[Film Review] The Scary of Sixty-First (2021)

Trigger Warning: This review contains details of real life sexual abuse and sexual assault cases, some which involve minors.

As a horror fan, if you’re looking for some fun Sunday night spookiness to switch on and switch off in front of, The Scary of Sixty-First (2021) is not for you. However, if you crave something that will make you feel uncomfortable on  many levels, leaving you speechless as the credits roll, trying to decide whether you can morally take enjoyment from what you have just witnessed, then you should watch this immediately. 

Set in Eyes Wide Shut New York, best friends Addie (Betsey Brown) and Noelle (Madeline Quinn) are lucky to find a relatively affordable apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and swiftly move in. Soon an unknown woman (Dasha Nekrasova) turns up at their door claiming their new home was previously Epstein’s secret sex apartment. At the same time, Addie starts exhibiting peculiar behaviour, asking her boyfriend Greg (Mark Rapaport) to treat her like a child during sex, pretending they’re on Epstein’s “Lolita Express” jet plane. As events progress, it appears that something very sinister is at play, resulting in conspiracy theories coming to life and a cryptic warning to cease all investigation. 

In the wake of the Royals being in the news recently, due to the death of the Queen, it feels quite jarring to review The Scary of Sixty-First as someone from the UK. The association of Prince Andrew with convicted paedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein is always a difficult subject for the British, especially those who consider themselves royalists, and yet here it is again, the dilemma of defending someone’s heinous crimes because of their status and privilege, an issue that screams in the face of the viewer at the forefront of this conflicting film. As an open anti-monarchist, I enjoyed the calling out of the crimes of the rich but did feel a chill of discomfort throughout the masturbation scenes that Addie graphically experiences, firstly in front of Epstein’s old townhouse, and then in her own apartment with memorabilia from the wedding of Prince Andrew and his (now-ex) wife Sarah Ferguson. These disturbing Prince Andrew scenes are a blatant statement on royalism, finding someone attractive just because of their title regardless of their previous actions, whilst also exploring the upsetting outcome of the sexual abuse of a child that can occur, when the young victim is unaware that what has happened to them isn’t normal. 

There are also several unfortunate Easter eggs in this film that were not a pleasure to pick up on. On the contrary, the need to watch through your fingers once you realise what’s happening increases tenfold if you have any awareness of the Epstein story and what happened in real life. Not only does a doppelgänger of Ghislaine Maxwell (played by Anna Khachiyan) show up in various locations where Noelle and her mysterious new friend happen to be, but they use the real image of Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who is the most well-known victim of Prince Andrew as well as a repeated survivor of abuse by Epstein. This is pushed even further with a scene where Addie wears a very similar outfit to the one in the notorious photo whilst apparently praying to Metropolitan Correctional Centre. Finally, during the unsettling Prince Andrew masturbation scene, Addie is wearing underwear that may be considered young skewing, heart shaped patterns decorate the frills, the exact same underwear that Virginia Roberts Giuffre described herself as wearing on her first encounter with Epstein and Maxwell. These added touches bring home the fact that the crimes discussed in the movie’s narrative were in fact real, this is genuine abuse that young girls suffered and should perhaps not be paraded for all to witness as ‘art’. On the other hand, what is seen in Scary genuinely pales in comparison to the heinous acts committed by the real offenders. Audiences need to remind themselves that this is a genre film with the intention to shock and appall, whilst opening the floor to discussions of real-world issues.

How the general public run with conspiracy theories after such a publicly offensive event is also incredibly prevalent in the narrative of Scary, with the main characters theorising that all of Epstein’s properties are five blocks away from each other, linking this to the points on a pentagram and therefore to Satanism. This leads to the human sacrifices associated with the false implications and ideologies that uneducated people hold. This is considerably offensive to Satanists, linking them to the crimes of Epstein is blatantly wrong. This may be the element of the story that I find the most offensive, purely because the Satanic Panic culture should not be a scapegoat for every evil person in the world.

Filmed in 16mm, the grain on the screen adds a peculiar sense of deja-vu, paying homage to older films like Possession (1981), where the audience is forced to witness the disturbed and outright horrifying reality of the characters through an absurdist lens. Hints of this arthouse-style make this movie oddly beautiful, with the seedy darkness of New York portrayed in an almost comforting sheen compared to the harsh realities we are witnessing. This also pays tribute to Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, with the conclusion of this film confirming its canonicity to the 1999 movie, due to the unnamed woman receiving the same note as Bill at the orgy location, “Give up your inquiries which are completely useless, and consider these words a second warning. We hope, for your own good, that this will be sufficient”.

The Scary of Sixty-First (2021) is a lingering horror that is unapologetically provocative and offensive on the surface, whilst showcasing an incredibly valid commentary on the world of sex offenders and the survivors of abuse in such a toxic world of surveillance. The abhorrent oversexualisation of the grotesque in this film sends a message about the men whose crimes are being showcased for all to see, sometimes the conspiracies are simply easier to swallow than the real reasons for the felonies.

The Scary of Sixty-First is available on limited edition Blu-ray 3 October from Fractured Visions.

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