There have been more than a few social media-themed films in recent years, which is entirely to be expected: in modern life, there’s a widening schism between people who see the constant creep of content creation as quite normal, and those weirded out by such a seismic shift in how people conduct their lives (and make their money). To date, though, even the horror films about this phenomenon have tended more towards realism, albeit a realism which seems improbable or odd to many. Headcase (2025) is the leap forward we’ve been waiting for, blending those same recognisable pressures and concerns with something more fantastical. The result is bloodier, funnier and more provocative, without ever losing sight of the bigger picture.
As the film starts, we’re immediately presented with clear evidence of the disconnect between the groups of people identified above; there’s a girl dancing around for a livestream, her phone on a tripod, getting in the way of a fellow pedestrian just trying to use the footpath without catching a flailing arm in the eye. We also hear a voicemail, this time being left for our protagonist, asking her for a call back – if she can fit it in around her content creation, of course, which her mother, making the call, admits she doesn’t fully ‘get’. The content creator in question is Kylie (Siobhan Connors). Kylie’s real name is Karen, and the film trusts us to understand why that wouldn’t be a great name for a successful influencer. We stick with Kylie, who – taking a phone call at the wheel – accidentally strikes and kills someone.
She’s horrified, but her phone’s always ringing, and this time when she picks up, she finds out that her agent has arranged a potentially career-making meeting that evening with a potential new brand partner. Kylie has to choose between dealing with this tragic situation properly, or mining it, too, for clicks and going to the meeting anyway – a meeting which could take her earning power sky-high. Unlike the first person we see in this film, Kylie’s thing is mental health. Everyone loves a mental health journey, right? And what could be more triggering than ‘discovering’ a severed (oh – severed now?) head?
You’d be forgiven for thinking that a dead body in the road would be as low – and as grisly – as Kylie’s day could get, then you’d be forgiven for thinking she’d gone that extra bit too far but surely that would be it, but the film really kicks into a higher gear when the content itself fights back.
Headcase doesn’t play around with its central message, opting for a bold and overt approach whereby there ends up a dialogue between content creator and content. It’s grisly and comedic as well as deliberately challenging and discomfiting, but there’s solid storytelling here too, with solid twists and turns across the film’s runtime. Whilst there are some shades, in places, of Dans Ma Peau (the horrors of a workplace meeting falling apart) and even a nod to Joker in one spot, what Headcase does brilliantly is to tease apart two competing strands: the genuine experience of mental health problems, and the representation – or even exploitation – of mental health discourse on social media.
The film is well-versed in the correct parlance: the ‘mental health journey’, trauma, PTSD, and also in how you need to regularly declare your conditions to keep the clicks coming. It’s a popular, often simplistic approach to mental health management which is often at best a disservice and at worst a real source of harm to those who may prefer to handle things differently. Not for nothing does Kylie stop off to cry-act into her phone about her new trauma; it’s part of her brand, and it’s a balancing act which even she gets wrong at the dinner table, with disastrous results. But the film makes you wonder: even without this crisis, how long could she have kept up the discourse before the very real cracks started to form? Headcase combines moments of brutal horror with an often funny, grotesque but recognisable central narrative, following someone for whom the need for attention overtakes all other considerations.
Headcase featured on 26th July at this year’s Fantasia Film Festival.