For director Thibault Emin’s shocking and melancholy feature debut, “Else” reimagines the “call coming from inside the house” as the very atoms making up the house itself.
What begins as an overstayed welcome between two new lovers — awkwardly fooling around in the path of a metaphysical apocalypse — blooms into a surreal, ever-scarier, and ever-changing look at the emotion of transhumanism. That’s the belief that our species will eventually evolve into something else and, at least as theorized here, could include not only your sentient one-night stand but any bedroom furniture they’ve been lounging on as well.
This French body horror, premiered at TIFF Midnight Madness, smartly doubles as a requiem for the identities we lose to messy connections forged in times of dire need. The narrative is overthought and can appear almost too stylish at points, with a vivid color palette that snaps into black-and-white midway before turning yellow by the end. It’s hard to tell if that’s a gutsy choice or just covering up seams in this semi-practical and ambitious special effects effort. But as human bones become literal building blocks, and dense-but-intentional dialogue is plastered on top of that, you’ll struggle to find another arthouse film so thoughtfully asking: What if we turned that guy into a sidewalk?
In the musky aftertaste of ill-advised sex, the diametrically opposed Anx Gulman (Matthieu Sampeur) and Cass Nozychka (Edith Proust) have just met. Their odd coupling is strong enough to suggest the horror here is stranger danger at first. That’s especially true when Cass heads back to Anx’s apartment without warning, after the city goes on lockdown, and she’s escorted upstairs to her so-called “home” by police. He’s a walking-talking 35-year-old panic attack who mostly kept to himself before the skin-eating Armageddon. She’s a sloppy party girl and an off-duty teacher who will be getting oral sex whenever she wants — contagion be damned. What could go wrong? It seems like a lot.
After the real COVID-19 pandemic, the horrors of isolated cohabitation are known to countless couples, past and present, but a psychosexual thriller this is not. “Else” subverts expectations as a mostly two-hander that explores big doomsday implications from within the interactions and perspectives of its ultra-limited cast. Their sultry spur-of-the-moment sleepover kicks off with a sequence shot on hand-held that shows Anx and Cass gleefully goofing around like they’re in a dystopian music video. Offscreen neighborly voices emerge through the vents and the duo’s microuniverse finds even more quaint joy in updates about a dog from upstairs.
But the setting is small too and the end of the world quickly arrives at the building’s front door for a second half that lands like an existential roof collapse. Power outages, supply shortages, and monster attacks cut the merriment short, but Anx and Cass are an adequate team for a while. Even squabbling, the well-paired actors orbit each other to make a relatable centerpiece to hold onto as the room mutates into a telescopic character of its own. The apartment and every structural tendril coming from it, seen and unseen, extends and retracts to make abstract environments appear in the nightmarish landscape rich with an unusual pairing of horror subgenera and lore. That terror is reflected back in the eyes of Anx and Cass as they cease to distinguish what’s the hell around them from each other and themselves.
nMost body horror makes its metaphoric boils pop on the promise of organic material made extra stringy, but the brick and mortar liquification depicted here feels like flesh and blood. It’s an obvious labor of love captured creatively by cinematographer Léo Lefèvre and promises soul-shaking success from its director later in his evolution. Co-written by Emin, Alice Butaud, and Emma Sandona, the ever-widening “Else” stretches thin near its edges — but a strong cast, unique perspective, and handful of undeniable moments that terrify and mesmerize recommend this stomach-churning debut as a standout in a loud subgenre.
Grade: B
“Else” premiered September 9 at TIFF. The film is looking for U.S. distribution through WTFilms.
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