Review by Ben Bussey
A young woman stands in front of a mirror in her underwear. Anyone in their right mind would agree she looks beautiful, and yet as she runs her eyes up and down her body her insecurity is written all over her face; seeing nothing but flaws, she is deeply uncomfortable, and unhappy in her own skin. Just what absurd, unattainable ideal does she aspire to that makes her feel this way – and what would she be prepared to do to reach it? So begins an intriguing parable on the drive for fame and glory, and the monstrosity it can bring out of ostensibly decent people.
The aforementioned young woman is an aspiring Hollywood actress named Sarah (Alex Essoe). When not waiting tables at a Hooters-esque restaurant, she’s attending auditions and classes left and right in desperate pursuit of her dream; and in the little downtime she has she’s hanging out with her friends, all of whom are in the same boat, endlessly discussing the movies they want to make but can’t seem to make happen. However, when the opportunity arises to audition for a new horror movie from a long-established production company, Sarah doesn’t hesitate giving it a shot. Soon she finds herself face to face with two poker-faced casting agents (a sinister Maria Olsen, and a wonderfully slimy cameo from Marc Senter) – but when it doesn’t go as well as she’d hoped, Sarah retreats to the bathroom and inadvertently lets out her frustrations in a primal scream. Hearing this, the casting agents decide to give her another shot – and soon it looks like she just might have her foot in the door after all. However, as further auditions take progressively more unorthodox and sinister forms, Sarah is forced to ask herself just how far she’s willing to go – and we’re compelled to wonder just what it is she’s really auditioning for.
As Starry Eyes was screened at Celluloid Screams straight after Chocolate Strawberry Vanilla (reviewed here), one immediately notes certain parallels between the two films. Both are intensely character-based, focusing almost entirely on a lone protagonist who we follow on a downward spiral into despair and self-destruction. Not unlike how CSV’s Warren decorates the interior of his ice cream van with photos of his soap opera dream woman, Starry Eyes’ Sarah covers her bedroom walls with black and white portraits of classic screen sirens; while her collage would seem less explicitly sexual in its motivation, both embody the desire spurring the characters on, something seemingly greater than the life they know, which they think will make them complete. Both films begin from a grounded starting point and go on to blur the lines between fantasy and reality; but in this respect, Starry Eyes pushes things a good bit further, venturing beyond the domain of psychological drama into full-on supernatural horror territory. Its core message isn’t necessarily anything too ground-breaking – Hollywood celebrity status is a corrosive lie that steals the very soul of those who fall prey to it – yet it presents this in a fascinating and compelling manner, hinting at a rich, dark mythology beneath the surface which we get the barest glimpse of here.
Another more readily apparent reference point would of course be Black Swan, in which Natalie Portman’s ballerina undergoes similar psychological trauma in her drive to become a legend in her field, but where in Aronofsky’s film the bulk of the character’s ordeals would seem to be entirely in her head, at least some portion of what Sarah goes through would seem to be very real. And most importantly for our purposes, Starry Eyes whole-heartedly embraces the horror aspects which Black Swan only flirted with (balls to Oscar-baiting/mainstream acceptance!) The whole enterprise is only a black-gloved-finger’s nudge away from slipping into full-on Italian horror homage, with the shadow of Argento hanging over everything from the atmospheric synthesizer score (echoes of Drive and Maniac here also), the flashes of surrealism, the striking use of colour and shade, and indeed the look of pale skinned, dark haired lead actress Alex Essoe.
Happily, writer-director duo Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer prove rather more adept at presenting three-dimensional female roles than old Dario, and they made an excellent choice for the role in Essoe. The fact that she comes to this role as an unknown only makes it easier to accept her as a greenhorn, swamped with self-doubt yet burning with ambition. This is one of those roles that most young actors crave, one that really puts them through the full ringer – from joy to despair, sexy to ugly, insecurity to insanity – and Essoe squeezes it for all it’s worth, without ever lapsing into melodrama. She also has some excellent support; as well as the aforementioned Marc Senter and Maria Olsen, we have a wonderfully sinister turn from Louis Deszeran (not Ray Wise from Twin Peaks as I’d initially thought) as a producer. Starry Eyes also becomes a mini-Red White & Blue reunion, for as well as Senter we also have Amanda Fuller as Sarah’s well-meaning roommate. Fabianne Therese (John Dies at the End) gives another of the most compelling supporting performances as the ‘frenemy’ whose rivalry with Sarah grows steadily more intense throughout.
Still, there are definitely complaints that can be made of Starry Eyes, the most glaring of which is its perhaps slightly misguided lapse into rather predictable splatter territory in the final scenes. While these gruesome moments are certainly well-handled (even provoking a few audible gasps from what you’d assume to be a comparatively hardened horror festival audience), they do feel like a bit of a concession to expectation when all that went before played with genre conventions in an interesting and fairly unpredictable way. The conclusion that follows seems likely to leave audiences divided, though curiously I can imagine some viewers might consider it too weird, whilst others might not think it was quite weird enough. The cinematography may also be a bit of a problem; naturally there’s a lot of darkness in the movie, but at times it’s a little too dark to really follow what’s going on (that said, I’m not sure if there was perhaps a slight issue with the print Celluloid Screams were given, as the image seemed a little too dim throughout).
As I said earlier, when it comes down to it the underlying message of Starry Eyes is pretty straightforward, and not particularly new: the single-minded pursuit of fame and fortune is unhealthy, and likely to take far more away from a person than it gives. Even so, as a breakthrough feature for both actress Essoe and writer-directors Kolsch and Widmyer, Starry Eyes highlights some real talents whom I very much hope will pursue their film careers further. That said, I bloody well hope the directors turn down Texas Chainsaw prequel Leatherface, to which they have been linked; and I certainly hope that no one involved in this film had to undergo quite the same ordeal as Sarah to make it this far…
Starry Eyes is released to cinemas in VOD in the US on November 14th, via Dark Sky Films. In the UK, it will be screened at Nottingham’s Mayhem Festival on 1st November, and at Abertoir in Aberystwyth on 16th November.