User reviews

As far as production goes, it was an impressive feat alone to have a newb young filmmaker Hannah Barlow co-write, co-direct, co-produce and star in this Australian low budget independent film. Very few seasoned filmmakers with big budgets can wear that many hats and pull it off. It was well shot and cast with convincing performances, especially Aisha Dee as Cecilia. It wasn't perfect by any means, but still a fun one-time watchable entry into the hugely done slasher genre. It certainly is geared more to the younger generation, especially the score, which definitely was your typical loud and overbearing B-film grade, but with added teen-tune melodies. The cinematography and gore visual effects were impressive. This film may not appeal to everyone, but it sure will be to all the TikTok'ers and the like.

You bump into a friend from long ago, she invites you to her hen night and you go, then a bachelorette weekend, it's so nice that you can spend, some time together, to reacquaint, go with the flow. Alas the place where you are staying has an another, a person from your past who caused a spot of bother, and there's clearly still a trace, from the scar that's on her face, of the grudge that she finds difficult to smother. Soon things start to go off course and quite awry, as tensions rise no matter how you try, to bury your resentment, pull away from hobbled descent and wash the tears from streaming, prying, crying eyes.

Cecilia finds catching up with old school acquaintances a little more challenging than she'd imagined, but with her rope of invincibility she does her best to pull through.

Great performances and a genuinely original take on an often encountered theme.

Aisha Dee is excellent as a twenty-something self-help social media infuencer who has some major personal isues.

Through flashbacks, we see Sissy(or Cecilia) as a child playing with her best friends as they proclaim a life long allegiance to each other.

They met years later and Sissy is invited to a magnificent house in the middle of nowhere. The host has had an unpleasant encounter with Sissy, which leads to bad feelings among the house guests.

The film is a bit of a slow burn with a sometimes funny backdrop with a message on our current fascination with the world of cyberspace "friendships" which are, of course, not real life.

Ms. Dee is convincing as the unstable young lady and she makes the movie well wort watching.

This is a movie that I noticed was on Shudder. I'll be honest, I thought that it was another one that was on my list so I decided to check it out one night. It wasn't until referencing back that I realized this was the wrong movie. Regardless, this is a 2022 horror watch so it worked out.

Synopsis: teen best friends Cecilia (Aisha Dee) and Emma (Hannah Barlow), after a decade run into each other. Cecilia is invited on Emma's bachelorette weekend where she gets stuck in a remote cabin with her high school bully with a taste for revenge.

We start this off seeing the two characters from the synopsis as children. Emma (Camille Cumpston) and Cecilia (Amelia Lule) were inseparable from what we can see. We then jump to the present where Cecilia is Dee and does self-help videos. She isn't licensed, but she shares different things that she does to help herself. She is up to 200K followers.

She then must run to the local pharmacy. It is there that she bumps into Emma. They haven't seen each other as the synopsis said for a decade. Emma invites her old friend to her bachelorette party where they're singing karaoke.

Emma didn't fully believe that she would show. She's drinking and having a good time which makes her fiancée Fran (Luc Barrett) question things, as do their friends of Jamie (Daniel Monks) and Tracey (Yerin Ha). The night goes well though. Emma pukes on Cecilia and they end up in the bathroom. It is there she invites Cecilia to come on her 'hen's weekend'.

They hit the road and it is during the drive that Cecilia learns that they're going to Alex's (Emily De Margheriti) house. She is the bully that was alluded to earlier. It should also be pointed out that Cecilia gets lost in her thoughts and hits a kangaroo that must be put out of its misery.

Before ending my recap, I should point out that the title of the movie is a reference to Cecilia's nickname from when she was a child. Emma called her Sissy. Alex did as well, but she used to bully Cecilia. When they arrive at the house, Alex is irate. She has a scar on her face and it was caused by Cecilia. Alex also believes that Sissy is a psychopath. We do start to see that there are cracks there and the stress of this weekend might exacerbate it as well.

Now that is where I'm going to leave my recap for this movie. That should be enough fleshing out of the synopsis as well as introducing the characters. Where I want to start though is with our lead. This does well in presenting Cecilia as the victim from the start. We see from her point of view and seems like Emma was her best friend. That might not actually be the case though. They were friends, but it seems more like Emma felt sorry for her. She is a people pleaser. Cecilia thought they were closer than what they were. This is a tough pill to shallow. There is an unresolved issue here that she must come to terms with it during this weekend.

To delve a bit more into the psyche of Cecilia, she is on shaky ground. She exudes confidence without having it. She needs social media to reinforce it and make her feel better. When she feels down, that is where she escapes to. There is an uncomfortable scene where she is called out by Alex, Jamie and Tracey. They point out what she is doing is fraud. Cecilia comes back that she has a disclaimer. This group seems like social justice warriors to the extreme. I'm all for doing the right thing and holding people accountable, but there are bigger things to be concerned with than what we get here. It is interesting that Fran is going for her doctorate to be a psychologist so that makes it awkward with Cecilia who has no formal training. The latter has more of a footprint to the outside world.

