I Blame Society (Movie Review)

I Blame Society is a mumblecore thriller starring, directed, and written by Gillian Wallace Horvat.  It centers on an aspiring actor, director, and writer named Gillian making a mumblecore thriller.  Her initial script about Israel is rejected because mentioning Israel is inherently political.  Her agent obviously does not care about her as a client so she decides to freelance.  Meanwhile, Gillian’s friends pick up on her awkwardness and deem her most likely to murder someone.  She takes this “compliment” to heart and decided to see how good of a murderer she really would be.  She also decides to film the whole thing to have something to show off her filmmaking talents to producers/investors. 

Gillian is fixated with her friend Chase’s (Chase Williamson) girlfriend whom she compares to Stalin. Gillian interviews Chase to see if he would “hypothetically” help her plan to murder her nemesis.  After he refuses to partake in her project, Gillian decides to start small and work her way up.  A little stalking is followed by breaking and entering, theft, voyeurism, and poisoning.  After plenty of research and practice, it turns out she excels at studying a subject, murdering them, and staging the scene to make it look like a suicide. 

Her boyfriend Keith (Keith Poulson) is unaware of how far gone she has gone and tries to put things in perspective.  He tells her that “there is not a movie that is worth hurting someone for, either yourself or another person”.  Much like William Freidkin, Lars Van Trier, and Werner Herzog, Gillian disagrees.  She is driven by the need to “accomplish something”.  She has a master's degree but can not find work in her field of study.  It turns out that being a serial killer suits her perfectly. 

The entire film is composed of footage the Gillian character captures consisting of a mixture of first-person go pros, handheld, hidden stationary cameras, and security footage.  I compare this movie to the Creep series and a gender-flipped American Psycho.  The cast is pretty good all around for the budget.  Theoretically, anyone could shoot this movie with their phone.  The result looks much better than you would expect.  Hats off to Gillian Wallace Horvat and crew. 

Seeing a more balanced Gillian before the madness takes over would have solidified this film on an emotional level.  Much like Jack Torrence in Stanely Kubrick’s The Shining, Gillian seems ready to snap right from the start.  The film touches on how women in power are viewed by their male subordinates in the movie industry and how persons of color, sexual orientation, and sexual identity can be used as a form of window dressing by companies looking to signal their virtue. 

I Blame Society is a ride you are either in for or you want to get off of at the first stop.  Some people might find the meta setup, often shaky footage and mumbly dialogue off-putting.  At 84 minutes I found that it moved well, had plenty of layers to ponder, and kept me engaged.