This French slasher is queer as hell and feels like it fell out of a wormhole attached to 1977. This time, though, Daniel won’t be banished, and Mortimer makes the external rendering of the civil war in Luke’s brain as arresting as it is frightening. But now his alter ego is back, and what begins as a helpful companionship turns into a parasitic exchange. Daniel (Patrick Schwarzenegger) is everything Luke is not: sexy, bold, and very dangerous, which is why Luke ended up locking Daniel away in his mind all those years ago. It focuses on a college freshman named Luke (Miles Robbins) who, feeling stressed out by school and the need to care for his erratic mother, manifests the imaginary friend he hasn’t seen since he was a little boy.
Based on the book In This Way I Was Saved by Brian DeLeeuw, writer and director Adam Egypt Mortimer adapted the script with the novel’s author.
And if you just want a brain-warping psycho body-horror film, you can absolutely get your fix for it here. If you want a stylish, aching look at the effects of unattended mental illness, Daniel has that. If you want a thoughtful, discomfiting critique of toxic masculinity, it delivers.
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Madison gives one of the performances of the year carrying every minute of the movie on her shoulders, as she drags us all to hell with her.ĭaniel Isn’t Real works with potency on multiple levels. Was she? Was it the drugs? Was it a dream? Why does she now harbor an insatiable carnal hunger that can’t be satisfied with substances or sex? As Dezzy’s painting builds into a masterpiece her life spins out further and faster, with writer and director Begos turning her descent into a dirty, suffocating, heavy-metal nightmare.
Until, that is, a night of debauchery that ends with a threesome and maybe also her being fed on by a friend. Madison plays Dezzy, a broke artist who’s lost her agent and has to turn one major piece around in time for a gallery show that will save her from ruin, but she’s utterly blocked. Director Joe Begos pared down the filmmaking operation for Bliss to its absolute minimum, but with lead actress Dora Madison and the nightscapes of Los Angeles on his side, he had all the resources he needed to turn in some hard-core modern vampire horror.
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