Chloe's Not Scared

I had the pleasure of attending the 11th Annual Chicago Critics Film Festival this past week. It was my first film festivals that I’ve attended in earnest, and it was exhausting and fun. I saw some amazing movies– nothing was boring or bad, truly. I was delighted to be invited to the festival by my friend Jim Laczkowski, who has been a huge supporter of my work in the horror sphere. I also got to accompany my friends Lauren and Tom from my book club to a few screenings (they are film-lovers and members of The Music Box, CCFF’s home), and met a few new people too! 

I can’t say anything about the Chicago Critics Film Festival that hasn’t already been said perfectly by Jim: “I want this to continue to succeed and grow. There is something for everybody and nearly every Q&A is memorable.” Besides the exhaustion and eating popcorn for dinner 4 nights in a row, I really enjoyed my experience and I’m sure I’ll be able to sleep when I’m dead! Without further ado, here are my highlights of the CCFF 2024 (horror to the front, obviously). 

I Saw The TV Glow (2024), dir. Jane Schoenbrun

My favorite film of this year’s CCFF is also probably going to be one of my favorite horror movies, period. It’s the story that spoke to me significantly about queer identity, fandom pre and post internet, millennials coming of age and it may have even also convinced me to give David Lynch another shot (he’s hit and miss for me, but I love Twin Peaks). I’m talking about I Saw the TV Glow, from We’re All Going to the World’s Fair director Jane Schoenbrun. I’ll try to keep this brief, as I’d like to see this movie again and write about it in length.

Set in 1996, two teenagers, 7th grader Owen (Justice Smith) and 9th grader Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Payne), strike up a friendship over the Buffy-esque tv series The Pink Opaque. They trade VHS tapes, episode guides and theories. Years later, reunited in their early 20’s, Owen and Maddy attempt to re-contextualize their relationship to the show. I don’t want to spoil the plot too much, but the “easter eggs” of nostalgia, like the parachute in gym class or playing MASH, add a very special touch. This movie is saturated with musical stars as well, like King Woman, Phoebe Bridgers, Jay Som and Caroline Polachek, who all wrote original songs for the film. Watch the I Saw The TV Glow trailer here.

Sleep (2023), dir. Jason Yu

My second-favorite horror movie of the fest was Sleep, which was shown as a midnight screening (as if we could sleep after that!). Jung Yu-mi and Lee Sun-kyun star as Soo-jin and Hyun-su, a young married couple about to give birth to their first child. Hyun-su begins having night terrors and sleepwalking, much to Soo-jin’s horror. Soon, Hyun-su’s behavior turns increasingly erratic and violent, but only in his sleep. Soo-jin is terrified that once the baby is born, he will unknowingly do something to hurt it… or her. Enlisting the help of her mother, Soo-jin hires an exorcist to investigate the potential supernatural being attached to her husband.

Sleep disorders are terrifying, full stop. And when you add a potential haunting to the mix, that’s even more scary. The two lead actors have so much chemistry! They are always cracking little jokes with each other. It’s clear that they are in love, which makes their haunting story even more heartbreaking. I also liked to see a hetero couple where the woman aspires to be a CEO and the man is an actor. The exorcist is campy and wonderful, very much who you would expect if you were to hire a ghost hunter in any culture. There is some animal abuse in this film, so be warned! Watch the Sleep trailer here.

Cuckoo (2024), dir. Tilman Singer

Hunter Schafer stars in this German-US co-production set in the Bavarian Alps. Gretchen (Schafer), a surly teen, accompanies her dad, her stepmother and her younger stepsister (who is mute) to their new home in Germany on the site of a popular vacation resort for European tourists. There, they meet Mr. König, the head of the resort (played by the campy and sincere Dan Stevens). After getting hired as the resort’s receptionist, Gretchen begins seeing a mysterious woman in a trenchcoat and glasses lurking around. And that’s only the beginning of the terror.

