The Scary of Sixty-First

This film was so horrendous in every way, it was like watching a bad student project. You want to laugh at it, but you can't believe people actually thought that this was good enough to release as an actual film. Everything about it was porn levels of bad, from the acting to the action. I started to think it was a vanity project by some lame feminist lesbians, but then why would they make such a atrociously bad film? I mean, this is just on a whole other level of travesty. We're talking Battlefield Earth levels of trash.

I don't even know what else to say. Does it even deserve anything else being said about it? The acting was trash, the directing was trash, the script tried to be funny but ended up being trash. I mean, the scariest part about the movie was the fact that all of the things they said about Epstein and his cabal of high profile satanic deviants is true. All of it. There is no "conspiracy theory". It's all truth and the quicker people realize just how demented it all is, the quicker we start to weed out the sickos that run the world.

In the end, the movie sucked but it had to be made. Will it be taken seriously by those who'd rather not know about any of it? Of course not. But people who are aware will appreciate just how truly twisted real life is and no movie could ever match that.

Noelle (Madeline Quinn) and Addie (Betsey Brown) rent a spacious Manhattan apartment. The realtor seems suspicious. A girl (Dasha Nekrasova) walks in claiming to be a realtor. She's actually investigating and reveals to Noelle that the apartment was owned by billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. This takes place after his suicide while in custody.

The boyfriend sucks. Noelle is not a nice friend. Addie's radar is broken. I don't care much about these people. The only one worth rooting for is the girl and she comes in later. This is an indie horror bordering on experimental. The Epstein saga is traumatic for some and could be compelling for horror material. The second tier actors try to do some spooky acting but it comes off a bit comical. I can appreciate the attempt but the indie filmmaking does not quite achieve true spooky atmosphere.

Two roomies score a suspiciously cheap apartment in Manhattan, but after a first night of disturbed sleep the nightmare never ends ...

Strange shoe-string budget production, written by two of the actors. It's well edited and paced, cinematography pretty rough, probably too much dialogue, but the score has a nice synth vibe here and there, and the sensibility is reminiscent of pervie '70s stuff, from the era when New York was a nutters' paradise.

The shape of it is intriguing, with three overlapping delusions fuelled by pharamceuticals. I say three, because there are three principal characters, each of whom has gone off the deep end in her own way, but the delusions are inseparable from each other.

The intro makes a point of figures and faces in the lofty architecture overseeing the madness that's about to break out below, and there's a sense of a demiurge in charge of an evil world, personified by the media characters of those involved in the Jeffrey Epstein affair. In the climax, which involves a protective magic crystal, there's an insert of what looks like Epstein's face, tying him in with an occult force at work. Reviews emphasizing the reality of that affair are missing the point entirely.

The performances are energetic but patchy, failing to give meaning in any subtle way - that's probably down to a naive reliance on dialogue and lack of experience in the direction and acting. Mind you, the mental breakdown of the Jewish girl is worryingly authentic. The sex scenes have a certain JNSQ - or maybe they're just porn. There is humour in the air, but the only time I got a sniff of it was when the boyfriend is dragged along to witness the aftermath.

In the end the story didn't seem coherent to me, either pychologically or emotionally, but still an engaging mystery of why we insist on mysteries.

While the giallo influence may have been intentional, it didn't land for me. The conspiracy-driven plot combined with ritual horror was more frustrating than eerie. The constant tonal shifts, including the off-putting audio choices, made it feel more awkward than unsettling. I kept wondering if the weirdness was part of the charm for fans of this style, but it just didn't click. If you're into offbeat horror that pushes the boundary of strange, it might be for you, but I found myself distracted by how rough it all felt.

Even with its strange premise, it felt like it was trying too hard to shock rather than build suspense. The Epstein conspiracy angle didn't add depth, and I kept waiting for something to pay off that never did. Overall, it's a miss for me.

I watched this at Summer Berlinale. It's like a bad student film, or like mocking bad student films. References: yes. Competence: no. At 80 minutes it's way too long. Which doesn't mean there's not enough plot. This would be much better with just btches screaming on and on and on, like an art loop.