Jason Sondhi

I propose that “unsettling” is an under-appreciated horror word. Not as visceral as “shock” or hyperbolic as “terror”, and certainly not as versatile as “fright”, yet perhaps more effective than each. As I endeavor now, late in life, to better understand and appreciate the horror genre and analyze what I respond to within it, I gravitate to the word and its ability to subtly estrange the audience from the ordinary. Scares are less effective to me if I cannot recognize a sort of mundane truth to the characters or setup, and, as with Hitchcock’s famous “bomb under the table”, I prefer suspense over surprise. “Unsettling” is participatory, it invites audiences to lean into the story’s skewing from reality as a storyteller manipulates unease into the more potent “dread”. 

As you might guess, today’s featured selection, Déjà vu, leverages “unsettling” as well as any short in recent memory. Simply set up as a two-hander in a diner, a woman begins by recounting a fantasy encounter to her friend. But, when an all-too-familiar stranger enters the restaurant, her recounting shifts to that of a nightmare. 

Writer/director Olivier Labonté LeMoyne and his DP, Ménad Kesraoui, subtly manipulate the scene to lend to the unease with slow camera pushes, up-angle shot reverse shots, and well-timed head-on closeups. Additionally, the script seamlessly shifts from the thrill of sexual conquest to the fear of sexual violence, anchoring the growing dread in something all too recognizably horrific.

“I rehearsed thoroughly with the actors, and we ended up making the film in a single day while doing very few takes of each shot” – director Olivier Labonté LeMoyne on his production

However, it is the film’s lead, Ariane Castellanos, who supplies the heavy lifting. In what is a masterclass of face-acting, Castellanos bounces between cheery excitement and fear with only minor changes in intonation and expression. LeMoyne’s intention with the project was to make a very simple short film that is carried by its actors and its dialogue and where the horror is told through a character’s reaction to the events rather than showing them, and Castellanos’s performance, as well as the plot’s utilization of dream-logic, sells the heightened surreality necessary to make that effective. 

The result is a film that produces immediate affection for its lead and, similarly to said character, pushes the audience through a nightmare scenario where one’s grasp on reality slips as they barrel towards a horrible fate. While the act of watching in some sense mirrors Ariane and her lack of agency, the inclusion of the camcorder at the end is also a cheeky provocation from LeMoyne, implicating the viewer for finding pleasure in her terror. 

A slightly older film, playing festivals such as REGARD in 2018, LeMoyne is back on the festival circuit with his latest short, Nude, which premiered at Sitges in October and is currently working a feature script which he recently presented at the FNC pitch talent lab in Montreal.