FANTASIA26 REVIEW: Insectasy [20XX]

Rating: NR | Runtime: 83 minutes
Director(s): Angus Silver
Writer(s): Angus Silver

I don’t want to make love, I want to be eaten alive.

When Honey (Lyndall Huber) tells Sadie (Tirion Healy) that women can’t be perverts, her eyes perk up. Why? Because she’s been wondering if that’s indeed what she is. Sure, she’s attracted to Theo (Emmett Roiko) and desperate for him to notice her when he smokes outside their shared work building. Sure, she feels a pull towards Honey inside the cramped pet store where she buys her crickets. But Sadie’s true desire is to be taken into the throes of love by an insect.

Angus Silver reveals this during the first scene of his singular psychological romantic drama Insectasy with Sadie masturbating in bed while holding a glass upside down on her chest to keep the cricket trapped inside on her skin. She only lifts it at the point of orgasm so she can crush the bug at its peak. And all the while she listens to an ASMR-like narration of a woman confidently speaking her sexual desires aloud while fantasying about her own metamorphosis.

Does this make Sadie perverted? Honey’s hyper-specific definition by way of flirtation is that nothing is if it doesn’t disgust the other person. So, I guess it’s all in the eye of the beholder. Not that that means she’d ever admit her proclivities to Theo if they got together or to her shallow friend group led by Genevieve (Kelsey Thompson). She’d rather keep it her little secret just in case so she can continue inserting these bugs into her vagina for optimal pleasure.

Built as a comedy, you are supposed to laugh at the awkwardness that abounds whether it’s Theo stumbling over his words being nervous around Sadie or Sadie doing the same around Honey. We’re supposed to laugh at the situations Sadie finds herself in at work with a hypochondriac (Rand Walsh) or at the pet store opposite it’s other employee Julius (Jan Roeth)—a man who might be as interested in bugs as her. I’m just not sure it goes far enough to assure us.

Because it’s not simply an absurdly surreal film looking to push boundaries to gross-out levels. It’s also an affecting second stage coming-of-age tale wherein Sadie finds herself at a crossroads. She’s as aroused by these insects as she is jealous of their ability to effortlessly follow their instincts and shed the skin of what they once were. She wants to speak her mind and take control. She wants to accept herself despite her own questions surrounding whether she should.

So, we’re constantly finding ourselves unbalanced by what is unfolding on-screen. Yes, the circumstances hold a humorous bent due to the weirdness of the subject matter, but we also want to invest in Sadie’s awakening from the constraints of society. It can therefore get difficult to discern which we’re meant to feel at any given moment. Should we laugh or does laughing undercut the weight beneath? I often found myself stuck and unable to just let it wash over me.

I also don’t think its flippant commentary on the COVID shutdown helped matters either. There’s a sort of rebirth message baked into that too between the health concerns of the hypochondriac and Theo’s customers to Genevieve’s ping-ponging thoughts on the legitimacy of the virus as a means of feeling better about her anxiety. I think Silver was getting his ideas across via Sadie and the insects good enough without also shoehorning the pandemic in.

Unless I’m missing how it fits with the rest (viral “bug”?). Maybe it wasn’t actually veering towards MAGA territory so rapidly that I kept cringing in anticipation for full blown conspiracy theory. Because I do get that people in their early twenties who went through that experience are still trying to find their way out sexually considering partying restrictions and fears. In that case, make a post-COVID film instead of merely sprinkling it in on top.

Because there is a lot to like here. It’s strange and has fun with its dream-like overexposures and superimpositions. It devolves into a gorgeous climactic montage of quick burst imagery that blurs the line between human and insect en route to a Bride of Gregor Samsa finale. And Healy delivers a truly captivating character who is simultaneously embracing her own desires while also cribbing the ways in which others achieve theirs. It’s an education by fire.

I’m certain a lot of people will vibe with Insectasy on a level I just can’t reach, and that’s good. There’s enough for me to appreciate in the aesthetic experience to maintain my interest even when the pacing and certain choices had me glancing at my watch. At once too cryptic and not cryptic enough, the moment you find yourself slipping away from its pincered grip is the moment you discover it might be you who can’t quite latch onto it.