Cuckoo holds its own next to Sweeney’s Immaculate, both Argento-inspired horrors starring the gals from Euphoria. But much like the film Atomic Blonde, I felt kind of icky watching a young woman just get beat up over and over again. Still, this movie is very silly and fast paced. Not everything is resolved and not everything has a motivation, but it’s so fun that I don’t care! Both Hunter Schafer and Dan Stevens are so good in their respective roles. I could see Cuckoo becoming a slumber party staple or a classic midnight movie with time. Do all the loose ends get tied up? Absolutely not! But if you want an experience akin to Malignant, go see Cuckoo. On a personal note, I just got back from a trip in the German Alps and… yes, this is exactly what it was like. The atmosphere of a Bavarian tourist town is spot-on (everything felt 35mm, if that makes sense), and the weird friendliness of Germans is definitely something we experienced with our Air Bnb host (who kept referring to himself in the third person). Watch the trailer for Cuckoo here.

Oddity (2024), dir. Damian McCarthy

I didn’t get a chance to see this movie at CCFF but everyone who saw it told me that they loved it. It immediately skyrocketed to the top of my to-watch list. This one has it all- haunted houses, home invasions, slashers, psychological horror, dread, unease, and a creepy wooden man. So obviously as a horror fan and certified Puppet Person™, I need to write a formal recommendation. 

Dani (Carol Bracken) and Ted (Gwilyn Lee) live in a remote house in Ireland. After a violent home invasion in which Dani is killed, Darcy (Dani’s blind sister, also played by Bracken) shows up at Ted’s doorstep with a strange gift: a wooden man screaming in pain. Darcy is also a psychic medium and claims that she can help communicate with the other side. I hear that the less you know about this one, the better, so I’ll leave it at that. No trailer for this one, but it will be available to stream on Shudder in the US in a few months! 

Handling the Undead (2024), dir. Thea Hvistendahl

Following up their roles in The Worst Person in the World, actors Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielson Lie star in this quiet melancholy zombie film based on the novel by John Ajvide Lundquist (who also wrote Let The Right One In). Anna (Reinsve) is mourning the loss of her son. When her father brings him home from the graveyard, she doesn’t quite know what to do. Comedian David (Danielson Lie) receives a phone call that his wife is in the hospital after a severe accident. However, when he arrives, his wife had literally come back from the dead. Other deceased loved ones keep popping up, but not all of them are harmless.

As I said before, this is a quiet horror that is more of a meditation on grief than anything zombie-related. Unfortunately, I don’t think it does anything very “new” or exciting with the genre, and it fell a bit flat for me. However, this is a perfectly serviceable feature with great acting, an uneasy premise, some heartfelt moments and some scary moments too. There is a prolonged scene of animal abuse, so please venture in cautiously. Watch the trailer for Handling the Undead here.

Gasoline Rainbow (2023), dir. Bill Ross IV & Turner Ross

I absolutely fell in love with the Ross Brothers’ film Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets about a dive bar and its regulars, but I think I liked Gasoline Rainbow even more. As the name suggests, this is a road trip movie, part documentary-style film- Gasoline Rainbow follows five older teenagers as they embark on one last adventure (“before we have to get jobs”). Micah, Nathaly, Makai, Tony and Nichole are not related, but they are as close as siblings. “We grew up together,” one of them explains to a patron at a restaurant. The five meet people wherever they go and seem relatively nonplussed when the car breaks down or when they run out of money. They always have a fully-charged phone and beautiful optimism to guide them to “the end of the world” (aka Portland, their ultimate destination). 

This movie moved me, and not just because I was sitting behind an entire row of teenagers, seemingly from a Boys and Girls Club who were accompanied by a grown up figure. I often think that things have changed so much since I was a kid, but watching Gasoline Rainbow, I guess things haven’t changed that much after all. Sure there are smart phones everywhere, but even so, five kids in a broken-down van, smoking pot out of an apple, going to strangers’ parties, hopping trains, looking out for each other… that stuff hasn’t changed one bit. This is my formal request for The Ross brothers to make a film about libraries! Watch the trailer for Gasoline Rainbow here.

