Can Bugonia Be Considered a Slasher?

November. The targeted ads have got me. The algorithm has got me. It feels to me like a never-ending sprint to keep up, to consume. Tech conglomerates seem to know me better than I know myself. AI may already have my whole life mapped out. I already exist. Everything already exists. I need to get out more. I need to get freakier. I need sharp relief. 

I have a chocolate bar stuffed in my jacket pocket. I’ve bought one ticket to see Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia, featuring Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons. It’s the first of the month, and I haven’t yet paid my rent. It’s the 6:20 showing, and I’m in seat H1. The theater is packed full. I have mixed feelings about the chewing sounds present at the beginning of every movie that I go to watch in theaters. It’s a promised feature of the theatergoing experience, and I have participated in it, but— at the same time— the wet crunching and the crinkling of wrappers do annoy the crap out of me. I’m a hypocrite, and maybe everyone else is too.

I have a chocolate bar melting in my jacket pocket. It’s a Cadbury roasted almond bar. It coats my fingers and crunches in my mouth. Its purple wrapper is probably heard by all in the theater. People know that I snuck it in. People know that I’m alone. People know me. Everybody is known, everything already exists, and I’m left painfully aware of my existence. I’m scared of everything that I am. I’m scared of other people’s thoughts. 

“I’m an alien,” says Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone). Bugonia quickens your heart rate. Bugonia shines a very clear mirror on the cultural zeitgeist. Bugonia knows what you’re thinking. Bugonia is a slasher film. Consciousness is a slasher film. We’re all dead. 

I’m not an alien. I’m insufferable and annoying, and I lack creativity. I'm a coward, and I’m naive. I’m scared of surrendering. I’m scared of death. I’m deeply agoraphobic. I’m scared of being alone. I’m scared of being seen. I’m scared of being ignored. I’m scared of exactly this. If everything already exists, then everyone has already lived their whole lives. 

Weirdness takes an all-encompassing awareness. Weirdness requires creativity from a place of deep knowing. Yorgos Lanthimos has made weirdness his calling card. He has turned the omnipresence of the film camera uncanny. In Bugonia, he has successfully fused fiction with nonfiction, science fiction with middle America. His art has been on the cutting edge, and he seems to have only gotten sharper. Lanthimos spots me dangling on the edge of a cliff overlooking unimaginable horrors, gives me a cookie, and stomps on my hands. Lanthimos kills me, but I’m grateful because I’m a fan of slasher films. 

Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons have been shoo-ins for great performances since the days of Breaking Bad and The Amazing Spider-Man. Hell, they’ve been good since even before then! So it comes as no surprise that both are solid contenders for the awards season. Who’s winning the best bob contest, though?

Also a big fan of Aidan Delbis! I want to see more of him!