Content Advisory: Abuse, Animal cruelty or animal death
A social media influencer experiences repressed trauma after being invited to a bachelorette getaway by her childhood best friend in Sissy. Cecilia (Aisha Dee) has turned her traumatic childhood bullying experiences into a highly successful role as a social media influencer promoting mental health awareness. At the store, Cecilia runs into her childhood best friend Emma (Hannah Barlow), who she hasn’t seen for 15 years and it about to get married to Fran (Lucy Barrett). Emma invites Cecilia to join her and Fran, along with their friends Jamie (Daniel Monks) and Tracie (Yerin Ha) for a bachelorette weekend. However, it turns out that the weekend is at the cabin of Cecilia’s childhood bully Alex (Emily De Margheriti), which causes long suppressed anxieties to surface.
Sissy is a horror-comedy written and directed by Australian filmmakers Kane Senes and Hannah Barlow, the latter of whom also co-stars as Emma, the childhood best friend of protagonist Cecilia, who once went by the titular name Sissy, leading to her being bullied with the name ”Sissy the Sissy.” When Cecilia comes face-to-face with her childhood bully, he traumatic memories frim childhood come to the surface, which results in her lashing out in a series of bloody ”accidents.”
Sissy can be described as a mix of the Aussie dark horror-comedy of The Loved Ones, the gory ”accidental deaths” of Tucker and Dale vs Evil, and revenge horror of I Spit on Your Grave. Aisha Dee’s performance as Cecilia makes her a sympathetic character that you feel empathy for, even though it becomes increasingly obvious that not all is right with her. Overall, Sissy is a highly enjoyable horror-comedy that is cathartic for anyone who ever wanted to lash out at bullies in incredibly gory fashion.