After a world premiere at Sundance 2024, co-directors and operators of Magic Society Pictures, Nicole Daddona and Adam Wilder (Sexy Furby; The Mundanes) bring their animated horror short The Bleacher to SXSW for its Texas premiere. Looking like stop motion while CG, The Bleacher is a tight eight minutes of anxiety, a musical horror show meant to disquiet, discomfort, intrigue, and amuse all at once. It’s a mystery, a question of sanity found or lost, and it’s as much a nightmare as it is a declaration of freedom. The Bleacher is a myth, a victory, and a tale of woe, all rolled up into one and awaiting your visit.
Kate Micucci as the voice of The Bleacher in THE BLEACHER. Photo credit: Magic Society Pictures. Photo courtesy of Indie PR.
At the 24hr Frugal Wash laundromat, a pale-skinned woman with bright red-hair carrying her own container of bleach enters the facility, observing all the customers sharing their business as they wash their clothes. All is normal, or as normal as it can be, until she discovers that one of the socks from her load is missing, causing her to go on a mission to discover its location, a mission that may wash out far more than stains and blemishes.
Ben Sinclair as the voice of Dolphin Man in THE BLEACHER. Photo credit: Magic Society Pictures. Photo courtesy of Indie PR.
Given its brevity, one finds themselves struggling to speak on The Bleacher without giving away everything. If one were to look at the official summary of the film, you’d get far more than what’s been provided above and, please trust, you really should go into The Bleacher as unaware as possible. To know what awaits you offers a preparation that actually undermines the impact of the narrative as the act of discovery here does a great deal in generating effectiveness. It also ensures that any of the weirdness, the playfulness, and the degree of disgust or empathy is as authentic as possible to the moment. So how can one talk about The Bleacher without talking about The Bleacher? We do so by considering what we know — a laundromat is a communal place with its own rules about who uses what and when. It’s a space ruled by trust and destroyed by any breach. To use a laundromat is to enter into an agreement like you would any relationship and you must abide by its rules. This means that you need to care for all who enter and not screw with their clothes. Why? To some, clothes are clothes and nothing more. To others, they are woven fibers meant to obscure the most titillating parts of ourselves. A step further, they are a part of our identity, significant to how we view ourselves and the bonds we forge. So, if someone messes with your clothes, they are messing with your perceived identity, and that’s a line only the bold and brave should cross.
L-R: Kate Micucci as the voice of The Bleacher and Ben Sinclair as the voice of Dolphin Man in THE BLEACHER. Photo credit: Magic Society Pictures. Photo courtesy of Indie PR.
Identity is a major component of The Bleacher with Daddona and Wilder immediately putting us in the perspective of the central character. The film opens with the commercial for the laundromat before switching to her walking in and looking around, each of the occupants looking at her and judging. What’s interesting is that Daddona and Wilder specifically have those inside look at her and react, though not necessarily in fearful ways, merely as her being someone they haven’t seen before and, therefore, don’t immediately trust. This implies that those inside are frequent users of the space and that anyone new is meant to be evaluated before being considered “one of them.” This is a subtextual element of the film, with the concept of “one of us” running throughout. Not in a scary “us or them” situation, but one of being accepted as one is and being loved for who you are. Thus, in a space like a laundromat, any unknown is a threat to us, to acceptance, and to love — and this is all before The Bleacher loses her sock. Once acknowledged as lost, though, this is where things get weird and you’d better hold on.
What’s fascinating about The Bleacher is that the design of its world, the presentation of its characters, even the gravely vocal performance from Kate Micucci (The Little Hours), all of this is a bit of misdirection. We’re not meant to think of any of them as bizarre, odd, or particularly shun-worthy. Especially as we learn the nature of the lost sock and what it represents, there’s a certain amount of melancholy that fills the chlorine-basked edges of the film. The story we tell ourselves about the random assortment of people in a laundromat, a place of accepted socially collective use, a place that once was far more common before the personal machines were installed in homes across the country, is what first colors how we see The Bleacher. But the further down the path we follow, we come to realize that it’s not she who should be feared, but those who brought her to this place in her life. Maybe, just maybe, a lost sock isn’t just a lost sock, but a representation of guilt, innocence, and perceived justice.
Don’t beware The Bleacher. Beware what The Bleacher seeks and may it be found.
Screening during SXSW 2024.
For more information, head to the official The Bleacher SXSW webpage or website.
Final Score: 4 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
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