The first directorial effort by Dasha Nekrasova is a nice slab of Rosemary's Baby-esque psychological horror with nods to exploitation flicks as well. Nekrasova co-wrote the screenplay with Madeline Quinn and the pair star in the film along with Betsey Brown. Shot on real film - 16mm!! - it really has late 60s/early 70s horror movie vibes.
Addie and Noelle move into an apartment in New York City. We see early on how their friendship is strained with Noelle doing a mean girl routine. One night a mysterious woman shows up. Ignored at first, she returns and finds a confidant in Noelle after revealing that she is investigating Jeffrey Epstein and suspects that Noelle's apartment was the site of some of Epstein's sex trafficking activities.
Noelle and the woman, who is never named, fall into a conspiracy rabbit hole of QAnon proportions while Addie descends into madness in a way that brings Anna from Possession to mind.
A couple scenes stand out as being particularly disturbing. The first is when Noelle and the woman test a theory about the apartment's, shall we say, suitability for erotic asphyxiation. Second is the scene where Addie is having sex with her boyfriend and suddenly discovers that she has a predilection for ageplay. I am so used to seeing men perpetrate horrors and demand things of women in bed but that is not the case here. This is a movie that stars 3 women and, while men may have a presence that lingers in the background or help out from behind the scenes, it remains gynocentric.
While I suppose there is a lot to be had here about women, men in power, abuse, and whatnot, I found it enjoyable as a piece of horror.
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