The Scary of Sixty-First movie review (2021) – Roger Ebert

The best aspect of “The Scary of Sixty-First” is how Nekrasova captures the connections that can be made through conspiracy theories. As Noelle and The Girl get more involved with them, they form a bond that becomes a romance, and Nekrasova (co-host of the “Red Scare” podcast) knows a thing or two about how personal dynamics can form through intense common belief. There are so many interesting ideas in “The Scary of Sixty-First” that feel like they will be a part of the fabric of the next decade of horror and I kept trying to imagine those ideas in a film with tighter craft and performances.

Because while I can admire the effort here, the execution is another story. Hunter Zimny’s 16mm cinematography is wildly inconsistent, sometimes recalling the paranoia thrillers of the ‘70s that so clearly inspired this film but also feeling a bit slapped together, something closer to Mumblecore/indie drama filmmaking. It’s so obviously a descendant of filmmakers like Polanski and De Palma (with even a dash of Argento), but the framing here feels more amateurish, especially in the final act when Nekrasova relies too heavily on shaky camerawork to convey terror. 

In the end, I was left feeling like “The Scary of Sixty-First” was all set-up and no follow-through. Sure, it gets bloody and crazy in ways that will probably turn off some viewers, but it doesn’t feel feel like it has something to say about our conspiracy theory culture. Perhaps that’s the point—that this kind of QAnon spiraling out about things we cannot control will only lead to misery. We might look back on “The Scary of Sixty-First” as the start of a sort of apathetic Twitterverse brand of genre filmmaking, one that recognizes that making a horror film is harder in an age of real villains like Jeffrey Epstein. For now, it just feels like a cold shrug instead of the impassioned warning it could have been.

Now playing in select theaters.

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