We’re All Going to the World’s Fair
A lonely teenage girl’s obsession with a new internet phenomenon takes her life into a sinister and unexpected world, in fresh and unique coming of age horror.
In director Jane Schoenbrun’s daring and ambitious tale, the coming-of-age film firmly meets the horror of the current technological age as Casey, a lonely teenage girl, becomes obsessed with the internet phenomenon knowns as the ‘World’s Fair Challenge’. As Casey’s path crosses that of another participant, JLB, her world starts to dissolve in a sinister and unexpected way – fact and fiction merge to create a frightening new reality from which she may not ever exit.
By using the younger generation’s obsession with online communities, memes, rumours, challenges and creepypastas, and with a strong sense of the difficulties of growing up and feeling isolated, Schoenbrun creates a new type of horror that stems from the very here-and-now. Their experimental narrative techniques only serve to highlight the skill involved in this razor-sharp juggling act, whilst trapping the audience in a digital nightmare that seems both familiar and otherworldly. Newcomer Anna Cobb creates in Casey a myriad of contradictions that sum up those risky teenage years well – a character that is in turns lost, disjointed and alienated from the real world that she’s supposed to exist in.
Aesthetically unique, disconcerting in new ways and brave enough to take risks at every turn, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair announces the arrival of a strong and exciting new voice on the horror scene.
Director Jane Schoenbrun
USA 2021
86m
With Anne Cobb, Holly Anne Frink, Michael J Rogers
