Bad Hair (2020)

It's fucking here! It's Spooky Season! Last year I had some fun with Transylvania 6-5000, the genuinely impressive Killer Sofa, the uhh... less impressive feardotcom and the downright bollocks; Alone in the Dark. But I am especially excited for this years round of movies in part because this is just fun for me, and in part because I've picked what I think are some absolutely outstanding choices, starting with potentially the newest film I've covered yet; Bad Hair. Written, Produced, Directed by Justin Simien, it's one of the few movies I cover on this blog that received a generally positive reception, but when you put a film in front of me about a malevolent wig that possesses it's wearer and turns them into a murderer, you just know it's going to end up on this blog.

Set in 1989, Anna Bludso (Elle Lorraine) after having an allergic reaction as a kid to hair relaxer, is currently living life as an Assistant at a TV station called Culture but with an obvious fixation on long hair... After a particularly bad few days where she fails at a job interview, loses her work hookup, falls behind on her rent and watches as the station Head of Programming and her friend is ousted from her job and replaced with Supermodel Zora (Vanessa Williams) things look like they could be about to get even worse, but when the opportunity to make the jump from Assistant to Associate Producer comes up from Zora, Anna grabs at the chance but it's on the condition she changes her hair from her shorter afro to a longer locks look; she has to get a weave. Anna is directed to Virgies Hair Salon by Zora, where she manages to talk around a slightly creepy looking hairdresser into bumping her to the top of the list, and although the process is really painful and traumatic for Anna, so much so that she passes out, she endures the pain to have her weave fitted, but is warned to never get it wet... Anna's new hair immediately gets her noticed by her old work hookup; Julius (Jay Pharoah) but when she finds out he shipped her off so he could get with Zora it naturally enrages Anna and she cuts him off. Later at her apartment, Anna's dickhead Landlord Mr Tanner let's himself in, completely wasted, and tries to rape her, until Anna fights back stabbing Mr Tanner and her weave springs to life, literally drinking his body dry of blood... forcing Anna to dump his body in the trash outside. Meanwhile back at the station, Anna convinces Sista Soul (Yanni King) to bend to Zora's wishes in order to fit in with the stations new direction and change her appearance with a weave, which she does, but it drives a wedge between their friendship, and later at a party; despite getting all the male attention, Anna's old friend, and former Head of Programming Edna (Judith Scott) clearly feels the same way; Anna is betraying who she really is and the pair fall apart. Speaking of pair's falling apart; Anna watches as Julius and Zora's relationship crashes and burns at the party and after he confides in her they end up going back to Julius's place, but while they are having sex Anna's hair takes her over, possessing her and, channelling the jealousy Anna had watching Julius go with Zora, stabs Julian to death with a broken wine glass and again drinks his body dry. Deciding the hair has to go Anna manages to find a salon late last minute, a salon that just so happens to be frequented by Edna and as the pair begin to reconcile, Anna's hair suddenly has other ideas and lashes out at both the hairdresser, Edna and another person in the salon, killing all three and drinking them dry whilst Anna sits possessed. In a panic Anna phones Zora with no reply, and then races to the office to find a dead work colleague and Zora sitting in a trance. Zora confides in Anna that she has been having the same problems, and that her weave now murders almost daily, but when she tries to cut it off with scissors, her hair hangs her from the ceiling. Anna runs to her dad's house, Amos (Blair Underwood), her dad is a strong believer in mythos and folk tales, and Anna tries to get more info about the 'Moss Hair Lady' a folktale she read as a child about a woman possessed by the hair of a witch she mistakenly wore thinking it was moss, but gets no straight answers... The following morning at the station, Anna finally gets to live out her dream and host the channel, but when the prime moment to announce their number 1 song that week comes to pass, she is upstaged by the musician; Sandra (Kelly Rowland) announcing herself as number 1, and behind the scenes spots a very much still alive Zora lurking behind the cameras. At the end of the night, Anna pays a visit to Zora's apartment and watches as Zora kills her assistant, before her long black locks go after Anna. Anna manages to escape and in doing so runs into Brook-Lynne (Lena Waithe), a work colleague, who pleads with Anna to help her escape but is immediately captured by Zora. Racing upstairs, Anna confronts Zora and despite also possessing a uh... possessed weave, the pair seemingly don't like each other, but Anna manages to regain control and kills Zora... again... with a well placed high heel spike to head. Fleeing to an elevator Anna and Brook-Lynne almost escape but the elevator doors open and standing in the lift shaft is Sandra, seemingly also owning a possessed weave, she murders Brook-Lynne and Anna runs away only to be confronted by an again very much alive Zora. Escaping to a recording studio, Anna finds and uses a novelty lighter shaped like a gun to trigger the sprinkler system, sending her murderous mullet haywire, and attacking it with a pair of scissors she manages to cut most of it away, and emerging from the studio she discovers the water has severely damaged Zora and Sandra leaving them curled up and dying (see what I did there?) on the floor.

