Sissy is a 2022 Australian Slasher Horror Comedy film directed and written by Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes. Barlow also stars as one of the co-leads.
Cecilia AKA "Sissy" (Aisha Dee) is a successful social media influencer who one day runs into her former best friend, Emma (Barlow). Invited to a bachelorette weekend, Cecilia soon finds herself stuck at a remote cabin with her former childhood bully, Alex (Emily De Margheriti) and develops a taste for revenge...
The film premiered on the streaming service Shudder in 2022 and later had a theatrical release in the same year.
Previews: Trailer
This film contains examples of:
- Arc Words:
- "It was an accident."
- "You are a good person."
- Accidental Murder: Alex accidentally bashes Emma's face in when she runs in with a crutch, attacking after thinking she was after Cecilia.
- Asshole Victim: Most of the people Cecilia kills are shown to be rude and obnoxious to her, with the two big exceptions being Fran and Emma, who are sympathetic to her plight (at least until realizing there’s something seriously wrong with her).
- Bad "Bad Acting": Cecilia attempts to have a shocked reaction when Jaime accidentally uncovers Cecilia's corpse. It doesn't work.
- The Bad Guy Wins: While Cecilia is a good deal more sympathetic than most instances of this trope, she still kills everyone who mocked her at the party and successfully frames the deceased Alex for the massacre, which causes her fame to skyrocket and even gets her a book deal.
- Bad Influencer: Alex is mentioned to be an influencer and is quite vapid and hostile. Cecilia is mentioned to be an even bigger influencer than her, and she ends up committing straight-up murder many times.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Played straight when Cecilia beats herself up, nothing beyond a bloodied nose impacting her looks. Subverted to hell and back with everyone else, notably Tracy, Fran, and Emma.
- Black Comedy: Oh yes.
- One particular moment has Jamie urinate on Alex's makeshift grave while high as a kite.
- Another has Tracy pouring out a decanter of wine while watching a trashy Love Island-style show, while Cecilia cuts into her skin with a branch to fake an injury, in subdued agony as she does so.
- Alex calling the police while screaming frantically results in the operator confusing her for a drunkard. The battery dies before any meaningful help can be granted.
- Bookends: The film begins and ends with Cecilia's mantra she echoes to her fans.
- Catapult Nightmare: Cecilia has one near the beginning, after having a nightmare where Alex forces her hand into her scarred cheek.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- The Elon Mask facemask that Cecilia promotes at the beginning of the film comes back when Cecilia kills Tracy.
- What gives away Cecilia as the killer to Emma? The best friend necklace she stole from Alex.
- Jaime's crutch. It's what Cecilia uses to help kill him and Alex later finds it while crawling through the wild. She later uses it to accidentally kill Emma.
- Cruel and Unusual Death:
- Tracy dies after falling into the tub and getting her hair sucked into the drain, scalping her.
- Fran dies when Cecilia speeds up the car and suddenly brakes, sending her flying through the windshield. However, she's still alive after the crash, which results in Cecilia then driving the car over her head. And we get a close up in slow motion.
- Emma is killed by a crazed Alex in a blind rage, who uses a crutch to beat her head into a pulp.
- Disproportionate Retribution:
- Cecilia's reaction to Alex calling her names as a kid? To stab her in the cheek with a trowel, which leaves a scar on her cheek to the present.
- Cecilia kills Fran for trying to "take" Emma away from her to America.
- Downer Ending: Cecilia murders everyone at the party, who while vapid, were mostly innocent, while she gets off scot-free by making herself out to be the victim. This results in her following blooming to the millions and nets her a book deal.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: What drives Cecilia to murder? Hearing Emma's group of friends mock her.
- Hypocrite: Cecilia gives a monologue about how Emma is "fake" and makes "everyone else feel like shit" by acting so high and mighty, which she herself is guilty of doing.
- Improvised Weapon: A crutch is used as a bludgeoning tool, to quite a messy degree when Alex kills Emma.
- Insistent Terminology: It's not Sissy, it's Cecilia.
- Ironic Echo: Fran runs over an injured kangaroo under the pretense, "it's the humane thing to do." Cecilia later kills her the exact same way while saying the same thing.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Alex is pretty rude from what we see of her, but given the fact Cecilia scarred her as a child, it's hard not to see why.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: How is Emma rewarded by inviting her friend to her bachelorette party? By learning her fiance died and getting her head caved in with a crutch by the host.
- Not Quite Dead: Alex is thought dead after getting bashed in the back of the head with a rock and getting half-buried. She later wakes up, though with a massive head wound, and crawls back to the house in time to accidentally beat Emma to death.
- Oh, Crap!: Poor Fran has an insane nonverbal reaction akin to this when she realises that Cecilia intends to run her over.
- The Sociopath: Alex calls Cecilia a psychopath early in the film. The events of the film pretty much prove her as an example of this instead, solely invested in how she's perceived by the masses and emotionless toward the people she kills.
- Rich Bitch: Alex is a textbook example of this, owning a lavish home while being incessantly mean.
- Self-Harm: Cecilia beats the shit out of herself while faking an attack from Alex.
- Take That!: Cecilia and Alex are scathing indictments of particularly obnoxious influencers. Cecilia particularly as it's lampshaded that she pretty much relies on pseudoscience to lull her fans into a sense of mental and physical enlightenment while health practitioners such as Fran are overlooked.
- Twofer Token Minority: Fran is a lesbian and is also black.
- Villain Protagonist: Cecilia is this, a sociopathic murderer who is obsessed with her standing on social media.
- Walking Spoiler: It's pretty hard to discuss this film without disclosing the fact that Cecilia is The Sociopath and begins killing everyone.
