"CARA" (2024) Is An Unrelenting And Unapologetic Take On Mental Health Horror (REVIEW)
There is no shortage of horror movies that deal with mental health, particularly over the last couple of decades. The destigmatization of Mental Health continues, but the strides we have made in public discourse are encouraging. When it comes to the horror genre, those gains aren’t as realized as they are in daily life as we still see a deluge of films that use mental health as a metaphor for something else. Let us be clear, these kinds of movies aren’t bad and some are quite good, but sometimes it feels like a lazy exercise in lowest common denominator writing. Yes, horrific events cause people trauma, but how many times do we need to see that metaphor before we ask ourselves if there is any more water in that well? This is what surprised us so much about “Cara” from Writer / Director Hayden Hewitt and released on digital in the UK from Reel 2 Reel Films today. After an outstanding showing at last year’s Fright Fest UK, we now get a chance to see if “Cara” is more hype or more horror.
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
Cara, a mentally troubled woman who escaped from an institution, believes in a conspiracy against her. She plans horrific acts using her show's viewers, exploring mental health, abuse, and violence, leaving a disturbing trail.
HOW IS IT?
So often the discourse around mental health in horror is used in a cautionary sense. How our internal struggles manifest as tactile terrors we confront and often overcome, broadly symbolizing our resilience as a species to the evolutionary struggles brought along through our brain. In horror’s purest sense, it isn’t there to offer up some sort of catharsis, at least not for everyone, but essentially to shock you into experiencing something that challenges your sense of safety. “Cara” does precisely that, with a stellar lead performance and a white-knuckler of a third act that rewards the patient who chooses to explore the dark side of mental health in horror. While some may feel that there is some hidden meaning to the madness in “Cara,” and there are certainly allusions to social commentary, it never becomes the focus point of the story instead giving the horror the floor.
Cara (Elle O’Hara) is a troubled woman who survived sexual abuse both before and inside of a psychiatric ward. It’s a story you’ve seen before, but Cara isn’t your average woman trying to move past trauma, she’s steeped in paranoid delusions that there is a conspiracy at work to get here back there. Adding insult to injury, Cara’s source of income revolves primarily through online sex work where she is berated by the worst of the male species online. “Cara” does not attempt to take a stance on the morality of Cara’s life choices, and presents them as more survival-based rather than anything else, but does make it clear that the way sex workers are treated through the veil of online anonymity can be vile. Cara’s psychosis causes her to hallucinate situations in the middle of conversations seeing her completely dissociate as her paranoia and fear funnel in lies and stroke her insecurities. Filmmaker Hayden Hewitt, who also did the editing on the film uses color grading to help us orient to when Cara is having an episode, but it never stands out as being obvious so much as it helps put us more in Cara’s shoes and experiencing the world the way she is. Confused, scared, and under the constant assumption that there is next to no one to be trusted in her life, save for her friend, John (Johnny Vivash) who may not be helping her as much as using her as we come to find in the third act.
We don’t want to go into spoilers here, but it is safe to say that the momentum that “Cara” carefully builds in the first two acts comes to a full head in the third. Those who decry the slow-burn approach to storytelling are to be rewarded here as the last 20 minutes of this film go off the rails in the best possible way while making the emphasis remain on the horror and not trying to “fix” or “solve” Cara, but indulge her psychosis to its horrific end. Similar to other Fright Fest films from last year, “Saint Clare” and “Broken Bird” the idea here isn’t to redeem Cara so much as to deliver retribution without prejudice against any who Cara believes to be a threat. Her partnership with John to carry out her master plan is in some ways the fatherly relationship that Cara has wanted, albeit under the guise of someone who shares similar bloody interests and probably not much else. It is the final bullet point on the film’s thesis that hurt people left with no support can perpetuate the cycle of violence, and while some may find this ambivalence to taking a side frustrating, it is the most grounded approach to mental health horror we’ve seen in some time. It doesn’t fetishize mental health, nor does it coddle the real implications of trauma and its effects on the future life of an individual. Cara’s delusions aren’t a sign of something grander, they are just delusions, dangerous ones that require more than just talk therapy to overcome, especially when placing the person in a society they aren’t equipped to thrive in. That’s the extent of the conclusions we feel comfortable drawing, intended or not, but the fact that “Cara” leaves so much open to the viewer to interpret what you walk away with may differ from what we did.
LAST RITES
“Cara” is one of a rare breed of mental health horror films that aren’t trying to make a point, but instead want to immerse viewers in the psychosis of its lead character who is brought to life vividly through Elle O’Hara’s performance. This feature debut from Hayden Hewitt has us excited to see what kind of terrifying visions he is cooking up next!
THE GORY DETAILS
Directed By
Written By
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Where can you watch it?
“Cara” releases today, 17February 2025 from Reel 2 Reel Films.
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