A complicated tale of loss and grief combined with a liberal dash of Cosmic Horror, Starfish is a 2019 science fiction film directed by A.T. White and starring Virginia Gardner and Christina Masterson. Aubrey (Gardner) is having immense difficulty coping with the death of her estranged best friend, Grace (Masterson) and following Grace's funeral, breaks into the deceased's empty home to wallow in her grief. When she wakes up the next morning, however, something is terribly wrong. The sleepy mountain town where Grace dwelt now stands blanketed in snow and seemingly abandoned. Ominous creatures prowl the streets, and a mysterious voice on a walkie talkie tells Aubrey that not only is an enigmatic transmission signal to blame, but that Grace was part of a secret group working on deciphering the signal's meaning before it was too late. It turns out that while Aubrey and Grace might have drifted apart, Grace never forgot about her friend, and a series of tapes she left behind may be the only thing that can stop the breakdown of reality, if only Aubrey can find them...
Not to be confused with Starfish Aliens, although some of the beings encountered certainly qualify.
This film contains examples of the following tropes:
- Ambiguous Situation: Woman tries to survive the apocalypse while grieving her friend's death seems straightforward enough. But what happens from there (and what might actually really be happening) becomes increasingly vague.
- Animal Motif: Aubrey braves the unnatural winter clad in a wolf skin that still has the head attached.
- Arc Words: "Forgive & forget."
- Based on a True Story: This title card seems like a non-sequitir at the start of an a apocalyptic Cosmic Horror film, but becomes less so when one learns that A.T. White wrote the film in the wake of the death of a real-life friend of his who was also named Grace.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: One of the most memorable reality-shifts in a film full of them involves Aubrey suddenly finding herself on the set of a film called "Starfish," starring Virginia Gardner and directed by A.T. White.
- Brown Note: The signal can be used to repel or possibly even destroy the creatures.
- Cassette Craze: Grace encoded the seven parts of the signal into indie rock mix tapes recorded on old-fashioned cassettes. Justified, given that her apartment furnishings seem to indicate she had a thing for obsolete technology.
- Cosmic Horror Story: Strange signals open the dimensional gateways to let in disturbing monsters.
- Dead Person Conversation: Aubrey and the deceased Grace finally settle down for a heart-to-heart halfway through the film.
- The End of the World as We Know It: A series of encrypted signals embedded in music or other broadcasts cause rifts in reality to open, admitting Eldritch Abominations into our world. Or it's just a woman confronting her various fears and regrets in the wake of a loved one's death.
- Facial Horror: Aubrey is haunted by an apparition of Edward with his face and most of the front of his skull torn out.
- Fan Disservice: During the animated sequence Aubrey ends up completely nude, but it is while she is drowning. Also see Nobody Poops below.
- Gainax Ending: Aubrey either is absorbed into the dimensional anomaly or comes to terms with her grief, depending on how you interpret the entire movie.
- Humanoid Abomination: Most of the creatures seen onscreen as well as the faceless man.
- Medium Blending: Aubrey spends several minutes in a anime-style cartoon world at one point.
- Mind Screw: Is the world really ending or is the whole thing a metaphor for one woman's struggle with grief over a loved one? Is the signal causing Aubrey to phase into different dimensions or is she hallucinating or imagining things? Did Aubrey and Edward just break up or did something darker happen? Did Grace genuinely think playing the entire signal would fix things, or did she knowingly plan to speed the destruction of the world along using Aubrey as a proxy? The movie answers absolutely none of this while leaving all possible interpretations equally valid.
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: The most commonly-encountered type of creature has a Eyeless Face and a maw filled with sharp teeth.
- My Death Is Only The Beginning: If you are of the belief that Grace planned for the ending to go the way it does.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Aubrey is convinced that she closed the dimensional gateways by re-combining the signal and broadcasting it from the radio tower. The man on the walkie talkie points out that broadcasting the invaders' own signal that they created wouldn't do anything of the sort and that it has, in fact, opened all possible gateways.
- Nightmare Face: Twice we see a man whose face simple isn't there, instead replaced by a gory cavity with blood floating upward.
- Nobody Poops: Averted. There are several scenes of the beautiful Aubrey sitting on the toilet, glumly answering nature's call.
- Non-Human Sidekick: Grace's pet turtle, which Aubrey adopts and takes with her on her adventures.
- Noodle Incident: The night on the beach seems to have been the tipping point in Aubrey and Edward's relationship. But what happened there doesn't get explained. Then again, nothing about the rest of their relationship does either.
- Oh, Crap!: Aubrey's reaction once she learns that she might have been set up, and that the words taped onto the cassettes themselves also form a message.
- Plot Coupons: The cassette tapes that Aubrey must gather from the various places where Grace secreted them around town.
- Refusal of the Call: Aubrey finds herself being drawn into a struggle for the survival of the human race by a nameless man on a walkie talkie. Instead, intrigued by the idea of getting to enjoy a world without other people, she simply turns off the radio and settles in to enjoy squatting in Grace's apartment. At least until her food begins to run out.
- Shout-Out: At one point Aubrey places red tape over a damaged door to keep the monsters out. Red tape is used in the exact same way in Kairo, which is also a film in which a supernatural apocalypse is used to explore themes of personal grief and depression.
- The scene where Aubrey watches in silent awe as a colossal alien beast slowly passes before her calls to mind a nearly identical scene in The Mist
- Through the Eyes of Madness: There are hints throughout the film that much if not all of what Aubrey is experiencing is the result of a mental breakdown in the wake of her best friend's death.
- Wham Line: "You didn't close the doors. You opened them."
- Wrong Genre Savvy: The man from Grace's group thinks he's in a gritty, post-apocalyptic survival story and that fellow survivor Aubrey will be as determined to beat the odds as he is. Needless to say, he's a bit flustered when she decides to just tune him out and mope while holed up in Grace's apartment.
