'When I Consume You' review | Brooklyn Horror Film Fest

Brooklyn Horror Film Festival’s When I Consume You follows a brother and sister living in Brooklyn who must face down an insidious evil stalking them

When I Consume You is the exact kind of indie horror I love to watch. Deeply personal, smartly crafted together, and full of the entire cast and crew’s heart.

A poetic and meditative supernatural thriller that twists in horror elements to tell its profound narrative about second chances, family, and trauma.

There’s a lot to admire about Perry Blackshear’s third feature When I Consume You, which premiered at the Sixth Annual Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, but nothing more than its sheer ambition. The Greenpoint, Brooklyn-set horror is a supernatural tale, action thriller, and family drama all wrapped into a polished arthouse package that is immersive and deeply felt. And although its ambition gets away from Blackshear at times, its heart — both figuratively and literally — is on display.

At the center of When I Consume You are Wilson (Evan Dumouchel) and Daphne (Libby Ewing), siblings who like all of us are in the process of figuring it all out. And as someone who has never lived more than a few blocks away from his sister in New York, this was particularly relatable for me. Daphne is a little further along in her journey than Wilson whose severe anxiety from their rocky childhood has prevented him from turning his janitorial job into something more. Daphne, on the other hand, has been able to turn her life around — until something stops her dead in her tracks.

When I Consume You is a generational curse movie in the vein of Hereditary where real-life human trauma is brought into the supernatural. Blackshear doesn’t shy away from the movie’s genre elements — the movie opens with Daphne throwing up blood into the sink before pulling out a tooth — but instead of a horror movie with elements of a family drama, he steers this towards a family drama with horror elements. Which makes its second and third act twists land with great effect.

⚠️ Slight spoilers ahead

After getting to know Daphne and her deep relationship with Wilson, he discovers her dead in her apartment of an apparent overdose. However, after seeing a figure fleeing the scene with superhuman agility, he becomes certain that she was murdered and vows to find her killer. However, this isn’t the last we see of Daphne as she returns as a ghost to help Wilson track down her killer. In his quest, he encounters a cop (MacLeod Andrews) who is not what he seems and uncovers a deep family secret that explains the ghostly occurrences happening around him.

There’s some narrative muddiness that makes the movie a little difficult to follow, though that’s also part of its charm. While the movie’s wavelength is sometimes hard to latch onto, its light hand when it comes to explaining its lore is appreciated. There’s a poetic quality to its rhythm that lands it squarely between arthouse and something broader.

For a low-budget indie shot over three weeks on location in Greenpoint, as Blackshear pointed out in a post-screening Q&A, it is impressive how effective its action and horror elements are. He has full control of an atmosphere that is as melancholic and isolating as New York could be in the winter. Plus the trio of main performances from Dumouchel, Ewing, and Andrews are dynamic, well-realized, and lived-in. When I Consume You is the exact kind of indie horror I love to watch. Deeply personal, smartly crafted together, and full of the entire cast and crew’s heart.

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Hey! I’m Karl. You can find me on Twitter here. I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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Karl Delossantos

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Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.