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[Review] ‘My Name Is ‘A’ By Anonymous’ Is Thought-Provoking, But Polarizing
In this world, there are some films that can only be described as pretentious. You know the ones: the art-house films that try to be more than what they really are by appealing to a certain niche, but in reality are so full of themselves that they fool everyone (including the director and writer) into thinking that they should be shown in film schools for all eternity. And yes, I’ve seen more than a few of these films. I’m not one to rant about them, but needless to say, some art films rub me the wrong way. So when writer/director Shane Ryan’s My Name Is ‘A’ By Anonymous showed up on my doorstep, I was a little apprehensive about watching the film. But, having an open mind is kind of a requirement for this thing called reviewing, so I gave it a shot.
Loosely based on an actual murder case, we follow four girls, each with their own dark secrets. Alyssa (Katie Marsh) and her friend identified as “The Sidekick” (Demi Baumann), in between tormenting Alyssa’s younger brother, videotape themselves in angry teen moments, which include instances of self mutilation. “The Angst” (Alex Damiano) is a painfully skinny young woman struggling with the torture of bulimia. “The Performer” (Teona Dolniova) frequently confides to her camera phone of her aspirations to be a pop star, all the while suffering from bouts of self-harm and abuse from her father. This all culminates in the murder of Alyssa’s 9-year-old neighbour, Elizabeth (Kaliya Skye).
The film pulls very little when it comes to it’s realism. It’s very believable thanks to the cast. Being a low-budget affair doesn’t seem to be a problem, as for the most part the cast delivers their lines in a frank and genuine way. That’s only part of it, as the acting also feels natural. It makes you appreciate the performances more when you realize the gravity of the situations each character is in, and the subject matter. Abuse and mental illness aren’t feel-good topics, and this isn’t your typical Hollywood gussying up. From The Angst storing her vomit in jars, to the cutting of wrists while fantasizing of suicide, it’s very raw and not at all easy in numerous ways to realistically portray on camera.
Speaking of which, the camera work in My Name Is ‘A’ also helps to give the film a heavy does of realism. Making frequent use of handheld shots using smartphones and other cameras, as it’s primarily supposed to be one of the characters doing the filming, the shakiness of the image really at times helps convey the immediacy of each situation. Remember, these are basically teens just doing their thing, and so again, the rawness is very much there, just as you are very much there watching the events unfold.
As I mentioned, I’m not the biggest fan of art films. And while there was a lot to like about My Name Is ‘A’, there were moments where things dipped into the art-house realm which had me doing a few eyerolls. The music video-style interludes and the video diary vignettes started to aggravate. The same goes with the handheld shots. I understand the purpose, but moderation isn’t in the cards. It all just came across as a very disjointed slow burn (an understandably necessary slow burn for this film), and coupled with the subject matter, I just didn’t have the patience.
This is one of those weird situations. You acknowledge that there’s some truly great stuff involved in a film, but you didn’t like it in the traditional sense. And really, that’s what I have to say about My Name Is ‘A’. It’s not a horror film in the traditional sense, and it really is an art film. The acting and dialogue is very much real and integral, as is the look of the film. However, the subject matter will turn off folks, as well as the sad and harsh feel of the film. It’s beautiful, but at the same time hits every synapse in your brain with a “don’t watch” signal. Polarizing in every sense of the word, I’d recommend watching it for the realism and the non-traditional story, but everyone else will probably want to pass it by.
Video/Audio:
Shot using a variety of cameras and formats, the film is primarily framed in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen. Colours are for the most part consistent across the various formats, though details can vary. There is some edge enhancement and chromatic aberration with some shots, though it’s not distracting. There’s no print damage to speak of (save for any post effects), and overall, the quality of the footage is consistent with the tone and the style of the film.
Like the video, the quality of audio varies. Presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, there are some scenes where the audio sounds tinny due to the source being a smartphone, while in other scenes it sounds much better. Dialogue is for the most part fairly clear, although there as moments where low-level speech makes it difficult to hear what’s being said. It doesn’t help that there aren’t any subtitles included. Again, the audio matches the tone and style Ryan was going for with the film.
Extras:
Not content with having just one version of the film, we’re given two additional cuts of the film. The first one, The Columbine Effect, crunches My Name Is ‘A’ into a twenty-minute short film that contains the most effective scenes from the original cut. The second alternate, I Hate Me, Myself, And Us, clocks in at 57 minutes and is credited to the Katie Marsh’s character, Alyssa.
Following that are two more short films by Shane Ryan, Oni-Gokko and Isolation. Oni-Gokko is a 5-minute short in Japanese involving a girl tormented by her sister after a game of tag went seriously wrong. Isolation is a 2001 15-minute primarily black-and-white film that features Ryan drifting through a town after the murder of his girlfriend.
