"Let's Scare Julie" Review

Platform: Shudder, Hoopla Release Date: October 2, 2020

Having been awoken to a scary prank by her cousin's friends, Emma (Troy Leigh-Ann Johnson) is clearly unenthused with their initial meeting, further magnifying the unwanted changes she and her sister are undergoing following their father's death. Now living in her aunt and uncle's home, her cousin, Taylor (Isabel May), attempts to help loosen Emma up and embrace these changes as her new normal. As the night goes on, the pranks and teenage impulsivity reign supreme, culminating around an urban legend that Taylor explains surrounding the house across the street. She tells the story of the old lady whose child died and was rumored to practice in the occult. If anyone laid eyes on her, they would disappear after receiving a creepy text message of a picture taken from behind them. Upon realizing a new family with a teenage girl named Julie moved into the home recently, the girls decide to introduce themselves to her the only way they know how, with a prank. Emma provides them the key to the house, but does not participate in the prank herself, and when only one of the girls return and Emma's little sister goes missing, the unraveling of a mystery begins.

The premise was not going to win any screenplay awards, but I thought it sounded fun and interesting enough to spend 83 minutes on. The movie before Taylor tells everyone about the legend, which takes too long to get too, felt like a time waste. I started becoming uninterested quite quickly and the camera work, at this time, was not helping the movie with its amateur feel. I will touch on the cinematography more later, as there was a reason behind the madness. It seems as though the only real benefit of spending an extended time with the teenage shenanigans was to build Taylor's friends up as unreliable. I have more disdain for the pre-exposition portion of the movie because it wasted time that I felt was needed towards the latter portions. Once the story is told, the movie starts building a more ominous feel, with May's performance really selling the discomfort of the story and the camera pans to the creepy house opposite to their own. The dialogue and explanation of the plot points leading up to the story and then the plot to prank the new neighbor could have been a bit more clear as there were some details I think got glanced over.

Touching on the cinematography, which was the most important character in the movie, it was managed to emulate a single continuous shot the follows Emma, who is the POV character. While there are still a few cuts throughout the film, it does not shake the one shot feeling at all. Shooting the movie this way, which felt odd at first until you realize that its happening, captured the sense of feeling trapped. Not trapped in the space, necessarily, but trapped in the same unknowns about what is happening that Emma is experiencing. Her franticness becomes our franticness and what she does not see, we do not see, even if we catch a glimpse in the peripherals or in the few cut shots they used. This was a well used tool for building tension and wish more horror movies would experiment with it (the last comparable use I remember is 2012's Silent House). Speaking of experimental techniques for horror movies, I am still holding out hope for a great first-person POV horror film, either from the eyes of a victim or the antagonist.

The movie thrives on the unknown and getting caught up in the confusion, which is helped by the camera work, but also being embedded in the plot itself. Minutes after leaving for the prank, one girl comes back and says she does not really know what happened, but that everyone else is missing in the house. We never know exactly what happens in the house, though we are led to presume it has to do with the spirit of the old lady that used to live there. What we do end up finding out is that Julie was a burn victim and the scare from the prank killed her due to having a weak heart from whatever the accident was. It was this detail, combined with poorly utilized and rushed plot points, that led me to recognize that this was a commentary on anti-bullying. It does not take away from the thrill of the movie and it is a cause I am absolutely behind, but it almost seems too subtle of a message to matter in this movie.

The movie does experience a number of problems though, starting with the aforementioned unclear and rushed plot points. Amidst all of the confusion, Taylor did not get lost in the house but actually left for the airport to pick up her mother. There is background information about Emma quickly thrown at us that she used to bully a girl from her past and feels responsible for her suicide. Emma's uncle, Taylor's father, admits to accidentally killing a child during a drunken rant. I also can't say I know what happened to the three friends who went to the neighbor's house, though I don't mind that as much since it builds the lore of urban legend that people just disappear. All of these random plot points along with the drawn out opening steal time from what could have been more story engagement and understanding of the events going on or even more character development if the anti-bullying message was meant to be more prominent.

At the end of it all, “Let's Scare Julie” felt like buckets of wasted potential. I thought the premise and the techniques for presenting the movie could have built a really run and satisfying mystery. However, there is so much inconsistency in the storytelling and incoherent story points that feel disconnected from the rest of the movie. I still enjoyed watching that potential unfold and think that you can do worse than “Let's Scare Julie” for a fun and thrilling Friday night.

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RATING: 👹 👹.5 / 5

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