An influencer awakens spirits.


SUPER DEEP DOWN is used with permission from Lexi Pappas and Lauren Sevigny. Learn more at   / superdeepdown  .


Yani is an influencer ending a short-lived marriage to a famous actor, which she announces to her followers on social media. But she's gathered for a weekend getaway at a secluded lake house with her friends Kim and Frank, who want to help Yani move on. But Yani's finding that her sadness won't budge, despite the best hard-partying efforts of her friends.

But they unexpectedly blacked out one afternoon. When they wake up, they are so bloodied and disturbed that they can't remember anything. Their social media postings, however, reveal the disturbing truth -- and wreck the carefully curated identities they've created for themselves online.

Directed and written by Lexi Pappas and Lauren Sevigny, who also plays the role of Kim, this well-written, sharply witty short is part social satire and part creepy horror film. It's shot with an aspirational sheen that highlights the beauty of the setting and the finely honed personae of its characters, all active on social media. But that initial gloss wears away as the idyllic environs are disturbed by the characters' unwitting supernatural activities and their own raw, messy emotions.

Opening with Yani's online confessional to her followers announcing her eminent divorce, we're privy to the tumult in her personal life, as well as her desire to spin it with a poise expected by her influencer persona. Behind the scenes, though, Yani is genuinely sad and depressed, and the gap between image and reality is captured well by actor Shalini Bathina, who finds a nice balance between Yani's emotional reality and her more blithely plastic influencer persona.

With her sadness, Yani is a bummer for Kim and Frank, who try to cheer Yani up with party tactics. Played by Sevigny and Nick Marcone with both relish and energy, they are more cartoonish in character, verging on the outlandishly ridiculous. But they also bring humor and conflict to the storytelling, pushing back against Yani's depression and trying to drag the fun out of her. Instead, they find themselves blacking out, and then they awaken, bloodied and bruised, to a mystery. As it turns out, their fervent desire to push Yani out of her stasis also awakened some spirits, who are more than happy to help them move on -- with their efforts captured on social media, for everyone to see.

Shifting the narrative question also shifts SUPER DEEP DOWN into horror territory, though it never loses its outrageous humor, thanks to characters whose biggest nightmare is a cringe posting on Instagram. But even as the unraveling of the mystery is a crazy, bloody mess, the film isn't afraid of the real fears and emotions that fuel the overwhelming need to hide reality with a palatable gloss in the first place. When their ruses are up, Yani, Kim and Frank have lost the fragile scaffolding of their manufactured images. But losing that, they also find the ability to talk honestly about their vulnerabilities and experience a real moment of friendship. It makes for a strangely touching ending to a wild ride of a comedy-horror narrative and a biting satire on online FOMO and comparison culture.