Jane Schoenbrun is a striking, emerging presence in today’s cinema landscape. With only two feature films under their belt (with a debut as recent as 2018!) Schoenbrun has already been lauded by Martin Scorsese and received a positive reaction to their most recent film, 2024’s I Saw the TV Glow. That movie is a lurid, abstract, coming-of-age horror flick about loss, friendship, and the trans experience — complete with dazzling set pieces and an eerie atmosphere that captures the “uncanny valley” phenomenon perfectly.
But I’m not here to gush about I Saw the TV Glow. I’m here to talk about Schoenbrun’s first major film, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair. Watching these two movies back-to-back made me realize how much it served as the blueprint for all of the most unsettling, haunting aspects of TV Glow — which in part is why it works so well (coupled with a significantly larger budget, of course).
We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is a slow burning film with a minimalist plot; as much as I love it, admittedly it’s not for everyone. But just because the narrative is a bit watery doesn’t mean it’s not steeped in nuance — nor is it any less disturbing as some of the more straightforward blockbuster horror movies. So what is it about, and what makes World’s Fair so unsettling?
The Plot
The Google synopsis reads as follows: “Reality and fantasy begin to blur when an isolated teenager immerses herself in an online role-playing horror game.” While this is technically true, there’s a lot more going on under the surface.
We’re All Going to the World’s fair intimately follows the socially inept high schooler, Casey (Anna Cobb), and her foray into the deep web. She quickly falls into this cultish online community, beginning with her attempt to follow a ritual on Youtube called “World’s Fair Challenge.” Netizens claim that faithfully following the steps can transport the user to the World’s Fair, and after Casey scrolls through videos of other World’s Fair videos all night, she decides to give it a go. She repeats “I want to go to the World’s Fair” three times, pricks her index finger, smears the blood on her laptop screen, and becomes mesmerized by a hypnotic strobe light emanating from her computer.
This shows how perhaps social ineptness combined with long stretches of isolation have made Casey vulnerable enough to believe in this ritual, confessing to her camcorder that she’s been experiencing strange side effects from participating in the challenge. She then decides to record herself to document future changes in real-time.
Where to Watch We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021)
Most of the movie is filmed on either Casey’s laptop or camcorder, providing an almost voyeuristic effect as we watch her sleep — very reminiscent of some of the classic “found footage” horror flicks like The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity.
Eventually, she befriends someone nicknamed “JLB” on Skype. They initially talk about the World’s Fair challenge together, but pretty soon Casey begins divulging personal information about her life. Although she may believe JLB to be another misunderstood teen, the person behind the username (and creepypasta profile picture — very eerie) is a lonely, sexually frustrated middle aged man.
It becomes evident that he’s preying on her, asking for her to keep sending him videos of her post-challenge changes so he can “monitor her well being” and make sure she’s not experiencing any adverse effects. Casey obliges, and this is when the movie transitions from an exploration into isolation and how it can psychologically damage an impressionable mind into fully-fledged horror.
Casey’s Mental Breakdown
Over the next hour, we watch Casey’s mind degenerate and become completely consumed with paranoia through her videos to JLB. She genuinely believes the World’s Fair challenge has poisoned her, in a way, and becomes terrified of what might happen to her. Without anyone to talk to in real life (her only parental figure is a semi-absent father who shouts be quiet! and go to bed! through the floorboards) Casey gets sucked into an echochamber.
It’s insinuated that JLB is doing more with her videos than just watching them for the sake of her safety, which is perturbing enough on its own. He simultaneously feels guilty for causing her mental breakdown whilst feeding off of her mania; one particular scene that sticks out to me involves Casey sneaking into her pitch-black garage late at night, clutching her father’s shotgun and projecting a calming ASMR video on the walls to relax. With the camera fixed on the Youtube video for multiple minutes, it makes the viewer feel like they’re also watching ASMR alongside Casey — that is, until the soothing voice stops and the reverie is shattered. Casey’s Skype profile picture appears on screen and her face slowly distorts into something nonhuman while JLB booms “YOU ARE IN TROUBLE.”
As he continues to convince her the World’s Fair challenge is infecting her mind, Casey becomes violent and nihilistic. In her videos, we see her dancing like one of the possessed women in Evil Dead, snap out of a deep sleep with a demonic smile, tear up her room, and claim she’s going to turn her father’s shotgun on either him or herself. Perhaps the climax of this mounting mania, we see Casey maul and behead the stuffed animal that she’s had since she was a baby. She rips into with a murderous lust, hooting with pleasure as the limbs come loose and stuffing flies everywhere. When she’s finished, she grabs one of the animal’s plastic eyeballs and puts it up to her own for the camera.
Then, there’s an uncomfortably long stretch of silence where the reality of what she’s just done settles in; Casey snaps out of her frenzy and realizes she’s just destroyed something near and dear to her. This is her breaking point.
If she had any chance of being a “normal” teenager and ingratiating herself back into the real world, it’s gone now. At this point, JLB tells her he’s worried about her and suggests going to the police for a wellness check. Casey panics, deleting her Skype account and telling JLB he’s a pedophile and that he should never contact her again. In an effort to save face, she says she was just fooling him the entire time and that she knew the World’s Fair challenge was a hoax from the start. JLB — and the viewer — know this isn’t true. Casey’s mental instability has driven her to madness, one that’s violent and relentless.
The Internet as the Villain
This film is terrifying not just in its content, but the magnifying glass it holds to the internet and how it can warp young, impressionable minds or those who feel misunderstood by society or people they know in real life. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair calls to mind the infamous 2014 Slenderman incident, where two teenage girls brutally stabbed their friend in an effort to appease the main character of the eponymous horror RPG, Slenderman.
Schoenbrun uses Casey to show how spending so much time online can lead someone down a deep, dark rabbithole; asking a simple question on Reddit can lead to a series of other forums that eventually take you to a website like 4Chan. And with Gen Z (and now, I suppose, the older members of Gen Alpha) growing up with unfiltered or poorly monitored internet access, this is more possible than ever. A book called Penance by Eliza Cark also explores this concept brilliantly.
Looming over all of this is a comment Casey makes to her camera in the first half of the film: she muses that one day she’ll disappear and no one will find out why. A part of what makes We’re All Going to the World’s Fair so terrifying is that what happened to Casey can happen, has happened before, and will happen in the future. And Schoenbrun bares this truth unapologetically.
We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021) - A horrifying glimpse into teenage isolation in the internet era - Malevolentdark
Director: Jane Schoenbrun
Date Created: 1970-01-01 00:33
3.5