We’re All Going to the World’s Fair

Of all the gen­res used to tack­le iso­la­tion and lock­down over the past two years, hor­rors have been the most suc­cess­ful. From the Zoom-based phe­nom­e­non Host to out­door projects like In the Earth and X, a hand­ful of direc­tors have used dis­tanced con­di­tions to cre­ate some a pro­pos films that speak direct­ly to our col­lec­tive anx­i­eties. And for indie film­mak­ers like Jane Schoen­brun, these con­di­tions lend them­selves to low-bud­get clos­et dramas.

If a glob­al pan­dem­ic has taught us any­thing, it’s that we are all fright­ened of being alone. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair opens in teenage Casey’s bed­room with her star­ing into the cam­era of her lap­top. She is tak­ing an inter­net chal­lenge, a series of trends that range from the good-humoured to the down­right life-threatening.

What they offer is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to be part of a com­mu­ni­ty, albeit one which exists online in a sea of anonymi­ty. Like Can­dace Hilligloss stum­bling through the title Car­ni­val of Souls in Herk Harvey’s 1962 hor­ror clas­sic, there’s some­thing chill­ing about going to the World’s Fair alone. With a sim­i­lar­ly brisk run­time under 90 min­utes, Schoen­broem has craft­ed some­thing equal­ly punchy in We’re All Going to the World’s Fair – the bril­liant­ly entic­ing title even sounds like a Shirley Jack­son short story.

The fears of the film go beyond the imme­di­ate­ly con­tem­po­rary, how­ev­er. Casey inter­acts with a mys­te­ri­ous fig­ure called JLB, played by Michael J. Rogers, whom only we can see. When talk­ing to Casey on Skype, he hides behind a hand-drawn ghoul­ish icon rem­i­nis­cent of meme­fied super­nat­ur­al fig­ures like the Slen­der Man. There’s a ter­ri­fy­ing sense that you nev­er know who you’re inter­act­ing with on the inter­net, and of who may be watch­ing you.

That’s espe­cial­ly true when it comes to post­ing videos online. Anna Cobb gives a star­tling debut per­for­mance as bud­ding con­tent-pro­duc­er Casey, shar­ing updates of her descent into the ​‘World’s Fair Chal­lenge’ through a series of videos she know­ing­ly refers to as being sim­i­lar to the found footage of Para­nor­mal Activ­i­ty. Cobb is excel­lent at toe­ing the lines between calm and unhinged, often fluc­tu­at­ing between them and nev­er real­ly set­tling on either.

In some ways that’s Schoenbrun’s weak­ness, nev­er quite know­ing what style to stick to in car­ry­ing out her intrigu­ing the­sis. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is at its best when Cobb is allowed to impro­vise and exper­i­ment in front of a sta­t­ic cam­era, and its worst when flick­ing through series of online uploads. Very often still­ness is the most effec­tive way to explore the anx­i­eties of isolation.

It remains unclear through­out the film exact­ly what the World’s Fair is and where it exists. It’s at once a real-world chal­lenge requir­ing a small blood sac­ri­fice to be smeared on the com­put­er screen, and an MMORPG bound to the con­fines of the inter­net. The point seems to be that these aren’t mutu­al­ly exclu­sive – that our online behav­iours and inter­ac­tions are not removed from our tan­gi­ble real­i­ties. Per­haps that’s the great­est ter­ror of all – of los­ing con­trol over ourselves.