Also included are a deleted scene which has more of Teona Dolnikova singing, an alternate scene focusing on Teona Dolnikova, an alternate music scene that features scenes with Elizabeth from the beginning of the film with alternate music, a music video which features Teona Dolnikova once again singing while clips of the film are shown, a Teona Dolnikova Music Video Spotlight, and finally several trailers (including one for My Name Is ‘A’) for other releases by Wild Eye.
While the alternate cuts of the film make for interesting extras, it would’ve been nice to have had some input from Shane Ryan in the form of an interview or commentary. As it stands, the extras are more arty than informative. I know that’s probably what Ryan’s objective was, but even David Lynch explained his stuff.
Night School, director Ken Hughes and writer Ruth Avergon‘s tale of a headhunting slasher on the streets of Boston, arrived in the early Golden Age of the slasher film and never quite broke through the endurance test that other films in the subgenre, like Friday the 13th, managed to pass with flying colors. Blame it on a more cerebral tone, a crowded market, whatever you like, but saying it’s a shame that the film didn’t break through doesn’t begin to cover it.
Night School isn’t just an underrated slasher, or an underseen one. For my money, it’s one of the best films the subgenre has ever produced, full stop, and Vinegar Syndrome’s new 4K UHD restoration, arriving just in time for the film’s 45th anniversary, is must-have proof. Stacked with special features highlighting the craft of the film and its place in slasher history, and headlined by a gorgeous restoration showcasing the wonderfully textured production, this is Night School as it’s meant to be seen for slasher devotees everywhere.
So, what makes the film so effective? It starts very simply, with the revelation that a killer with a very cool knife and a motorcycle helmet as a mask is murdering young women in Boston, taking off their heads, and dropping those heads in the nearest body of water (no matter how small).
Solving the case falls on Judd Austin (Leonard Mann), a detective with an academic background who traces all of the victims in one way or another back to a local night school. There, suspicion falls on a womanizing professor (Drew Snyder) who sleeps around on his research assistant and romantic partner, Eleanor (Rachel Ward), whose own death could be right around the corner.
I’m doing my best to stay as spoiler-free as possible here, not just because I think plenty of slasher fans still need to see Night School, but because the film is quite determined to be a whodunit in the classic Italian giallo sense. The kills are brutal and elaborate, the killer deliberately covered head-to-toe in leather and a gleaming black helmet, the knife and the headhunting a disturbing signature. Avergon’s script is well-versed in the trappings of exactly this kind of story, complete with red herrings galore. And yet, by the time it’s all wrapping up, there’s also the sense that the answer was right there in front of you the entire time, something the very best films by legends like Mario Bava and Dario Argento could also achieve.
But on to the restoration: Like the best of the gialli, Night School is also a beautifully engineered film full of colors and delicate camera compositions and sound design. The opening kill, which takes place on a playground carousel outside of a daycare, is rich in exactly this kind of thing, from the cityscapes that lead into the scene to the sound of a motorcycle slowly rolling forward, its engine already dead. Cinematographer Mark Irwin, best known for his many collaborations with David Cronenberg, paints the film in rich reds, absinthe greens, and haunting, chilled blue-white light on wet Boston streets, all of which are preserved beautifully by the restoration team at work on this one.
It’s a movie that very deliberately evokes a specific place – the aging streets of Boston in the 1980s, and the halls of relatively low-level academia – and then takes that place into haunted territory, saturating every frame with color and shadow that suggests a killer lurking just out of view.
Night School is not a massively gore-heavy film, but it does deliver the slasher goods with a series of tense, often unpredictable kills and body discoveries that range from the darkly comic to the flat-out jaw-dropping. That’s thanks to the sound design, the score, the editing from Robert Reitano, and more, all of which add to the film’s giallo soul.
In every case, the scene’s geography is outstanding, and it’s easy to see where the simplest possible kill shot might land, but the film never goes for the obvious. Throw in a surprisingly (for 1981, anyway) feminist bent to the storytelling and some very progressive moments for an early slasher film, and this one fits right in with Black Christmas and The Slumber Party Massacre as a film with depth you can just keep unpacking.
That depth, helped along by a load of featurettes and two new commentary tracks featuring members of the crew, is what stands out the most in this new 4K set. Night School may be a niche film recognized mostly by horror addicts and the slasher faithful, but it deserves to be something more, a landmark on the roadmap of slasher cinema history. It’s one of the best in the genre, and this restoration highlights, underlines, and shouts that from the rooftops.
Night School is now available in 4K UHD from Vinegar Syndrome.
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