We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (USA, 2021)

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair was on my long list for last year’s October Horror Movie Challenge, but I was put off by friends’ comments about it being dull. I wasn’t sure I’d get through the month’s reviews in 2023, so I picked films I thought most likely to keep me engaged. My interest was renewed this year, however, when I saw the trailer for director Jane Schoenbrun’s new film, I Saw the TV Glow, which absolutely hooked me. If I can find a way to stream that here in the UK, I plan to review it on the 31st, providing a thematic booked to the month.

Anyway, let’s all go to the World’s Fair. I hear it’s nice.

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is currently streaming on Shudder in the UK.

Synopsis

Casey, a socially isolated teenage girl somewhere in America, sits in her bedroom and undertakes the World’s Fair Challenge. We are offered no context for what this challenge actually is, and left to infer most of the details. Casey is nervous as she repeats the phrase “I want to go to the World’s Fair” three times, cuts her finger with the pin of a badge, then watches a video. We only see the strobing light of the video flicker across Casey’s face, not the actual video itself.

Over the course of the film, we learn that the point of this challenge is to initiate a transformation in those undertaking it, drawn from their dreams. Participants are warned, “We can’t be held responsible for what you become”. They post strange, often stylised videos, charting their “symptoms”. Some report physical changes, others vivid hallucinations or changes of personality. One young man worries that he is playing Tetris inside his body, slowly filling his torso with bricks, while a glamorous woman believes she is turning into plastic.

As Casey posts videos of her own transformation — a dissociation possibly rooted in her history of sleepwalking — she receives a response video from a man calling himself JLB, warning that Casey’s transformation is leading her towards violence and tragedy.

Are JLB’s motivations as noble as they seem? Can we trust any of what we are seeing? And just what is the World’s Fair anyway? Don’t expect definitive answers to any of these questions!

General Thoughts

Internet Culture

As someone who grew up in the days before the internet, I sometimes worry that my concerns about how online culture affects us is just me being old and grumpy. In its early years, the internet felt like a parallel world where people could explore alternative identities safely. Since the mid-2010s, however, the influence of social media has felt increasingly insidious, poisoned by disinformation, encouraging people to detach from consensus reality. It is both refreshing and sobering to see We’re All Going to the World’s Fair going beyond the obvious and superficially political, playing with the unpredictable ways the weird gestalt of online life absorbs and reshapes us.

On one level, the World’s Fair Challenge comes across as a harmless game. Casey tells us, “I took the World’s Fair Challenge because I love horror movies and I thought it might be cool to try actually living in one.” The purported reports of symptoms from participants are obvious performance pieces. “They’re just videos”, Casey assures us. We’re watching people playing roles. And who doesn’t love a good bit of roleplaying?

But at the same time, we keep wondering whether this is only a game to Casey. Are her videos also performances, or are we witnessing a damaged teenager drawn towards atrocity by a tainted act of shared imagination?

The lore of the World’s Fair Challenge is only hinted at, but we get enough glimpses to appreciate how deep and involved it must be. This is the kind of internet phenomenon that consumes imaginative people. At one point, we glimpse JLB’s computer desktop, with notes to himself to look into other internet conspiracies, including checking out the latest drops from Q. It is not hard to see parallels between what Casey is undergoing and the malignant pull of cults like QAnon.

Trans Themes

Jane Schoenbrun, the writer/director of We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, is transgender and non-binary, and I can’t help but wonder how much this influenced the themes of the film. As someone else with similar leanings, I find the horror I write often explores themes of transformation and identity, even when I don’t set out to do so. While there is nothing explicitly transgender in this film, it still feel very trans-coded to me. From what I’ve read, I Saw the TV Glow is more explicit in this respect, which just makes me look forward to seeing it all the more.

Verdict

While We’re All Going to the World’s Fair may not fit neatly into the horror genre, it is a disquieting film. There is a weird sense of voyeurism watching Casey’s videos. Even though she has chosen to make them public, it still feels intrusive.

The warnings I heard about We’re All Going to the World’s Fair being boring puzzle me. It is deliberately paced and oblique, with little action, but it is never less than engaging. The narrative feels like a collage, pieced together from other videos, implying a story more than telling one.

Everything we see is masked by layers of deceit, unreliable narration, and self-delusion. We’re never quite sure if individual participants are really undergoing something transformative, delusional, or merely making stuff up for social media clout. This is a film about people losing themselves in imagination, and getting lost with them is part of the experience.

We are offered a form of resolution, albeit one that leaves most questions about the World’s Fair Challenge itself unanswered. The final monologue is so riddled with irony and deceit that it turns a superficially happy ending into something far more sinister.

This is clearly a very low-budget film, but it never feels cheap. Apart from the video clips, there are only really two actors. Anna Cobb carries most of the film single-handedly, bringing Casey’s strangeness and vulnerability to aching life. The visual experience is just as strong, with Schoenbrun’s craft and imagination turning what might be a dingy, claustrophobic film into something altogether enchanting.

I would be surprised if We’re All Going to the World’s Fair makes my list of films of the month, but it I still expect it to stay with me for some time. Definitely recommended, at least if you’re in the market for something unusual and dreamlike.

The October Horror Movie Challenge

Please do join in and share your own thoughts with us about this or any other films as the month goes on. You can usually find us on Twitter, BlueSky, Reddit, Discord, or lurking in the dark corners of your home.

If you would like to play along at home, my provisional selections are:

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (USA, 2021)
Tales That Witness Madness (UK, 1973)
When Evil Lurks (Argentina, 2023)
Under Paris (France, 2024)
In a Violent Nature (Canada, 2024)
Torso (Italy, 1973)
Titane (France, 2021)
Rorschach (USA, 2015)
The Coffee Table (Spain, 2024)
Dr Caligari (USA, 1989)
Bit (USA, 2020)
The Guard From Underground (Japan, 1992)
Oddity (Ireland, 2024)
Speak No Evil (Denmark/Netherlands, 2022)
Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (USA, 1982)
Grave Torture (Indonesia, 2024)
Bedlam (USA, 1946)
The Innsmouth School For Girls (USA, 2023)
Daddy’s Head (UK, 2024)
All You Need Is Death (Ireland, 2024)
Eight Eyes (USA/Serbia, 2021)
Poor Things (Ireland/UK/USA, 2023)
Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye (Italy, 1973)
Longlegs (USA, 2024)
Night of Fear (Australia, 1973)
Stopmotion (UK, 2024)
Terrifier (USA, 2016)
Azrael (USA, 2024)
Faust (Germany, 1926)
Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (Hong Kong, 1991)
I Saw the TV Glow (USA, 2024)

A Final Note

If you have been enticed here by these posts, please do look around at some of our other film reviews. We also have a podcast, called The Good Friends of Jackson Elias, which occasionally covers horror films. If this appeals, you might want to check out some of the following episodes.