Before I fully get away from this character, I want to talk about Dee's performance. She does so well at faking that she is confident. It is also great to see the other side when she is faltering. I thought it was one of the better performances of the year. Going along with this as well, I like how this introduces her side of the story. The more characters we meet, the more of the other side we get. Alex calls her a psycho for attacking her as a child. Seeing what Cecilia put up with, I don't blame her. Now as an adult, the effects of this are coming out worse. There is years of pent up hurt and rage bubbling up to the surface. This hooked my interest to see where it would go. It is quite dark with its implications which I appreciate.

Since I've already moved over into the acting, let me talk about the rest of the cast. Barlow is interesting as well. She seems nice. She wants to include Cecilia in what their doing. Emma does this out of pity from what I'm gathering. It also feels a bit like she led Cecilia to believe they were better friends with just how Emma is. It is a bit fake which feels real. De Margheriti is good as the bully. She has the right to be angry, but it is also her fault. Her along with Monks and Ha are just horrible people. They annoyed me, but I appreciate it as that felt real. Other than that, I thought Barrett and the rest of the cast rounded this out for what was needed.

The last things then to go into would be with the filmmaking. I thought that we got good cinematography. Along with that would be the editing. They do interesting things to cut over to Cecilia making videos or watching old ones. I thought this was interesting that when she gets down or hurt, that is where she runs. She needs that reassuring. There are also great shots that are used throughout and the use of focus. This changes at different times which adds something. Other than that, the effects are good. We get brutal ones at the end that caught me off guard. They looked to be practical which is always good. I'd also say that the soundtrack fit for what was needed without necessarily standing out.

In conclusion, this movie is doing interesting things. It is one that is of the time with influencers. Cecilia is unstable, but I like how she is established. She wants to help people. She also wants to be friends with Emma and this leads to disastrous results with that friend group. The performance from Dee is good. The rest of the cast around her push her to where she ends up. We get good cinematography as well as effects. I think that this has something interesting to say but falls a bit short of fully keeping my attention. It is worth a view though. I'd even recommend this to non-horror and horror fans alike.

My Rating: 7 out of 10.

I liked this movie more than I thought that I would. I was very shocked at how good it was do to the fact that the beginning was a little slow in my opinion. I was definitely rooting for Sissy in this movie and understood why she did what she did. I don't agree with her actions and I personally would not have done any of the things she did in this movie but I definitely understand why she did it. I have seen women with YouTube videos like the ones shown in this movie and it makes me think or wonder how many women could be like Sissy(promoting self love, security and positivity) but are in fact insecure themselves!!! Lol.

I'm always up for a movie from Australia and this satirical comedy-horror constitutes another one worth seeing. It focuses in on an influencer who is invited to a hen weekend by a long lost pal. Things get complicated when she discovers that one of her old bullies is also going to be there.

This was a lot of fun, with a nice blend of comic antics with over-the-top - and well delivered - gory mayhem. The comic jabs at the influencer/social media culture were often pretty funny but its also not above having us get a good laugh at an annoying man on crutches being shoved off a cliff.

Starting a bit slow but did feel for the main character that where well played. Supporting roles where a bit of hit/miss. Would not have known that it where a horror move in the beginning if I had nor read it before which made the horror part so much more effective once it started.

Did not see the twist coming att all and even tough there where hints along the way. I did not recognize them until well into the second part. So the script where decent, not much confusion and nicely wrapped up in the end.

The could have a bit better pacing and support actors, skipped some of the closeups on faces, to close and to many.

The basic premise of the film sounded interesting, and being an Aussie horror, you usually know to expect something a little bit crazy. They don't do things by halves down under, so you can expect the usual eye watering violence here and there.

Unfortunately, if you're expecting something in the vein of The Loved Ones., Wolf Creek or 100 Bloody Acres, you're going to be disappointed. While it's not terrible, it doesn't quite reach its potential and ends up pretty forgetful and one you're unlikely to want to see again.

Firstly, there isn't a single character with any redeeming quality, they're all pretty contemptible human beings and what sympathy you might initially have for the leading lady soon wears off. They're pretty much all contemptible nasty pieces of work in one way or another.

Unfortunately it also suffers from the usual modern "cool to include" plot and character points, seemingly just to tick all of the boxes - "being an influencer is the height of life/success", a lesbian couple, a gay guy, a comment on white privilege, mental health, talking about "cancelling" someone, females who are just interested in love island "reality" tv etc.

