Sissy is not the type of horror film I’d usually get excited about. I’m not a fan of horror-comedies and this one seemed aimed at the millennials. So after the first time watching the trailer, I decided to give Sissy a pass.

But the title kept showing up in articles I was reading and I began to wonder more and more about what I might be missing. 

So, on a disappointing night where one film I hoped to watch suddenly became inaccessible and the subtitled slow-burn I replaced it with just wasn’t doing it for me- I felt the need to make a hard reset in order to salvage my movie night. Then I thought again of Sissy. 

Turns out, Sissy is a pretty great film. Night saved.

Sissy is the debut feature by directors Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes. It is an Australian offering that is much more quirky than what normally comes to mind when I think of Aussie horror. That’s not to say it isn’t not gory. I mean there’s this one inspired scene involving a tire and another with…awe just see it for yourself.

Sissy follows a young woman named Cecilia (Aisha Dee) who has made a career out of being a self-help influencer. From the onset, it is revealed that Cecilia’s clean, calculated and controlled social media image contrasts sharply with her somewhat slobish real-life as a shut-in. 

At this point, I’d like to make an interjection. A lot of people online write about how Sissy acts as a satire about the hypocrisy of influencers. But what I find much more interesting is how Barlow and Senes simultaneously reveal that Cecilia’s occupation is actually a response to a severely traumatic incident she experienced in childhood. From the little we are shown, it appears Cecilia has unconsciously traded away physical friends for online followers and human interactions for validations found in her comments section. (And I run my own website. Hmm.) Sure her online life is a falsehood that profits off others, but it is within this contained bubble that Cecilia has found the means to cope. And when alone and in distress she actually does take her own advice. 

So it makes sense that Cecilia’s first impulse is to run when she sees Emma, her best friend growing up, in line at a local pharmacy. But alas, the poor girl can’t get out of the store in time and before you know it Cecilia finds herself invited to her old friend’s engagement party and later, her bachelorette party.

At first, Sissy- I mean Cecilia- is absolutely glowing after her chance reunion with Emma. Though the friendship died in their tweens, Emma’s coming marriage has made her nostalgic and she wants her old friend to be there as she starts the next chapter in her life. But things take a dark turn when she learns that Alex Kutis, a girl who bullied her in childhood, will also be going to Emma’s bachelorette retreat.

Needless to say, Cecilia does not end up keeping her shit together.

Sissy does a fantastic job at straddling the line between descent into madness and revenge fantasy. (Some other examples of films that have achieved this are Brian de Palma’s Carrie and Lucky McKee’s May. That’s some good company.) Is Cecilia a murderous villain or an unfortunate anti-hero? Barlow and Senes do an excellent job depicting her as both. That’s because the childhood trauma that Sissy explores is actually a common event- that moment a friend picks the more popular kid over them. It is an event most have experienced, though not always from Cecilia’s vantage. 

And it doubles as a metaphor for what getting canceled must feel like, something Cecilia has no interest in experiencing a second time.

But Sissy- I mean Cecilia- is not the only character fixated on the past. The script shows that Emma and Alex are still stuck there too. Emma tries to force this impossible reconciliation in part to make herself feel better about her own role in the past betrayal. And Alex continues to have a deep seeded desire to expose and ostracize the weirdo ruining the party vibe. She sees Cecilia in the same way she did when she was twelve.

As for everyone else, they are all just collateral damage substituting for those who sided with Alex in childhood.

Sissy provides an interesting case study- but it also raises a few questions that don’t get answered. (Par for the course with psychological thrillers.) Was Cecilia the victim of racism as a child? To what degree, if any, was Cecilia’s childhood alienation her own fault? Does she have a romantic interest in Emma? These are all questions that, if answered, would have significant implications on how to interpret the plot, but not having definitive answers gives us something to chew on after the credits.

With Sissy, Barlow and Senes have created a fun, delicious dark comedy about how childhood trauma can lead to tragic repercussions in adulthood. Sure, there is an abundance of commentary about the inauthentic nature of influencers- including an interesting conversation about the ethicality of Cecilia’s posts since she lacks any real credentials- but it is how Barlow and Senes incorporates this morally complicated character into an unraveling horror that makes Sissy really shine. 

And I imagine that for anyone who was bullied as a child, there might even be something cathartic seeing Sissy- I mean Cecilia- lay waste to Emma’s bachelorette retreat.