dir. Emily Bennett

While horror films have long explored feminine hysteria born out of mental illness or revenge, Emily Bennett’s short film “Accidental Stars” confronts the horror of a woman living truthfully. 

The short film opens with a quote from T.S. Eliot’s poem “Hysteria:” 

“As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter and being part of it, until her teeth were only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill.” 

It’s certainly a unique choice, as Eliot is perhaps best known, outside of his poetry, for being a misogynist and an overall bigot. But here, the placement of this quote, from this particular poem, from this particular poet feels awfully intentional, and it is the framework for which the rest of the short film operates. 

Starring Madeleine Charmaine Morrell as Nerissa and Kyle Minshew as David, “Accidental Stars” follows Nerissa (Morrell) as she embarks on “a simple acting exercise” with her coach David (Minshew). Nerissa is tasked to wake up in her bed in a believable manner, but David says that her work isn’t believable. He insistently repeats the word “less,” and later the audience witnesses a glimpse of his notebook which is filled with pages of the word as they become sprawled on the page in an increasingly erratic manner. 

In a feverish progression, David tells Nerissa that she is taking part in the workshop to “live truthfully in imaginary circumstances,” transitioning the plot into an absurdist nightmare. The score becomes nausea-inducing, the lighting adopts a red hue, and there are several close-up shots of the actors’ faces, namely David’s mouth. 

The mouth is arguably both Bennet’s primary setting and object as the film descends into its final nightmarish sequence. We see David’s mouth grinning widely as he torments Nerissa while she tries to leave the exercise, and then we see shots of Nerissa’s laughing mouth both externally and internally as she gives a truthful performance to an audience in an imaginary circumstance. 

The significance of this perspective from inside the woman’s mouth isn’t lost on me, and I believe it is the most telling sign of Bennet’s purpose in making the film. After David’s repetitive “less,” commanding Nerissa to do less to become believable, Nerissa unleashes unrestrained laughter to a full audience, and we see this from the perspective of her standing inside her own mouth, giving a performance. A screen projects her red lips, smiling mouth, and laughter flowing behind her. 

Horror films have long explored the hysterical woman, the crazed woman, the perfectionist woman, and the all-too-familiar woman who suffers at the hands of a man. Many of the elements present in “Accidental Stars” are reminiscent of Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan (2010), as the main character Nina Sayers becomes crazed with perfectionism under the guidance of her ballet director. But the trend of the madwoman trope and feminine hysteria can be traced back to the inception of horror as a genre. 

Here, Bennet presents the trope of the hysterical woman—the woman who is less rational and more overtly emotionally-charged than her male peers—and employs it to confront the undermining and restraint of Nerissa’s character throughout the first half of the short film. Instead of “less,” this character unleashes it all. And what better vehicle for catharsis than laughter from the mouth? 

Nerissa is not vengeful toward others out of repression (Carrie, 1976), nor does she inflict harm onto herself (Black Swan, 2010). The release in this imaginary performance sequence is entirely emotional. As the film concludes, the sequence abruptly ends and audiences are provided with a shot of David’s shocked face while Nerissa’s laughter continues. 

It is pure purgation, and it’s delicious.