*. Art house meets viral horror. Or the other way around. An intriguing idea, I think, but, perhaps necessarily, excessively abstract. Which means (1) I wasn’t really sure what was going on, and (2) I didn’t feel any sense of dread or horror.
*. The story has it that Amy (Kate Lyn Sheil) is depressed. Or drunk. Or infected with a curse that passes freely from one person to another when they express the conviction that they will die tomorrow. Once you tell someone that you think you’re going to die tomorrow then they start believing it. Though it’s not clear that anyone does actually die. At least demons don’t come crawling out of television sets to kill them anyway. Instead, awareness of their own imminent demise just gets people down.
*. As I understand it, writer-director Amy Seimetz, one of today’s leading indie filmmakers, wanted the movie to be an allegory for social anxiety, much like venereal horror allegorized STDs. As I said, this is an intriguing idea. But it wasn’t that convincing. Everyone seemed more depressed than anxious, and though the two are related they aren’t the same. But I think if you look at it as a sort of Final Destination for people experiencing mid-life angst then that might help.
*. Seimetz: “This is a horror movie where you never get to see the monster. One of my favorite horror movies is Friday the 13th Part 2. You only see Jason once with a bag over his head, but it’s terrifying!” Leaving aside this strange affection for Friday the 13th Part 2, what she’s saying here is fine as far as it goes. There have been horror movies where the monster is never seen. But in that case you really have to make the audience feel the monster’s presence, and here I felt less dread than confusion.
*. There’s a point here relating to what I said about anxiety and depression. You can make a pseudo-horror movie (even a horror parody) out of anxiety. It’s very hard to make any kind of a movie out of depression. There’s a thread of a plot here, but on the whole the film is inert. It doesn’t want to go anywhere or do anything. It doesn’t even want to get out of its pyjamas.
*. I don’t blame the cast. Sheil is solid and Jane Adams, who plays Amy’s friend and spends most of the movie wandering about in her bedclothes, is also excellent. At least given that both of them are stuck in a kind of narcotized state. But Seimetz’s direction is all over the place. She uses strobe lighting in one sequence but I don’t know why. In another scene she has Amy arrive at a rental house with her boyfriend and sticks the camera on the floor. And I looked at the screen and said “Why is the camera on the floor?” And then the next shot is through a narrow doorway. Which is meant to recall the opening scene, but had me again wondering why she’d put the camera there. Here are the two shots. I don’t see the point.

*. It seems to me that if you’re looking at a movie and you’re noticing the way a shot is set up and you’re noticing because you think it’s really bad and you don’t understand the reason for it, then there’s a problem.
*. So not a thrilling movie, or one to spend that much time thinking about. Which is too bad given that there obviously was some thought and talent behind it. But then it’s hard to shake the feeling that entertainment wasn’t the goal.