Oooh boy, we have gotten Spooky Season off to a good start, because this movie was something else! Very similar in vein to Killer Sofa, this movie didn't take itself too seriously, and how can you when your creature feature is murderous hair, but at the same time focused on producing a genuine horror movie despite the ridiculousness of it's main monster. Where it differs from Killer Sofa though is that there was definitely more focus on it being a horror movie and less on it being an oddity and it worked really well here. As stupid as it might sound, the hair is presented as being a genuinely believable threat and as it tears open doors and wraps itself round people it actually feels like... an acceptable danger. As over-the-top as it might be.

I loved the production and the cinematography here. The whole movie has a 35mm film grain throughout which helps drive home the movie being set in 1989, and I don't know if it was added post prod or the whole movie was actually shot on film, but it was executed really well here. Coupled with some really great cinematography, and a genuine dark vignette to the horror scenes it really helped to build the movies tension but also gave it more of a unique aesthetic. 

As mentioned the cinematography was really good. There was lots of shots with Anna off centre which really developed the character as being almost supplementary but when she was possessed and murderous she was always much more closer to the centre of the shot. I don't know if that was intentional, or if I'm reading too much into it, but it worked really well. There was also some outstanding shots and angles used to set scenes, build uncomfortable feelings as the movie developed and genuinely execute something visually impressive, like when Anna was murdering Julius or the hair salon scene. It's clear they really put alot of energy into this to get it exactly how they wanted it to be looked. And the results really paid off.

The acting on pretty much all counts was also pretty decent. Vanessa Williams was great, mostly at just being really menacing and evil looking in the last 25 minutes and was genuinely convincing as a movie monster but Elle Lorraine as Anna was an outstanding. Being the downtrodden, passive female switching to a dominant predator when possessed by the weave, the range of emotions she had to display was excellent and she was a great lead. She did a really great job of genuinely making you believe that she was haunted by her murderous hair extensions, or by Zora, and she should absolutely go on to do bigger and better things.

Everything else was really spot on. Storyline wise, they took the moss haired lady from slave lore, which I'm lead to believe is a genuine real life story, and built a modern interpretation from it that had every right to be a completely ridiculous and poorly executed bag of nonsense (see Slenderman for similar vibes) but it was the total opposite of that and instead was a really entertaining movie with a immersive narrative that I was genuinely invested in. It helped that I really liked the movie aesthetic, was really enjoying the cinematography and that it had a perfect minimalist sinister, unsettling soundtrack running along side it too but all of that is wasted if your story sucks, and thankfully here it didn't. The setting as well; setting the movie in late 80's Black America in a Black TV station really helped to make it fresh and appealing. Probably edges me out slightly from the focused target audience, but as a White guy, I didn't feel you had to be Black to enjoy this. I still enjoyed it?

I went into it expecting a silly over-the-top, comedy-horror about a murderous mullet, but it was genuinely an unsettling, but masterfully produced and shot horror movie with an excellent lead and intelligent storytelling. This wasn't quite on the same level as Assassinaut, a movie which is still my favourite I've covered on this blog so far, but similarly it got alot of things right where Assassinaut got a lot of things right, and I initially went in with serious reservations when I saw we had a "Written, Directed and Produced" feature on our hands but Justin Simien did an excellent job here and I will definitely make an effort to check out his other work. A really enjoyable horror movie and absolutely worth watching.  It's an incredibly strong 3 out of 5 and a heart on Letterboxd from me.