AFF '25: Spite

On a dark and rainy Saturday night, Austin Film Fest ‘25 premiered one of its few horror features, writer/director Carolynn Cecilia’s Spite. Spite is an unsettling, atmospheric low budget indie film that centers on a 36 year old woman, Johanna (Masha Cima), who returns to her childhood home after the death of her estranged, abusive mother. The film follows the somewhat recent trend of horror films (Hereditary, Matriarch, Smile) that bluntly process real life trauma with the use of supernatural imagery. Despite the crowded nature of this subgenre Spite sets itself apart, thanks largely to its strong script and Cima’s excellent lead performance. It is an atmospheric and often affecting exercise in low budget film-making which uses its limited setting and cast to its advantage to create a claustrophobic tale of horror and grief. In a modern horror scene that is saturated with emotionally-exploitative, trauma-based films, seeing a micro budget film like Spite use its lack of resources to its advantage to make something that feels genuinely sincere and scary at the same time is refreshing. 

The film begins with Johanna returning to her childhood home in Pittsburgh for the first time in over a decade after learning of the unexpected death of her mother. She is clearly on edge as she enters the house that looks like it has not been unoccupied since the 1960s. From the get-go there is something off about this home. There is an old, black and white TV in the living room that turns on at its own will, rotten food in the refrigerator, and boxes full of bizarre items stacked to the ceiling. To make things worse, the next door neighbor is rude and judgmental from the moment she meets Johanna despite knowing that her mom just died. On top of the chilly welcome home, when she tries to call her girlfriend back in NYC, she is treated like a nuisance for trying to call her partner for support. In a short period of time, we know that things are bad for our protagonist and they are only going to get worse. 

Masha Cima does great work as the struggling Joanna. We can see her pain and trepidation as she enters the childhood home she would rather never see again. She is guarded and uncomfortable around the others in the neighborhood and tries to make quick work of cleaning out and getting rid of her old home for good. With small films like this that center largely around the emotional journey of a single character, it is imperative that the lead actor is up to the challenge of conveying all ranges of emotion to tell the story. Cima does a great job of showing the grief and fear of a woman forced to return to the place where she was physically abused for years: Late one evening, when she decides to watch some old video tapes from her childhood, we see the anguish on her face as she slowly starts to break down in this place where she endured so much pain. It’s a tough role, and with a lesser actress the story would not work nearly as well. It’s a tough role and Cima grounds it with power and presence. 

Spite makes quick work of forcing Joanna to confront her childhood trauma in this haunted house. Since her mom’s old car is broken down, she is basically forced into house arrest while she tries to sort through her mom’s things—other than when her neighbor allows her to borrow her bike. On top of that, she loses her phone, and her only access to the outside world is through the landline in the kitchen. She is slowly being forced to revert back to her childhood self by this sinister house that won’t let her forget her past. She even spills coffee on her open suitcase, so the only clothes she has to wear are the ones in her old closet. By creating a series of small, seemingly unrelated events that slowly cause Joanna to become her old self, the director, Celia, is able to do a lot with a little. The movie becomes more claustrophobic and unsettling as the audience is forced into this little house with Joanna. Before she or the viewers know it, we are trapped and there seems to be no way out. This kind of low budget film making is inspiring because it relies so much on a strong script and strong performances to create a sense of slow building terror. Also, major props to the location scout of this film because the old, creaky house and eerie, empty neighborhood do a lot of work to sell a sense of dread. As far as this movie is concerned, nobody but Joanna and her two neighbors even seem to live in Pittsburgh.

In the post show Q&A, Celia talked about how her own childhood relationship with her mother inspired her to write this film, and that deeply personal grief is strongly felt during Joanna’s journey to confront her own past. Nothing in the film feels cheap or emotionally manipulative–as can sometimes happen with these trauma-based horror films. It is a tough journey to revisit our painful pasts and an even tougher journey to try and make that introspection into a feature length movie whose end goal is to ultimately entertain and engage audiences for 90 minutes. Celia walks a tricky line as she tries to make a successful horror movie while also working through her own trauma. Through it all she comes through with a piece of work that is well-written, tightly crafted, beautifully acted. Many lesser horror films with twice the budget wish they could be this affecting. It’s not a perfect film, and not every narrative choice holds up under scrutiny, but it is worth a watch if you’ve got a parental-horror itch that needs to be scratched.

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