lonely man named David, isolated from the world because he has to care for his mother, visits a video dating service. While there he discovers a video in the bargain bin called ‘Rent-A-Pal’, and on impulse he purchases it. On the tape a man named Andy talks to him as if he were a friend, and when Andy asks questions he pauses to allow David to speak. Soon, it’s hard to know whether David is actually able to talk to Andy, or whether he’s gone mad with loneliness.
As we are now hurtling towards a reality in which AI relationships are the norm, the concept of Rent-A-Pal doesn’t seem half as crazy as it did when I first watched it a couple of years ago. David is ferociously lonely and quickly losing his patience with life, and if you’ve ever been even remotely close to that feeling, you will find this movie a painful watch - actually, it’s still pretty painful even if you don’t find it relatable. Full of dark twists and turns, as well as a deeply complex main character, this low-budget movie is a relatively unknown gem.
Check out my latest blog post on Dystopic.
Sorry, that was a bit creepy. I just wanted to say that in April I’m going to be running 10km in Brighton for a wonderful charity called the Cinnamon Trust.
The Cinnamon Trust is the national charity for older people, the terminally ill and their pets. They provide hands-on assistance to pet owners across the country when any aspect of the day-to-day care of their pets poses a problem, as well as the provision of lifelong care for pets who outlive their owners.
I currently volunteer with them, walking two Yorkshire Terriers, Millie and Ruby, for their elderly owner who is no longer able to.
If you’re able to donate a little something, please click the button below to be taken to my fundraising page. Thank you for reading!
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