I BLAME SOCIETY
US, 2020, 84 minutes, Colour.
Gillian Wallace Horvat, Keith Poulson, Chase Williamson, Lucas Kavner, Morgan Krantz, Alexia Rasmussen, Jennifer Kim, Devon Graye, Garrett Coffey, Jonny Mars, Macon Blair.
Directed by Gillian Wallace Horvat.
This is an extremely idiosyncratic film. It is the work of writer-director, performer, Gillian Wallace Horvat.
The focus is on Gillian, using her own name, talking with her partner, Chase, about making a personal movie. What attracts her is that Chase’s girlfriend, whom she nicknames Stalin, has made a comment about her qualities as a killer. Chase listens to her proposal, becoming more and more bemused about her plans to make such a film, opts out.
The action moves forward three years, Gillian in a relationship with Keith, with whom she discusses her projects, whom she also films at home, in discussion, in sexual activity. Ultimately, Keith will give up on her. She is recommended to meet with two producers of independent films, lots of discussions, offbeat suggestions, Gillian encouraged.
Then, she sets out to start her film, actually to murder, proud of herself as she disguises herself as blonde, eventually cutting and redesigning her hair, provocative with her clothing, driving around scouting locations. She encounters quite a number of men, those whom she disapproves of. However, she meets up again with Chase, goes on a walk with him, upbraids him for still wanting to marry Stalin. He then has a choking fit and it emerges that she has given him a bagel with sesame seeds to which he has an allergy. She films all this, including his death and her callously not giving him an injection to counterbalance the allergy until he is dead. Later, when Stalin asks her for Chase’s last words, she taunts her, omitting a deathly gurgle.
When she has realised how easy it is to kill, she sets off on her spree in earnest, on the one hand killing men that she considers deserving of death, including one man talking about insurance, talking down his date, Gillian making a date and then killing him. She also explains her situation to an innocent man so that she will not make an easy profile for the police, killing an innocent man. She also attacks an actress of whom she is jealous. There is also a man who listens with eager bemusement to her stories – and is then killed.
Ultimately, she confronts Keith and Stalin, eventually breaking into Stalin’s house (she has perfected techniques of break-ins), poisons her, immerses her in a bath, cuts out all her organs to donate to good causes!
Ultimately, the two producers tell her that they think she has been setting women’s causes back by her story. And, of course, it’s for them to die as well.
The director has said she found it very difficult to make a film, working within the systems, male domination. This is an allegory of her self-assertion – and probably some wishful thinking!
