I Blame Society (2021)
I Blame Society is the ultimate vanity project.
That’s not a criticism, especially when you consider that filmmaker Gillian Wallace Horvat may be so secure in her sense of self that she can co-write, direct, and star in a faux-documentary about a struggling L.A. documentarian named Gillian Wallace Horvat whose only path to success is recording herself murdering people.
The real Horvat is so confident that she can make the most unflattering self-portrait seem absolutely fabulous.
Off-beat, fictitious serial killer docs are nothing new. From the cult-indie gem Behind the Mask to the unspeakably graphic (and possibly illegal nowadays) August Underground, horror’s appetite for simulated-reality content is about as ravenous as television’s cravings for “real” millionaire housewives.
There are two key differences here: First, Horvath is a woman, and we don’t get very many lead female psychos in the genre.* Second, I Blame Society presents itself as a cringe-comedy satire in the vein of The Office, while also paying homage to American Psycho as its comic narrative devolves into mayhem in its closing moments.
The results aren’t always tidy, but that’s part of the charm. After having lost an agent who couldn’t sell her latest script, and desperate to come up with something new, the fictitious Gillian revisits an old idea that various friends had put in her head: that she’d make a great serial killer.
When taking a meeting with two cartoonishly woke (yet somehow chillingly believable) male studio execs, Gillian hears the buzzwords “strong female lead”, “diversity”, and “intersectionality”, and instantly believes she’s found a home for her as-yet-produced magnum opus.
She begins documenting a life of escalating illegalities, from shoplifting to stalking to full-on home burglary—eventually stumbling into her first actual kill. Meanwhile, her exasperated film-editor boyfriend, Keith (Keith Poulson) begins to notice a shadow creeping into Gillian’s quirky artistic spirit. Between setting up hidden cameras in their apartment and flying off the handle as her own guilty conscience rears its inconvenient head, it becomes clear that the love of his life is turning into a bit of a creep.
Speaking of which, I’d like to pull over and heap a bit of praise on Mr. Poulson—praise that might mean very little outside my own movie-critic head. I’ve only seen the actor in the films of Bob Byington, in which he often plays a cold, distant, entitled jerk. Under Horvat’s direction, Poulson shines as a guy whose warmth is revealed through conflict, and whose best efforts to save his girlfriend from a crisis he can’t even begin to comprehend are as endearing as they are futile.
It is through this contrast that I Blame Society’s ironic thesis plays out. By catering to what she thinks will sell, Gillian puts her “authentic self” in jeopardy. She’s not a killer until she becomes one, and neither her psyche nor her film can withstand the resulting psychic break of crossing that line. Gillian thinks of herself as a strong, independent woman whose rampage of social justice-inspired killings will garner her acclaim from all the right people—never once considering that the bodies strewn about her grisly footage aren’t dummies or CGI creations, but actual evidence of crimes.
This isn’t a fall from grace for the movie version of Gillian. Rather it’s kicking over an already stirred-up hornet’s nest. Professional insecurity, big-picture loneliness, and personal jealousy (as embodied by a tumultuous relationship with platonic best friend [and real-life co-writer/actor] Chase Williamson) all become enflamed as Gillian’s path toward redemption narrows, leaving its main character as much of a mixed bag as the movies in which she is both making and starring.
Back to vanity. On one level, Horvat’s film is an uneven, tonally challenged calling card for an emerging talent with a gift for thinking outside the box. Dig just a bit deeper, though, and you’ll find a brilliant representation of Millennial malaise, as much a confession of confusion as an expression of wild imagination. Scenes drag; humor waffles between uncomfortable and sadistic; sympathies shift from scene to scene and sometimes from moment to moment.
Even as Gillian’s hopefulness crumbles under the weight of the toxicity she claims to rail against, I never doubted that I was watching a character worth rooting for (or at the very least caring about) on some level; if only her creative energies hadn’t been poisoned by destructive impulses, maybe she could have effected the changes she’d wanted to see in her personal life, in Hollywood, in the world.
Horvat achieves this by crafting a film that succeeds by crumbling under the weight of its main character’s corruption. She has Gillian kill off her own humanity but doesn’t allow her to realize a death has even occurred. In a society guided by shifting narratives and illusory economics, is it any wonder that murder is modernity’s best metaphor?
*Oddly enough, the ones we do get tend to garner mainstream praise: Charlize Theron took home an Oscar for her portrayal of Aileen Wuornos in Monster, and Carey Mulligan may do the same for her turn in last year’s Promising Young Woman.
If you’d like to learn more about I Blame Society, check out my interview with Gillian Wallace Horvat on the Kicking the Seat YouTube channel.
