The Scary of Sixty-First is a dark comedy horror film about two roommates who discover their new Manhattan apartment harbours a dark secret.
Directed by Dasha Nekrasova, making her directorial debut, from a screenplay co-written with Madeline Quinn.
Plot:
While apartment hunting, college pals Noelle and Addie stumble upon the deal of a lifetime: a posh duplex on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
However, soon after moving in, a more sinister picture of the apartment emerges when a mysterious woman arrives and claims the place used to belong to the infamous, recently deceased Jeffrey Epstein.
With this news, Noelle becomes obsessed with the visitor — to the point of infatuation. As the pair plunge deeper into the conspiracies of the Epstein case, Addie falls into her own bizarre state: a pseudo-possession complete with inexplicable fits of age-regressed carnal mania focused on infamous British Royal, Prince Andrew.
As they peel back on these strange occurrences, the truth reveals itself to be more twisted than they could have ever imagined…
Reviews:
“The acting in this movie is very, very, exceptionally, terribly bad […] In fact, the only thing worse than the acting is the “writing” which I’m confident was simply copied and pasted from the dregs of Reddit. Dekrasova and Quinn share writing credit and it’s mystifying that anyone would put their names on this thing.” @ssholes Watching Movies
“Equal parts ’70s-style paranoia thriller, Polanski-infused apartment horror, Eyes Wide Shut homage, and empathetic critical commentary on the conspiracy theories craze, this hallucinatory pastiche is even more than the sum of its cinematically riveting parts. It feels like one of the few genuine attempts at understanding this dislocating moment and the many people who have lost themselves within it.” IndieWire
“The Scary of Sixty-First is far more comically-leaning than horror-adjacent. Betsey Brown’s commitment to thumb-sucking newspaper-humping, and Mark H. Rapaport as Addie’s dim-witted boyfriend, are both hilarious, and they both knew exactly the type of performances they wanted to deliver. Other times, I was not sure whether I was supposed to be laughing or not.” Josh at the Movies
“At times it feels like an Abel Ferrara film as it flows through the New York streets, and at other times it channels Claire Denis’ Trouble Every Day. Unfortunately, the New York indie filmmaking can be too much […] This bold filmmaking will rattle some feathers between the conspiracy theories behind the Epstein scandal to the harrowing accounts of his victims. Deeply maniacal and a breath of fresh air within horror.” Movie Marker
“The Scary of Sixty-First will feel like cheap provocation to some, what with its ripped-from-the-headlines timeliness, and it doesn’t have much of substance to say about trauma, abuse of power, or the conspiracy mindset. But there’s defiance in its gleeful excess, a potential force of resistance to a deadening, hyper-normalized cultural climate where everything is spectacle, and where something as shocking as the Epstein scandal can quickly seem passé.” Slant
“The film has some useful things to say about the contemporary mediation of images and information, the whirl of powerlessness that appears to fuel much online discourse and manifests itself in sweeping explanations of truth and power. And it’s funny: the line readings are catatonic, the satirical targets ripe for outrageous treatment, and the unattended screenplay choices left to coagulate like fish paste.” The Upcoming
“Good taste, as you might well guess, is not on the agenda here. But underpinning the edgelord provocations and cheerfully cheap B-movie stylings of Nekrasova’s film is a dark, roiling rage that’s no joke: As a reflection on the abuse that powerful men mete out without due consequence, it’s without filter or apology.” Variety
Release:
The Scary of Sixty-First premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and was also shown at Beyond Fest.
In the US, Utopia will release The Scary of Sixty-First theatrically on December 17, 2021, then On-Demand on December 24th.
Trailer:
