Review: 'Starfish' Highlights Emotional Depths Of Modern Horror

Writer/director/composer A.T. White’s compelling Starfish (out today on VOD) is a lot of things—riveting, horrifying, and emotional, with a compelling lead performance by standout Virginia Gardner (Runaways, Halloween (2018)).  Gardner’s Aubrey is faced with an unusual confluence of circumstances—on the day of her best friend Grace’s funeral, she goes rogue and makes her way into Grace’s apartment. What Aubrey discovers there is that Grace surprisingly discovered that apocalyptic creatures have started to pour into our world, and that before her demise Grace had developed a hypothesis on how to stop them.

    Loss and guilt, both emotions that weigh heavy on Aubrey’s heart, often feel apocalyptic—to the grieving they often feel like the very end of the world. In Aubrey’s case, however, these feelings happen to coincide with the actual end of the world. Aubrey has to track down a set of clues and memories, thick in the path of her regret, to stop the otherworldly menace.

    Admittedly, there’s a large degree to which horror still gets a bad rap—it’s ‘cheap’, some say, or that it isn’t deep or has nothing to say. This belief echoes in the background of every attempt to call a great horror film ‘elevated horror’, implying that REAL horror is schlock and great ones are so special they MUST not be horror. By contrast, ‘Starfish’ shows just how flexible and capable of depth the genre is. This movie isn’t perfect, but it is very good, rather beautiful, and it uses horrific events to underscore emotions so raw it hurts. It deserves your attention and it isn’t alone.


    We visit Aubrey's first exploration of Grace’s apartment to find that Grace had seemingly been long shut-in. She had been discovering hidden audio patterns in various songs, these pieces together forming components of a larger whole which, potentially, has a strong role in sending the beasties back to where they came from.

    Aubrey’s journey is challenged not only by the strange faceless creatures that are spit out into the world, but by two major sources of guilt—she struggles with feeling as though she abandoned her now-deceased friend, and with one other major source of guilt that I won’t note here to avoid spoilers.

   What's interesting here is that the story puts Aubrey in the midst of a dangerous and isolated journey, her solitary path through otherworldly events mirroring her feelings of regret and her mourning over past wrongs. At the same time, she follows clues and memories to find subsequent tapes that Grace had hidden all over the city, each in a place related to experiences the two shared. This forces Aubrey to gradually face her feelings and regrets in an externalized process of self-discovery.

The plot device largely works, the apocalyptic crisis driving the external journey while the story's true heart is Aubrey's internal processes. Gardner really sells the character: likable enough but slightly isolationist and awkward. Her nuanced performance provides a nice anchor for the audience despite the otherworldly nature of this particular apocalypse, and the performance sells the film.

An additional strength to the film is its cosmic-horror inspired elements, using unconventional filmmaking techniques to sort of reflect the warping of reality and Aubrey's experiences—really the only way to demonstrate that the rules of reality are indeed being violated. (Check out John Carpenter's unusual filmmaking in In the Mouth of Madness to see another mind-bending way to demonstrate cosmic horror world-warping in film).

The biggest limitation of the film is that, in stacking two divergent sources of guilt for Aubrey, these elements and their meaning gets muddied in somewhat needless story complications when one major source of guilt would cleanly hit home. Eliminating one source of guilt would streamline the story and its highlight the story's biggest strength: Aubrey's emotional journey. Despite this flaw, the story nonetheless shows that horror conventions can be used to tell emotional, personal stories (contrary to genre haters). For critics who weren't paying attention, in this regard Starfish joins the ranks of nearly a hundred years of emotionally nuanced horror.

Emotionally Nuanced Horror

From its inception, many horror films have been grounded in strong performances and emotionally complex character arcs and challenges. In this regard, it isn't a surprise to find emotionally nuanced films like Starfish. Let's recount a few great historical examples.

Frankenstein (1931)

1931s Frankenstein sees Dr. Victor Frankenstein create a monster, played by the inimitable Boris Karloff, from reclaimed corpse parts. Beyond the creature and set design, Karloff’s nuanced performance shows the creature coming to terms with his isolation from humanity and from affection. In his fundamental isolation, Karloff’s performance is pained. He innocently plays with the young Maria and accidentally drowns her and flees, confused and in horror at his own action. Frankenstein is an emotionally charged and mournful, but effective, horror film.

The Wolf Man (1941)

Lon Chaney Jr. plays Larry Talbot, a man who gets bitten by a werewolf and finds himself periodically transforming into a werewolf and causing havoc. Talbot is a good man: he gradually discovers he commits atrocities over which he has no control. In effect, Talbot becomes transformed and monstrous at no fault of his own, has no control over his periodic monstrous behavior, and is horrified at what he has become. We experience his fear and hatred over a part of himself, his shock and confusion, all of it through the eyes of a tragically transformed man-turned-monster.

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

It’s hard to talk about why Rosemary’s Baby is emotional without spoiling the ending, but here goes. Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) moves with her husband Guy into a new apartment in New York City. Dark signs and wonders follow, with Rosemary facing terrifying dreams, physical danger, and… her own reasons for developing severe trust issues. You’ll have to see it for yourself, but Rosemary’s journey is an emotional one, and Farrow’s performance is top-tier to pull the audience into those events.

The Fly (1986)

Cronenberg is rightfully known for his innovative body horror, and The Fly excels on that score. Still, the story of a scientist (Seth Brundle, a riveting Jeff Goldblum) whose DNA gets actually mingled with that of a fly excels. Brundle’s slow transformation allows us constant access to his reflections on his changing body, thoughts, sensations, and his desire to be with his love interest, Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis). Regardless of the horrific transformations Brundle went through, his inability to be with the woman he wanted more than anything is tragic, as are his constant realizations of his worsening condition alongside his futility in doing anything about it.

Emotionally-driven horror has a long and distinguished pedigree, and real, nuanced performances drive modern entries like The Babadook (2014), The Witch (2015), and Hereditary (2017). Starfish artfully uses cosmic horror story components to tell a moving and effective story, and it absolutely shows the emotional potential of modern horror. Catch Starfish on VOD today!

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