Naty's Spooky Corner

Horse Girl

★★★★★

Sunday, March 21, 2021, 11:11 AM

Okay ya’ll, I don’t want to hear it. I know that this movie technically is not a horror film, but boy did it take me out on a wild ride like one.

Starring the incredible Alison Brie, this 2020 psychological drama follows the life of a quiet, and extremely shy young woman named Sarah as she slowly descends into what we perceive to be madness. Sarah herself conforms to many of the stereotypes that we see within what is identified in pop culture as a “horse girl” - reserved, artistic, overwhelmingly awkward, and questionably invested in large animals. We see as she navigates her day-to-day following the same tired routine of working in an art supply store, visiting her previous show horse, and ending her night with yet another episode binge of the hit tv show “Purgatory”. There are very few things that satisfy the small world in which Sarah inhabits, and ever fewer people that she can relate to as an unfortunate result. Lost in her own world of fantasy and make-believe Sarah quickly spirals as she begins to question if she is a clone of her grandmother, misplaced by mischievous aliens, leaving the audience to wonder what is in fact reality.

Major spoilers ahead:

I’ll be honest, this movie fooled me. I spent roughly 95% of the time thinking that it was going to be yet another cautionary tale about the importance of recognizing, validating, and supporting mental health issues. But nope, absolutely not - this film was actually about alien abductions and accidental time travel -  which sounds crazy right? Or is that just what the filmmakers want us to believe?

This film frustratingly tiptoes around the idea of paradoxes - specifically, the one stating “What if you were your own mother/grandmother/etc. Following the storyline, it presents that Sarah is indeed her own grandmother after being abducted and traveling to the past - since aliens no matter how technologically advanced cannot pinpoint exact time - there is still a lot that is left to be explained by the film:
Why did Sarah begin to have strange dreams in the first place? Had she already been abducted once at that point?
What ended up happening to her after she went to the past, did she continue time hopping or did she just slowly fade away in a town that thought that she was crazy beyond belief?
Did her mother know all along about the truth of her own mother and commit suicide because she couldn’t stand to keep that secret quiet?

And finally, the worst question of all - Was any of it even real? Or was Sarah’s character so psychotic that she simply imagined everything, and the aliens, the ramp, time traveling, all served as a sad tribute to her deteriorating mental state? Personally, I believe that this final, more boring option, could hold the key to the heart of the movie. Especially since it is mentioned several times throughout the film that her own grandmother and mother met their untimely end as a result from their struggle to grasp reality. There are of course several minor scenes sprinkled in the film that leave this discussion open, such as when Joan, her beloved coworker, happens to see an oddly placed horse fleeting from the scene in a thriving strip mall, the same horse that we later see Sarah steal in her attempt to travel back to the past via alien abduction.

Personally I’m conflicted. This film does an excellent job showing the audience Sarah’s perspective and tendency to blend together reality with fiction. But the plot progresses at such a glacier pace in the first and second act, that it’s frighteningly easy to lose focus on what it's trying to tell us. Although I might never be watching this film again, the cautionary tale into the mind of a schizophrenic was without a doubt an entertaining one.

Drama Rating: 3/5
Weirdness Rating: 6/5
Confusion Rating: 5/5

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