Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999) was, ostensibly, a film that couched a meditation on the mundane topic of marriage and mistrust in mysterious extravagances (operatic orgies, hints of the occult, dream logic). Watching it now, it’s abundantly clear that the film is actually most trenchant in its treatment of class, corruption, and the sexual penchants of an invincible, monied elite (embodied by Sydney Pollack). Non-tabloid critics may have sidelined this surreptitious subtext at the time of Eyes Wide Shut’s release, but in the current climate, online discourse has latched on to the connection between the film’s horny, masked cabal and the sex-trafficking ring run by Jeffrey Epstein for the benefit of the rich and powerful.
Dasha Nekrasova’s first feature, The Scary of Sixty-First, is an homage to Eyes Wide Shut that exists in a completely different media landscape than that which existed at the time of the Kubrick film a mere two decades ago. It tackles the subject of Epstein at a time when it seems that there are no more open secrets and in which Kubrick’s subtle sleight of hand would be superfluous. Scary taps into the hopeless monomania of trying to uncover a conspiracy that everyone is already hip to (or, worse, in on).
Shortly after Epstein is found dead in jail by apparent suicide, roommates Addie (Betsey Brown) and Noelle (Madeline Quinn) become separately obsessed with his death and misdeeds when they move into a suspiciously cheap apartment on the Upper East Side. They learn from a visitor (played by Nekrasova, and identified only as “The Girl”) that the place was once owned by the sinister billionaire as a “flop house” to stash clients and conquests. Through some uncanny force (osmosis, overidentification, or haunting), Addie becomes possessed by the spirit of one or more of Epstein’s victims, and Noelle stays up all night with the mysterious Girl binging on Google and amphetamines.
Nekrasova’s debut draws liberally from classics of ’70s genre cinema, as well as the works of other edgelord directors: the occult statues of (1973); the ambient paranoia of Polanski’s apartment trilogy, especially (1976); the stylish, eye-for-an-eye rage of Ferrara’s (1981). Keenly aware that her influences will not go unnoticed, she makes them unmistakable. Yet despite (or perhaps due to) invoking such touchstones, is never quite unsettling enough to actually scare, although the sinister synth score and frequently dreamy 16mm cinematography’s shortcomings (namely the uneven performances) are a part of its scrappy flair.