If the themes are not important to the story, they just feel trite. While they're key parts of modern society, it feels like they've all been forcefully thrown in for the sake of including them, or because it's "cool" to do so, not to actually benefit the film. They don't add anything to the story or the characters.

I have no issue with real-life themes and character elements being represented in the things I watch if they feel natural and are key to the character/story, but when they are predictably all chucked in like they were here, it seems like forced, pointless box ticking.

By the end of the film it felt like the writer was more interested in including those aspects rather than creating an engrossing story.

There's no real suspense, the events are extremely predictable and the characters are lacking in depth. If you're looking for a horror, then you'll probably be disappointed as it felt like more of a drama with a few deaths tacked on.

If you're looking for a horror, give it a miss. If you're looking for comedy, even dark, there's none to be found. If you're looking for a teen-themed drama with social commentary then you might enjoy it.

2 stars for decent overall performance from the lead actress and a decent production value.

There has been a trend for horror movies with a message over the last few years and some of them have left me cold. The message part often means that the horror aspect is down played so as not to offend a broader audience. Luckily, this is not the case with Sissy.

This film addresses issues like mental health and social media influencers but still has a cracking horror movie at its heart. It borders on horror-comedy at times - but, if you're a gore hound - there's PLENTY for you here. I wasn't expecting a lot from this movie but it was nicely set up, the acting was good, the blood was splurting and, overall, it was an enjoyable 82 minutes.

This was a hard movie to sit through. It felt cringy on a lot of levels and I wasn't buying it. The theme was strong enough -- the impact of social media on Gen Zs mental health. But the quirky, stylistic filmic devices to present the world as hyper-unsettling were very distracting.

The dialogue was painfully forced and lacking depth, and rarely did a scene create an actual tone of authenticity between characters. The actors did a decent job with what they had to work with but the writing just did not work for me.

The titular character felt more like a metaphor than any human being that anyone could relate to. People don't get shaped into murderous psychopaths because of their unmet need for attention. It was just weird presenting it in this way.

Maybe I took this way too seriously and it's just supposed to be more of a horror comedy. I don't know, but it did not hit the mark for me.

This film would've been much more effective if it had been reduced down to a short horror as part of an anthology rather than trying to sustain itself as a full length feature.

...but never really delivered. It is nonetheless a commentary, though extreme, on the impact of bullying and the bulltish of the influencer phenomonon. Described as a horror comedy, I wondered if the latter term was inadvertent. All that said, a very good cast...variously sweet (Aisha Dee and Hannah Barlow - great) and genuinely horrible (Emily De Margheriti, Daniel Monks and Grace Barrett, as a terribly unsympathetic psychologist).

Good plot. I wouldn't consider it a horror movie, more of a gore or suspense movie. I found somewhere that it was categorized under "comedy", but I think it's not part of that genre at all.

I don't like watching new movies in general, but I don't regret giving this one a chance. I love that they used a "mental health activist" influencer to portray narcissistic personality disorder. Beyond the development of the film, these influencers are some of the worst things about social media, and I think it's great that they use it to show that "not everything you see is reality".

The ending is twistedly brilliant.

How is this movie ranked so high? I hope whoever made this trailer got paid more than anybody because that's about as good as this movie ever gets.

The lead, aisha dee wasn't really the problem. She was fine but you could see she has some chops and likely could have been better but she was obviously held back by the director kane senes. Let's hope kane makes this his last horror movie because he's pretty bad at it. That bathroom scene alone was one of the dumbest kills i have ever seen.

Worth the watch? Eh... judging by these other reviews, if you are utterly desperate and brand spanking new to 'horror' movies maybe you'll see things differently but if you have seen at least one horror movie in your life you can't possibly give this movie more than a four or a five.

I have this a three because i have seen more than one horror movie in my life.

"Sissy" is like an Australian slasher version of "Ingrid Goes West".

It involves a young woman who is a moderately successful influencer with a brand that focuses on airy-fairy self-improvement nonsense of the kind that used to be Oprah Winfrey's stock in trade (remember The Secret?).

The young woman, Cecilia (formerly known by the nickname Sissy) has a weird, intense chance meeting with her childhood best friend, Emma. Cecilia seems totally uninterested in re-establishing this friendship, and we don't blame her: she has two hundred thousand YouTube followers, so who needs real friends? Plus, Emma seems weird and clingy.

The movie takes a bizarre gear change in the next scenes where Cecilia does decide to reunite with Emma, and a group of people who include her old childhood bully.

Immediately, the paradigm has shifted between Cecilia and Emma. Before, Cecilia didn't seem interested. Now, it's Emma.

Emma's friends bully Cecilia similarly to how they did in the copious childhood flashbacks.

