We're All Going to the World's Fair

Review

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is an artsy horror film that meditates about the isolation of growing up in the internet age and what sort of acts these feelings can lead to. I think this film executed really well on its vision and I had a pretty good time with it.

The film follows Casey who is a young girl that we never see interact with anyone other than her yelling father. We watch as she begins ‘The World’s Fair Challenge’ and documents her experiences and the changes that are going with it. She begins interacting with an older man, JLB, who is an avid viewer of hers but after her erratic behavior becomes increasingly concerning he tries to make sure that she’s okay as ‘The World’s Fair Challenge’ is just a mmorpg and its not real. Casey gets upset and releases a video in which she says ‘one day I’m just going to disappear and nobody will know what happened’ and then she stops uploading. The movie ends with JLB telling a story about meeting Casey a year later and their interaction.

This movie is not for everyone and I think the reviews reflect that. If you look on imdb it has a 5.4/10 while on rotten tomatoes it has a 90%, now I really don’t put much stock in reviews and I trust reddit more than most movie sites but I think this is indicative of how this movie is structured and the type of controversy of a film like this can cause in reviews. I think the way I watched this movie also helped my viewing experience as I watched it with my roommate and we were talking during the more quiet parts of the movie, so there’s a chance that it would be less interesting during the slow parts in a solo experience.

Anyways, time to actually talk about the movie. This movie has solidly dethroned Skinamarink for the title of scariest movie I’ve watched. I’ve seen people online say that this isn’t a horror movie and is more like a horrifying coming-of-age and I fully disagree. This movie is scary. Pretty much every attempt at horror worked for me in this movie and literally made me want to leave, fight or flight was activated. I think this movie is horrifying for most of it’s run-time, most of Casey’s videos are extremely uncomfortable to watch especially towards the end of the film. Throughout the movie it becomes clear that the ‘World’s Fair’ is just an online arg but whether Casey is actually playing is left more up in the air until the end so as the audience you sit horrified hoping that she’s just acting and I think this works really well.

As I was watching this movie I assumed Casey wasn’t playing the game, and even after watching the ending I still believe that she was unaware of her actions throughout the game even if this goes against what the director said. We see her in the beginning before she really gets into the game and we get to watch her interacting with the world outside of what’s being filmed and this shows that she’s just as awkward and uncomfortable with the world as she acts in the start of her videos. While the actions in the videos might be acting I think the Skype call with JLB disproves this as in the end when she says that it’s just a game she’s acting very aggressive and forward which is like a switched flipped from earlier in the skype call where she wouldn’t even look in the camera. I also think JLB’s story at the end sound very fake, I met up with this young girl spoke to her about the incident, got lunch, and made plans to go to the movies in the future. Although Casey doesn’t have much parental supervision, the idea that she would travel to the city to meet this man who’s face she’s never seen, who she only talked to for a couple of months just sounds fake and like a story JLB made up to provide people closure after other viewers became invested in her story, post-mortem.

I think the idea of her actually losing touch with reality/being possessed still works with the idea of fans pushing creators too far because of their interest into the story. It still works as JLB could have pushed Casey into accepting what was happening to her as she wanted to see more and by the time he starts to realize that she’s no longer acting she has already gone so far that trying to pull her back agitates her, the same type of reaction she would have as a creator only trying to please her fans only to have them not like it because they think it’s real. I think him mentioning her spending time in a mental health facility in his ‘story’ about meeting her hints at the idea that she was actually losing her mind because why would she need to go to a facility for half a year if she was actually serious about all of her videos just being part of the game. Anyways, all this to say, I don’t think it was actually a game for her.

This movie is super atmospheric and it works really well for me, everything around Casey is very empty and gloomy and cold while JLB is surrounded with light and wealth signifying the distance between them, in both their statuses but also in what they perceive is going on in the story. In terms of atmosphere, Casey’s portion reminds me a lot of the ‘Editor Wilbur ARG’ from 3-4 years ago which was similarly isolated, cold, and empty so that probably helped my enjoyment.

If I had a complaint about the movie it would be that I wish it was longer. The movie ended and I out loud said, ‘that was it?’. Despite my love for horror movies, I’m pretty bad at watching movies, I really don’t have the attention span to watch something for 2 hours without doing something else simultaneously so usually I wish movies were shorter but I came out of this film wishing that it was an hour longer than it actually was.

Anyways, this was a fun movie, I might rewatch it one day paying special attention to the trans narrative which can overlay the World’s Fair Challenge and this movie. Overall, it was a good watch and also I’m so happy it was scarier than I was expecting.