Sissy is a psychological horror satire that will make you joyously laugh and cheer at all the mean girl carnage. The film follows former teen besties Cecilia and Emma reuniting a decade later. When Emma casually invites Cecilia to a remote cabin in the woods for her bachelorette weekend, Cecilia jumps at the opportunity to reconnect. Now a successful social media influencer, Cecilia attempts to use her millennial coping skills to redirect her obsessive tendencies but old wounds bubble up and eventually burst when she finds herself face to face with her childhood bully. Past traumas get triggered fast in catastrophic ways. 

If you love gore and lust after creative kills that don’t skimp on the blood, you will be drooling over the fresh kills in this film. All the deaths are cleverly displayed on camera with no cutaways. Insert gay gasp. Cecila isn’t afraid to beat, bludgeon or strangle someone who has done her wrong. 

As the weekend progresses it’s clear that no one is safe from Cecilia’s vengeful grasp, not even her former BFF Emma. Watching Cecilia’s rage-fueled terror escalate from accidental to deliberate as various friends in the bridal party start to die off, I was heavily invested emotionally in Cecilia’s plight. As someone who loathes the idea of marriage of any kind and finds the practice to be archaic and the idea of gay marriage just as equally suffocating and horrific. I did love the idea of a queer bachelorette party as the perfect setting for a slasher film. 

Australian filmmakers never disappoint. Something must be in the water down there. Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes’s script is witty and irreverent with fleshed out characters that you love to hate. The film is full of scathing social commentary. It’s TEXAS CHAINSAW meets MEAN GIRLS. The film has something for even the most mild horror fan with a little extra glitter thrown in for good measure. 

The characters aren’t ashamed of their sexuality and have no hang ups when it comes to who or how they love. Allowing the characters to be messy, complicated and most importantly, relatable. As delusional as Cecilia is, her wants and needs are valid and hit an emotional core that makes the film have a grounded sensibility in how she deals with her anxiety and struggles with mental health. I found myself rooting for Cecilia in her quest to destroy those who had wronged her. 

Aisha Dee as Cecilia / Sissy gives a breakout performance as a successful social media influencer living her best life until fate gives her a second chance to make amends with her ex-best friend, Emma (Hannah Barlow) from her pre teen days. Cecilia and Emma had planned to grow old together and promised not to let anything come between them. But someone inevitably did come between them. Alex (Emily De Margherit) broke up their friendship as kids and when Cecila shows up at the party and Alex sees her for the first time in years, Alex can’t help but revert back to her mean girl ways and picks up right where she left off. 

Cecilia’s eagerness to relive her childhood glory days makes her an easy target for ridicule not just from Alex but from the rest of Emma’s friends too. Alex’s catty games continue to keep Cecilia at odds with the group, leading Cecila and Alex to have the first of many violent altercations. Once the blood starts flowing it doesn’t stop, each violent action contributes to a series of unfortunate and gruesome events that Cecila must make sense of through her carefully crafted social media lens.

One of the film’s strengths is how the film uses mental health to comment on the collective loneliness facing young people today. People use social media to heal or solve their problems. Most people would rather take advice from a self proclaimed expert than a doctor. Whether it’s fear of judgment or a collective indifference, this is our new normal. 

Cecilia uses social media to manipulate and cultivate her online persona. But she also uses it as a tool to manage anxiety and harness her insecurities. As much as Cecila wants to be a beacon of hope and inspire others, her crippling fears around being seen for who she really is is a mask she is unwilling to shed. Her personal reality is a heartbreaking and lonely existence that relies on the validation of strangers to give her life meaning. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the directing craft of Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes’s tension-inducing masterclass in childhood revenge. Can’t wait to see what this team makes next. What starts out as a campy melodrama about self love and friendship turns into a gloriously gory gay girl bloodbath. Watch on SHUDDER.