They ignore her, and when she captures their attention, they attack her sense of self as someone who is valuable to her "followers", just as they attacked her as "Sissy" when she wanted to be known as Cecilia.

Eventually, the bodies start piling up, notably at first because somebody's artificial life online is threatened by reality. One of the deaths is hard to swallow. Someone drowns, in a bathtub, having their hair ripped down the plughole?

The ending reminded me of "Ingrid Goes West", which in turn, reminded me of "Taxi Driver". This society drives the main characters in each movie to unspeakable deeds, and then rewards them for these. In "Sissy" the one being rewarded is able to use the violent deaths of several people in a fabricated story that only further cements her role as an amazing wellspring of information about how to mentally survive incredible struggle.

"Sissy" is good, and its finale is impressive, but it lost some points with me due to the weird gear change at the beginning of the movie. It felt like the plot needed the movie to go somewhere the characters wouldn't realistically take it. It was a similar situation with one of the deaths. Either the plot got in the way of the characters, or vice versa.

The climax reveals what really happened between Cecilia and Emma, and it only makes the reunion between them all the more bizarre.

Ugh.

Mean girls reignite an old conflict at a sleep over party in the woods.

One dimensional characters, goofy, silly violence, attempts at social commentary, and a scattershot plot makes this film a great film to ignore.

It just went nowhere. I felt no affinity for any of the characters.

It is a horror comedy with no horror or comedy. Just a few ham-fisted PC warnings on the dangers of teen bullying, and an examination of the self affirmation movement.

I felt a resentment bubbling up inside of me and I was hoping the characters would die in ugly and graphic ways just for revenge for them being in this inane story.

Just really boring and slightly insulting.

This isn't a dark horror movie with low vibe, it's actually the opposite if that makes sense. The tone is upbeat yet dark and the plot deals with childhood trauma for 2 of the primary leads. Both well acted I might add.

The film is well directed with some clever death scenes and once you see the first gore you know it's gonna be like that the rest of the way. I clapped because you'll see when they set it up that have a choice on the first death scene to go full gore or go PG13.

I'll probably watch this one again soon. It's plot structure is clean and they had flashbacks and time change the right way. I also think the lead actor "sissy" has a VERY bright future ahead of her. I get some shades of Florence Pugh style acting honestly. 8/10.

It kicks off as a sort of YA drama with some effective cringe moments. It's painfully of the times, going through a checklist of modern buzzwords and social media references. However, it handles this with tact, and while some of the social commentary may be a little on the nose, it finds clever ways to lampoon mental health opportunists and showcase the contrast between internal and external personas.

Then it goes off the rails into full blown horror, and doesn't hold back on some surprisingly brutal kill scenes. Once it takes off, it's a bit predictable, but still fun to watch play out. It illuminates the terror with a tapestry of well composed visuals and a dark sense of humour. Aisha Dee is fantastic as the title character, garnering a strange sympathy as things become increasingly unhinged. An unexpected gem.

I love Aussie comedy/horror movies. Not this one.

While it looks good, it's a simply dreadful movie. Slower than mollasses, predictiable and unfortunately extraordinariy boring.

The acting is fine, but the story lacks substance and is filled with silly film conventions like turning the camera upside down in a failed attempt to be creative.

Then there are the silly flashbacks to her days in chidhood. It's meant to forward the narrative, but it just makes it all the more boring.

I had a difficult time focusing -- or was that staying awake?

Oh, and BTW the movie looks like it was made for very little money. Another reason it was horrible.

The gore is a bit excessive and the music is a bit too loud during dialog, but otherwise the production values are very good. Sissy is not entirely predictable and it's different. The acting is good, the writing is believable, but it just doesn't stand out over anything else. It doesn't take itself too seriously, and it's not too campy. It's not boring, but it's not rewarding to watch either. It's just a movie. I won't watch it again and I won't tell anyone it's must see, but it's not the kind of film you start but decide you can't possibly finish. If you're looking for a movie to watch and you're really not sure what to watch, you may enjoy it. But you won't remember it.

A compelling conception marred by sub-par acting and a godawful selection of music!

Everything was going terrific in the first half, it was well en route to becoming one of if not the most fascinating features regarding Gen-Z, I have so far witnessed this year! I was quite amused, I dug the tale as well as the drama that was gradually coming into existence.

Right then, a tragedy strikes (I am citing the first 'big' incident), and everything changes. Not only the narration lost its mystical essence, but it also transitioned (in a surprising manner) to a ridiculous, over-the-top get-up, that got worse as time progressed, which I did not buy into, at all!

Yes, there is some good utilization of gore, the concept itself, as I pointed out earlier, was something that caught my attention, but still I believe it failed to attain its absolute potential. Look, there is plenty to like and wonder at, yes, however with a more capable ensemble, things could have been a whole lot nicer, I reckon.