Movie of the Week: ‘All My Friends Hate Me’ anxiety is the most pertinent horror
The horror genre has always had the remarkable ability to tap into the psyche of contemporary life, extracting the precise ingredient that is fueling widespread anxieties before spreading it lavishly in the subtext of the very best movies. Through the end of the 1970s and the start of the 1980s, with race riots raging and the Vietnam war coming to a bloody end, horror took the form of slasher icons like Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees, invading idyllic suburban America like an infection of violence, shock and terror.
A similar thing can be said of the torture-porn sub-genre that thrived at the start of the new millennium with such splatter movies as Saw and Hostel. Feeding off the mistrust of the American people following the shady politics of post-9/11 foreign policy, the movement worked to reflect far more than its visceral facade suggested. So, what, then, is the horror of contemporary life? With social media, cancel culture and environmental angst swirling a cauldron of concern.
Andrew Gaynord’s latest horror comedy, All My Friends Hate Me, does a pretty good job of answering this question, telling a story that teems with all the nuances of social anxiety whilst armed with some of the greatest funny men and women of British comedy.
Written by the comedy duo Totally Tom, made up of Tom Stourton and Tom Palmer, two performers better-known for their appearances in Channel 4’s Stath Lets Flats and BBC’s long-running soap Eastenders, All My Friends Hate Me makes for very easy watching, despite it being extracted from one’s most excruciating nightmare. It all follows the travels of Pete (Stourton), who ventures to a birthday weekend with all his old University friends, only to discover that all of them have changed. Or have they?
Perfectly encapsulating the nuances of anxiety and of the feeling that one’s youthful identity dissipates with every step we take away from adolescence, this modern British comedy is an exceptional piece of bone-twistingly cringy drama. Arriving at an empty manor house before his friends roll in late from the pub, the anxiety is sparked from the very minute of Pete’s arrival at his own birthday party, a situation that worsens upon the arrival of Harry, a brash stranger that the group met at the pub and dragged back with them.
Played by a superbly spritely Dustin Demri-Burns, of the other comedy duo Cardinal Burns, Harry becomes the antagoniser on Pete’s birthday weekend, disrupting conversations with barbed jokes, often aimed at the protagonist. Whilst the rest of the group, played by a joyous ensemble cast of British talent, including Georgina Campbell, Joshua McGuire and Graham Dickson, roll around in the ‘hilarity’ of their newfound guest, Pete just doesn’t seem to get it. “You’ve been a bit crap, haven’t you?” Fig (Campbell) says to him at one point, criticising his mood. Maybe he’s changed. Or maybe not?
Equally funny as it is devastatingly uncomfortable, All My Friends Hate Me taps into the fears and horrors that exist within our own self-constructed anxiety, discussing the fragility that exists in the consciousness of each and every soul and the facade of wellness that we each put up in false confidence. As a representation of contemporary angst, Gaynord’s comedy marvel is a truly impressive piece of insightful and ceaselessly enjoyable horror cinema.
