Set in a living, oozing house, the film boasts some of the most visceral body horror in years, leaving viewers feeling like they will never be clean again
In some ways Travis Stevens’ directorial debut, Girl on the Third Floor, is a classic haunted house movie. Don Koch (Phil Brooks, aka CM Punk) is a disgraced macho man and soon-to-be father in the midst of a corporate fall from grace who goes to lick his wounds and renovate his family’s new home. The home has other plans, in the form of fluids, ball bearings and sexual temptation from the miniskirted girl next door, Sarah (Sarah Brooks). When Don vanishes, his wife, Liz (Trieste Kelly Dunn), comes to investigate, and there is a middlingly happy ending if you’re not on team bad choices. This narrative doesn’t really enter new territory, and that’s OK. There are other forces at work that make Girl a compelling and disquieting watch.
Girl features some of the most visceral body horror in years, thanks to an enthusiastic use of practical effects that leave the viewer feeling like they will never quite be clean again. The house is a living, oozing character and every time Don tries to make a home improvement it is as if he is sledgehammering, nailing or ripping apart a living person. The walls drip viscous, sexual fluids, and the pipes are full of strange black goo that doesn’t flow but instead ejaculates onto any hapless inhabitants who might be nearby. And then there are the ball bearings, which will remain an object of fascination long after watching the creative alterations they make to a human body.
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Girl is also a critique of toxic masculinity. The phrase is bandied about often, but Don is a personification of the phenomena. He is a man who fucks, consequence be damned as long as he thinks he will get what he wants. He fucks his job with substance abuse and poor decisions. He fucks his new house, trying to master it with thrusts of hammer and crowbar. He fucks his marriage by not even trying to resist extramarital temptation — and when that goes wrong he tries to solve the problem with brute force instead of a sincere apology or acknowledgment of his fuckup. He makes selfish choices again and again, and is ultimately punished not because he makes a single mistake but because he refuses to do the right thing time and time again.
The believability of the character is in no small part thanks to Brooks’ pro wrestling career. To be a male wrestler is to literally perform masculinity in a unique acting role that is always focused on the exposed body. Face or heel, the goal is to see the physicality of the performer in combat, bodies thrusting and clashing until one masters the other. It is no wonder that Brooks could embody this character full of energy and swagger, the perfect heel who just can’t make a turn.
Despite this characterization, the visual language of the film is constantly taking away his assumed power. He is not feminized, per se, but he is turned into a consumable object for a female gaze. His actions are coded as traditionally masculine: he does physical labor in the home, nonchalantly sweating while drinking a beer, but the camera lingers on his body. Alone in his home he drips sweat, strips off his shirt and walks around in short shorts. He is at ease with his physicality, but the audience secretly watches him. As the house begins to toy with him, he is turned into the damsel in distress. He is angry to be in a state of peril and rages with shouts and fists and tools, but still tentatively peeks around corners, into closets, into the dark places that he cannot quite see. For all his masculine power, he is presented as helpless, to be devoured, and like the house I can’t help but eat up his body, pain, rage and tears.
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