The Similars (2015)

Imagine a horror movie so strange that it resists easy categorisation. Imagine a Mexican film set in 1968, in a bus station. Imagine a plot that defies logic but has a remorseless, dream-like coherence. Imagine me writing an entire review like this. But it's difficult to stop, because this slightly ropy Rod Serling-style intro is just what The Similars offers. Among other things.



The Similars is one of those films that I watch all the way through because I'm genuinely intrigued. What on earth, I ask myself, is going to happen next? Superficially it's a tale of sci-fi horror, as a group of disparate individuals end up in a bus station some distance from Mexico City in a torrential storm. The rain is so bad that it's made road travel impossible. This is bad news for Ulises, a man whose wife is giving birth in a city hospital. He can't get to her, and is understandably stressed out by the unhelpful attitude of the sleazy old station manager, Martin.

Martin spends more time reading girly mags than attending to his duties. There's another occupant of the station, a Native American woman who apparently can't speak Spanish but seems intent on conducting rituals and issuing warnings in her native tongue. She clearly Knows Something. Enter a pregnant woman, Irene, who is desperate to escape a violent relationship. In the washroom Irene encounters the other member of staff, the slightly barmy Roberta. Another arrival, medical student Alvaro, looks remarkably like a groovy Peter Sellers, which I probably found more amusing than I should have done. Alvaro is apparently on his way to a big anti-government protest.. Last come a sick child, Ignacio, and his mother Gertrudis. The continued absence of buses cause stress, then come radio announcements suggesting that the rain is not normal. It seems to be causing strange transformations in people exposed to it, unspecified but shocking...

I won't spoil it by telling you what happens. Suffice to say it's a genuinely weird tale, as if Rod Serling roughed out an episode of the X-Files in partnership with Philip K. Dick. Sci-fi, sort of, horror quite definitely, but arguably it's also supernatural too. And it's a retro piece, replete with Sixties fashions and attitudes, especially in the clashes between the student and authority figures. It also has a period look. Apparently writer-director Isaac Ezban wanted to make it a black and white film, but settled for washed-out colours. All in all, this is a major change from anyone's usual fare.

'The Insider'

Continuing my running review of Impostor Syndrome we come to Neil Williamson's tale of psychological horror.

It strikes me that all of the stories thus far have been timely, in that they deal with ideas or themes that are in the air. Folk horror, identity theft, the contentious history of empire and colonisation. 'The Insider' is also bang up to date with its subject of a Twitter troll who appears to have stolen the identity of an amiable company guy who never seems to get the promotions he deserves. But things are, as they say, not quite what they seem.

This is a concise, economical tale that pulls no punches in its depiction of what's become known as toxic masculinity. We see the self-assessed 'nice guy' who bigoted online from both sides. It's implicit that the modern corporate environment, and by extension the world is creates, is a swamp of resentment, fear, and dishonesty. Within this, Williamson implies, only the dark side of our natures can flourish. The better angels of our natures get clobbered every time. Well, that's what I took away from it.

So, another good one. This anthology is looking like one of the best I've seen this year. I wouldn't be surprised if award nominations and Best Of... inclusions follow in its wake. More soon.

'What's Yours Is Mine'

Holly Ice's contribution to Impostor Syndrome is, in some respects, the most straightforward story so far. Sophie visits her mother who is suffering from early onset dementia. A friend of the family reveals a secret that's been  kept from Sophie since early childhood - she has an older sister, Isabelle. The scar on Sophie's arm was not from a cycling accident. Isabelle is confined to a hospital and her mother has been visiting her regularly for decades.

Understandably staggered by this revelation Sophie decides to go and meet Isabelle, only to encounter a woman who looks uncannily like her. Things then take a nightmarish twist, one that is arguably a little too predictable. However, the story's ending has a genuine modern Gothic feel, as Sophie discovers just how dangerous Isabelle is.

'What's Yours Is Mine' is a well-written tale of existential horror, suggesting - quite rightly - that even the most ordinary-seeming family can harbour strange secrets.

'Who Is That On the Other Side of You?'

The third story in the Impostor Syndrome anthology is an ambitious tale by Timothy J. Jarvis. The title is taken from The Waste Land, which is apt given that the setting is (mostly) Antarctica. This is the white continent of Captain Scott and his great rival Amundsen. Scott and other members of his expedition feature in the narrative, albeit peripherally. 

The focus is on two unlikely anti-heroes who arrive in the Antarctic at the same time in pursuit of a portal into the hollow earth. The two men are uncannily similar despite being unrelated - doubles who seem like identical twins. Their adventures are strange, violent, at times disturbing. The world the author creates is that of the Gilded Age, the US after the Civil War when robber barons prevailed. The author throws in magic (with even a passing reference to Aleister Crowley), to create a rich stew of decadence and vaulting ambition.

The main problem with the story is that the quest at its heart either leads into the hollow earth, or it doesn't - both are bound to be anticlimactic to some degree. Sure enough, I felt that this one did not so much end as peter out, leaving lurid splashes of colour against a bleak, white background. An interesting failure by an ambitious writer, but a failure nonetheless.

This running review will continue in a day or two. Stay tuned, and so forth.