#10 - Unsane (2018)

Unsane (2018)

(dir. Steven Soderbergh)

Sawyer has a stalker, and it has ruined her life. She moves away from her friends and family to a new city to escape, but she still never feels truly safe. After admitting to some suicidal thoughts while talking to a counselor, she is involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital, only to discover that her stalker is working there... or is she having a psychotic break? No one believes her, and she becomes trapped in a nightmarish cycle of Kafkaesque bureaucracy and psychological manipulation.

This is an excellent thriller that goes to some very dark places. Claire Foy puts in a really fantastic performance in the lead role, and Joshua Leonard is extremely creepy as her stalker (I later learned that he was also in The Blair Witch Project). The most immediately noticeable and unique thing about this film, though, is that it was shot entirely on an iPhone. The effect is strange at first - the aspect ratio is a little unusual and I believe it is 30 FPS instead of the standard 24 - but it looks surprisingly good and the fact that it looks a little "off" only adds to the general feeling of unease and paranoia that permeates the film. I certainly wouldn't want this to become the new standard, but it is an interesting experiment.

Besides being an effective psychological horror film, Unsane also works as a criticism of the health care system in the US, especially when it comes to psychiatric care. The system she becomes trapped in is concerned only with profit, and has no real interest in helping the patients - once their insurance runs out, they are suddenly deemed cured. Her attempt to get help only dramatically worsened her situation and well-being.

I definitely recommend this one, both for the interesting technical aspects of it and for being an excellent psychological horror/thriller in general.