Fantasia ’14 Review: CYBERNATURAL

There’s a point during every Fantasia film fest where everything just goes batshit crazy. You don’t sleep, you don’t socialize, you fill your face with starchy refuse to calm the longing feeling of marital inadequacy; basically, you’re playing so much catch up that you don’t even have the time to change your underwear (a problem quickly solved by not wearing any, I might add). Did I mention the weirdos? I’m not talking about the quirky and lovable cinephiles. Nope, I’m talking about the clinical crazies, the ones that giggle uncontrollably in the theatre when everyone else is silent. The one`s that make a degenerate like myself regret ever leaving the house. Sometimes, it can take a lot out of you. What am I getting at here? I’m running late with reviews. Real late.

Messy behind the scene dealings notwithstanding (buy me a beer and I’ll tell you about the Texas Chainsaw Massacre screening, as well as the burp ninjas), how about we just get back to talking about the movies? Capping up the coverage for the first week, I was lucky enough to be part of the World Premiere for what many are calling the surprise hit of the fest: Cybernatural.

Part two of Fantasia 18+’s retrospective on “cyber reality” films (I challenge you to find a better term), Cybernatural takes the found footage schtick and flips it on its head, with a crafty take on the slasher subgenre. Told in “real time”, Cybernatural introduces us to six high schoolers, meeting online for a little chat-sesh. What makes this night different from the other empty nights spent online, is that it’s the anniversary of the tragic suicide of one of their classmates, Laura Barnes, who took her own life after a compromising video of her surfaced online. The usual conversations involving how everything sucks were put on hold, as an anonymous visitor suddenly joins in on their Skype gab fest. The kids quickly realize that there’s more to this visitor than a simple software security issue.  A little game gets set into motion and it’s really fun to be part of the action as one by one, the group gets thinned out gloriously, live in front of a computer screen.

The familiar elements of a good hack and slash are all present, but the ballsy style employed makes things fresh and new. As the narrative pushes forward like a morning commute, the characters all click, type and switch windows to try and get a grasp on what`s going on. Is it a joke? Is it a prank? Is it even real? The viewer is quite literally planted in front of a computer screen and plays witnesses to each Skype video, Facebook message, iMessage, chat message being exchanged. The fact that kids choose to even communicate this way these days is already frustrating, and the filmmakers use the quirks of each new form of social interaction as a type of “ADD” fuel for everyone to huff. Call me old fashioned, but whenever I used to see a webcam I’d immediately think: this person likes to get freaky! But apparently, kids actually use this tool to socialize. Why you’d want to, is another story. This is to the films advantage however, as the viewer gets just as stressed, surprised and frustrated whenever a message is suddenly received,  or when someone is typing an answer and you`re sitting there, waiting for the cursor to switch to a response. It was a matter of time before someone figured out how to translate modern day telecommunication into a form of “minds-eye” perspective, and director Leo Gabriadze is really on to something here. Mark my words: you will see this narrative template replicated.

While the acting is jittery, even disjointed at times, you’re constantly reminded of the fact that kids can sure be assholes. The cyberbullying element to this film never feels preachy but I can’t say I really cared for any of the characters in particular, not even in an “I care about the way you’re going to die kind of way”.

Cybernatural is a clever take on the slasher subgenre, digitized and recompiled for this generation’s compulsive habits. With everyone’s daily lives taking place more and more in front of a computer screen, it makes sense that we start to tell stories from this perspective. A monitor and a screen are but an extension of our dirty hands, and our prying eyes.

So long Sunshine, I’m out!

Jo “I promise not to look” Satana