Sissy

As far as production goes, it was an impressive feat alone to have a newb young filmmaker Hannah Barlow co-write, co-direct, co-produce and star in this Australian low budget independent film. Very few seasoned filmmakers with big budgets can wear that many hats and pull it off. It was well shot and cast with convincing performances, especially Aisha Dee as Cecilia. It wasn't perfect by any means, but still a fun one-time watchable entry into the hugely done slasher genre. It certainly is geared more to the younger generation, especially the score, which definitely was your typical loud and overbearing B-film grade, but with added teen-tune melodies. The cinematography and gore visual effects were impressive. This film may not appeal to everyone, but it sure will be to all the TikTok'ers and the like.

I'm always up for a movie from Australia and this satirical comedy-horror constitutes another one worth seeing. It focuses in on an influencer who is invited to a hen weekend by a long lost pal. Things get complicated when she discovers that one of her old bullies is also going to be there.

This was a lot of fun, with a nice blend of comic antics with over-the-top - and well delivered - gory mayhem. The comic jabs at the influencer/social media culture were often pretty funny but its also not above having us get a good laugh at an annoying man on crutches being shoved off a cliff.

Aisha Dee is excellent as a twenty-something self-help social media infuencer who has some major personal isues.

Through flashbacks, we see Sissy(or Cecilia) as a child playing with her best friends as they proclaim a life long allegiance to each other.

They met years later and Sissy is invited to a magnificent house in the middle of nowhere. The host has had an unpleasant encounter with Sissy, which leads to bad feelings among the house guests.

The film is a bit of a slow burn with a sometimes funny backdrop with a message on our current fascination with the world of cyberspace "friendships" which are, of course, not real life.

Ms. Dee is convincing as the unstable young lady and she makes the movie well wort watching.

...but never really delivered. It is nonetheless a commentary, though extreme, on the impact of bullying and the bulltish of the influencer phenomonon. Described as a horror comedy, I wondered if the latter term was inadvertent. All that said, a very good cast...variously sweet (Aisha Dee and Hannah Barlow - great) and genuinely horrible (Emily De Margheriti, Daniel Monks and Grace Barrett, as a terribly unsympathetic psychologist).

You bump into a friend from long ago, she invites you to her hen night and you go, then a bachelorette weekend, it's so nice that you can spend, some time together, to reacquaint, go with the flow. Alas the place where you are staying has an another, a person from your past who caused a spot of bother, and there's clearly still a trace, from the scar that's on her face, of the grudge that she finds difficult to smother. Soon things start to go off course and quite awry, as tensions rise no matter how you try, to bury your resentment, pull away from hobbled descent and wash the tears from streaming, prying, crying eyes.

Cecilia finds catching up with old school acquaintances a little more challenging than she'd imagined, but with her rope of invincibility she does her best to pull through.

Great performances and a genuinely original take on an often encountered theme.