Ghostlight (2024), dir. Alex Thompson & Kelly O’Sullivan

Ghostlight closed the festival this year and also ended up winning the Critics Choice for best feature. Of course with a Chicago cast and crew, you gotta pull out all the stops! The story follows Dan (Kevin Kupferer), a Chicago construction worker, who struggles with anger issues. His teen daughter Daisy (Katherine May Kupferer) is also struggling, and it soon becomes clear why. The family is grieving and don’t know how to process their immense feelings. When Dan gets recruited to be in a community theater production of ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ the family begins to heal. 

This is a Chicago story, through and through. I think when people work in the city or live in a city, it’s hard to find time to process emotions or deal with grief amidst the hustle and bustle. Building emotional regulation skills through the arts (perhaps through… filmgoing? As well?) is one way to do it. I was so moved by this story of a family who bonds over theater (which may or may not be my own “origin story”), I can’t recommend this movie highly enough. Plus, I saw some iconic Northwest Side buildings (shout out to The Bunny Hutch!). Watch the trailer for Ghostlight here.

The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (2023), dir. Benjamin Ree

This documentary about found family in online spaces is truly something special. Mats was a young man with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy that severely impacts his young life and ultimately leads to his death at age 25. His parents and sister are surprised to find that Mats’ immense social life was present through online gaming, specifically through World of Warcraft. Many of the transcripts of conversations said to other players in the game were archived and animated, so about half of the film was showing exactly what happened to Mats’ character Ibelin. Through this, we see firsthand that Ibelin touched so many lives.

The critic who introduced the film emphasized that we don’t normally see uplifting stories about an online community; it’s usually a lot more death and destruction. While, I haven’t played WOW but I kept thinking of my friends who have found a similar sort of camaraderie through the game. The documentary sets up Mats life a bit cynically, but as my friend posits, if the film revealed Mats’ friendships early on, would the thesis have as much as an impact? I’m not sure. All I know is that I don’t like WOW art. But other than that, this movie was really phenomenal. I don’t have the English language trailer on hand, but don’t worry- the film hits Netflix soon.

Good One (2024), dir. India Donaldson

Lilly Collias stars as Sam, embarking on a camping trip in the Catskills with her dad Chris (James Le Gros) and her dad’s longtime best friend Matt (Danny McCarthy). It becomes obvious that Lilly and her dad are more experienced campers than Matt, and I was worried the whole time that something terrible was going to happen. Matt overpacks, is dressed inappropriately and is always lagging behind. With long shots of Matt huffing and puffing behind the dad and daughter duo, the viewer is constantly nervous that he’s going to twist his ankle or something. But what happens is, in some ways, much worse. 

I have a bit of an issue with movies with the agenda of girl power. Not that I don’t love empowered women, but I think there are more inventive ways to tell this story. Age and gender come into play here a lot, but sexuality (Sam is a lesbian) and power dynamics as well as upbringing, the remote location, and mental health (Matt is newly divorced) are also in play. But gender is what is focused on the most, which is fine but I wanted some more nuanced or intersectional storytelling. Good One is being compared to Kelly Reichardt’s films and I think that’s very apt. India Donaldson definitely knows what she’s doing behind a camera. Watch the Good One trailer here.

Sing Sing (2023), dir. Greg Kwedar

This year’s opener Sing Sing hit hard with tons of laughs and by the end, not a dry eye in the house. Colman Domingo stars as Divine G, an intellectual and wrongfully-incarcerated man who is deeply involved in his prison’s theater program, Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA). When he recruits another inmate, tough guy Divine Eye (played by himself, Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin) to the program, the troupe begins rehearsal on a new comedy play directed by Brent (Paul Raci). Through this production, Divine G and Divine Eye must reconcile their strong, opposite personalities in order to put on the show and eventually plead their case for freedom.

Theater was a huge theme in this year’s festival, which is my bread and butter. I also love actors playing themselves to add authenticity to the on-screen community. This year’s festival featured a Q&A with some of the actors, including writer and actor Clarence Maclin and actor Sean “Dino” Johnson. Even the director Greg Kwedar was involved in the real-life RTA! Listening to the cast and crew speak about the production, it seemed like consent was prioritized during filming and there was even an on-site therapist listed in the credits. Bravo to trauma-informed filmmaking. Watch the Sing Sing trailer here.

Which movie are you most excited to see?