Seance (2021)
Directed by Simon Barrett
At an elite boarding school for girls, six friends jokingly engage in a late night ritual, calling forth the spirit of a dead former student who reportedly haunts their halls. Before morning, one of the girls is dead, leaving the others wondering what they may have awakened.
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What critics compared Seance to
While it contains a clever blend of horror, thriller and mystery indicative of his existing style, there are also references to countless genre-defying horror films staples, from Dario Argento’s Suspiria to Wes Craven’s Scream sequels.
But even this crescendo kills its own buzz by dragging on too long, with a misfiring killer revelation reminiscent of the original “Scream” (in which it was supposed to be preposterous), then one of the more nonsensically out-of-nowhere lesbian kisses in recent celluloid memory.
As you probably already guessed, more bodies began to pile up, lending a Scream vibe without any of the sharp writing.
It reaches towards Kevin Williamson’s Scream, and snaps backwards towards Tragedy Girls landing nowhere near either.
When they allegedly make contact with the spirit world, and various students begin turning up missing, Seance sets its sights on a slightly tamer version of Scream for the Charmed set.
Wholly unimaginative and unoriginal, like a torpid “Scream,” “Séance” feels like the result of a haphazard night of manipulating a Ouija board—Barrett trying to act as a conduit to better films and filmmakers of the past and connecting with nothing or no one meaningful.
“Seance” channels the spirits of “Suspiria,” “Mean Girls,” and “You’re Next” but never seems to become a monster with its own identity.
While somewhere on a broad continuum at the juncture of Mean Girls (2004) and Suspiria (1977), there are endless points of cinematic comparison with Seance .
Fortunately, there are at least some elements of “Mean Girls” dynamics that feel genuine and provide something resembling emotional arcs.