Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: WE'RE ALL GOING TO THE WORLD'S FAIR [Nashville Film Festival 2021 - Virtual]

The aspect of identity, social media and the inference of both importance and the effect of isolation is in full view in "We're All Going To The World's Fair" [Graveyard Shift Features] which functions as a interesting psychological reactive perspective on the idea of inclusion but also exclusion. The film revolves around Casey who, as a self proclaimed horror film nut, wants to take part on an online challenge where watching a certain screen with strobing lights can cause transformation (say like "The Ring"). The film sets up the isolation in her room and on the would-be farm or rural area in which she lives. There are reflections of consumerism but also decay. The structure of the film is what gives it an unnerving presence because it is not a horror film yet it is not a drama per se. It is a hybrid of structures of sorts. Much of the film reflects in a reloading of uploaded videos each showing the progression of would-be horror tropes of someone losing their mind or perhaps just performing an essence of a role in front of the camera.

Anna Cobb, who plays Casey, has the air and balance in a way of the previous Ellen Page, and questions the aspects of life while also understanding the primal withering of her intelligence or converting to instinct. Two scenes including one where she is dancing and then resolutely screaming for a second as well as a later disconcerting video where she covers her face in glow in the dark paint and then proceeds to destroy a precious childhood toy is heartbreaking but also ironic. The film uses the aspect of this horror story challenge to paint the voyage of everyone as different with a black hole waiting to consume. Even the character of JLB who seems oddly concerned with Casey's well being doesn't understand that this is her journey and she needs to travel it in her own way. An interesting coda of the film actually happens midway when Casey is walking through her town at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve going through an existential crisis of sorts in plain view whispering to the camera but no one hears her. B+

By Tim Wassberg