Though it reveals its secrets rather slowly, it’s pretty obvious from the very beginning that Starry Eyes is a horror movie; it just takes a little time to understand exactly WHAT type of horror we’re dealing with.
We first meet aspiring actress Sarah (Alex Essoe) as she prepares for an audition. It doesn’t go well, and her reaction goes above and beyond the usual self-loathing recriminations. This is our first clue that we may not be dealing with the new America’s Sweetheart here…
Answering an ad for a lousy sounding movie called The Silver Scream, Sarah is determined to get the job. Just how determined, of course, is how we wind up in the “horror” section of the video store, to use a woefully outdated turn of phrase.
Her potential employers put her through the wringer emotionally and physically, testing her resolve: does she have what it takes to be a star? And if she does… well, let’s consider the possibility that might not be such a great thing…
It has to be said that overall, Starry Eyes is an effective piece of horror cinema. But it also has to be said that in some ways, the actual horror is less effective than the earlier, real world stuff, which puts us so deep in the shoes of the desperate Sarah that to a certain extent when things get spooky, it feels almost redundant.
Sarah’s ordeal as she pursues her dream is harrowing, even before the turn, and we’re in her messed up head the entire time. I’m hard pressed to think of too many movies that capture the sheer anxiety of the auditioning process better than it’s portrayed here. It’s somewhere between sick and heroic the way actors lay themselves out there to be judged, and given the way we see her treated by indifferent producers and casting directors, Sarah’s freakouts begin to make a disturbing amount of sense.
So when Sarah has to run through the gauntlet of the Silver Scream casting sessions, eager to please but bewildered by the bizarre Casting Director (Maria Olson) and her even more bizarre Assistant (Marc Senter, channeling Crispin Glover in the best possible way) and continually pushed beyond her limits, it’s as real world disturbing as any film in recent memory.
Ultimately, Sarah succumbs to temptation because she wants to be a star, not an actress. There’s something broken inside her that she wants to fill with fame and glamour. And so she chooses to do the crummy horror movie that might make her a star instead of the smaller, independent project her friends are planning. She’d be the lead there, too. But because it’s not a proper studio offering, it doesn’t count.
Because the movie takes place from Sarah’s subjective POV, her friends aren’t well developed enough to have much in the way of impact (though they’re generally pretty well acted, particularly Amanda Fuller as Sarah’s roommate and Fabianne Thompson as Erin, a hilariously passive aggressive rival actress/frenemy).
Out of everyone, Pat Healy makes the greatest impression as the manager of the fast food joint Sarah works at. Seeming to be the typical sleazy boss, he soon reveals a sincere side and hands out some sage advice that of course won’t be taken because what sort of horror movie would it be if people actually listened to reason?
The hallucinatory events of the first half culminate in a meeting between Sarah and The Producer (Louis Dezsaran, having a ball as Satan crossed with Roger Corman) which goes pretty much exactly how you think it’s going to go. Sarah has a choice to make, and while in theory we want her to run away screaming, like any sensible person would, we all know that she HAS to say yes, otherwise this is just a weirdly anticlimactic short film.
So when she (SPOILER ALERT) actually DOES run away screaming like any sensible person would, we know that she’ll be back. And so we have to twiddle out thumbs, waiting for her to change her mind so the REAL horror can kick in.
Which, obviously, presents something of a problem: when we get to the second half of the film, where we should be picking up a nice head of steam heading into the gruesome finale, we’re instead spinning our wheels. So much of what happens in the second half feels like a stall, to put some distance between the emotional climax of the film and the inevitable end.
Sarah’s downward spiral has been in place ever since roughly ten minutes into the film. Adding physical decay to mental collapse simply isn’t enough of a twist to negate the sense that we’re hitting the same beats over and over again, to diminishing returns.
Amazingly, Alex Essoe just about puts all this over. She is scary good in an incredibly difficult role. Her performance, as well as the expert direction by Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer and an effectively unnerving synth score by Jonathan Snipes, goes a long way towards papering over a lot of the gaps in their script.
And when we get to the final act, our patience is rewarded with some top flight gore and a conclusion that is initially striking, but doesn’t exactly hold up to scrutiny.
It isn’t tossed off, exactly. It’s a perfectly logical endpoint to the story as it’s been set up. But at the same time, I do think the way it’s handled raises questions the filmmakers don’t have any interest in answering, and that’s a problem.
The more I think about it, the more Starry Eyes falls apart for me. In the moment, it’s chilling and disturbing, and any fan of horror should watch it at least once. But I’m not sure there’s anything beneath the surface.
