The Effervescent Horror of ‘The Humans’
The gloom and grime of this slow burn is in fact, extremely vibrant, and will keep you on your toes.
As a random watch for a Monday evening, there’s a definitive arc in the viewing experience of ‘The Humans’. What starts out as a rather excruciatingly slow film with shots moving at glacial pace, turns out to be a rich, enduring play on the popular Thanksgiving trope used in so much American television.
Brigid, a young musician who has moved into an apartment in Chinatown, hosts her family for a Thanksgiving dinner. Her partner, Richard helps her out with preparations. This celebratory housewarming is attended by her parents, paternal grandmother Momo, and sister. One finds horror motifs strewn throughout the screenplay — unconventional jump scares, plenty of creaking doors with mirrors to match, darkness and much decay. Most important, however, is Brigid’s Chinese neighbour who occupies a floor above her own, making strange thumping noises that have a sudden ‘gotcha again, didn’t I?’ quality to them.
With ‘The Humans’, Stephen Karam keeps you waiting for the eventual ‘real’ horror — in the characters’ narration of their horrific, strange dreams, in mysterious silhouettes outside Brigid’s window, intriguing shadows, shapes and uneasy awning-like blurriness. However, the real terror sings like a siren through the screenplay — in masterful dialogue. Conversations brimming with tension and revelation are followed by stolen moments where characters are by themselves. They are consumed by sadness that plays aftermath to potent terror — expressions of trauma, loss of identity, defeatedness, and loss of love.
The noises that seems to arise from above the apartment are a mere manifestation of the family’s secrets — the ones they keep from each other, those that eat them from the inside. Karam teases us with the prospective villain through these sounds, but really asks us to listen to the inner demons whispering in the family.
In the business of unnerving, A24 succeeds almost every time. Here, the story features an apartment whose mere layout evokes tension. Coupled with a grimy and run-down aesthetic, it is downright terrifying in moments. Brigid’s grandmother, Momo, also contributes generously to the uneasiness. One is constantly pushed to the edge of their seat, awaiting her spooky meltdown. I won’t tell you if it comes at all!
The deafening lack of music in the film is crucial to the exchanges of dialogue. In every instance, silence is the only correct treatment for this score. The family’s heavy religious inclination, Brigid’s aspirations to be independent, her sister’s quiet surrender to a medical condition and bad break-up, her father’s alcoholism, adultery and extreme trauma from 9/11 and her mother’s eating habits — these traits coalesce to create a most terrifying cacophony when they’re in a room together.
And we’re all the luckier to witness it.
