It’s a movie about stuff.

Clearmind presents an interesting concept in terms of cinema and slasher films. Directed by Rebecca Eskreis who of course we all know from her work on TV murder mystery drama What Breaks the Ice, Clearmind brings into question if it’s possible to care about characters when we know they aren’t real. And of course it is, we do it literally every time we read a book, watch a show or film, or play a video game. We get attached to characters and feel the feels when good or bad things happen to them, but we can always start the show over or read the book again and there they are. Happy and alive. We know they aren’t real.

And the characters in Clearmind are extra not real, but the movie wants us to feel less about their general safety and more about who they represent as characters. You see the film takes place almost entirely within virtual reality, it isn’t even real in the context of the film itself. Nora (Rebecca Creskoff) is dealing with the grief of her daughter’s death at a pool party the year prior and her lingering sense of guilt as well as contempt for her former friends and ex-husband Michael (Rob Benedict) all of whom failed to save her that tragic day.

Roughly the first 50 minutes of this hour and a half film is dedicated to getting us in tune with the characters, including Nora herself. But moreso we get a lot of time with the cast as written by Seana Kofoed who also plays persistently drunk and probably pilled up wino Kate. We get a good deal of time to see just what terrible people Nora’s friend group is. Michael who has clearly not gotten past the loss of his daughter but instead chooses to hide it behind his new ultra-religious probably not old enough to drink girlfriend Shelby (Jessica Meraz). Matt Peters, one of my favorite actors from Orange is the New Black, is here as David who is separated from his wife Kate and the two seem to have a relationship of shared toxicity. And then there’s Shannon (Toks Olagundoye) and Tom (Kadeem Hardison) who endlessly dig into each other and are not so willingly hosting the party and letting everyone know about it.

As the group of friends trade cheapshots at one another and repeatedly get into arguments about how shitty they think everyone else in the group is, you wonder why they stick around together if not for the likely fact that they don’t have anyone else. Bonded in their love of being miserable. Or for that matter if they are even like that. This is after all a VR simulation created by Nora and it may be an unreliable narrator situation. And the Nora shows up out of nowhere and kinda crashes the party because she wasn’t invited, and everyone gets awkward and passive aggressive toward each other again.

But as I pointed out, this is all taking place in a virtual reality world and you know what that means; Nora starts killing everyone. ClearMind is billed as a psychological thriller and not a horror, and rightfully so since it’s not scary and makes no attempt to be scary. Especially because it’s not real. Which makes sense because the film isn’t supposed to be about Nora killing her friends in gruesome or ironic ways or about the tragic downfall of a mother turned serial killer, but how the characters interact and how this integrates into Nora’s grief therapy.

It offers an interesting twist on the formula. Nora isn’t entirely the villain because she’s the main character and the one whose journey we’re suppose to sympathize with. The friend group isn’t entirely the protagonists because they aren’t real and them dying doesn’t have any actual lasting impact on the world. It’s one of those films where you’re never quite sure where it’s going to go next and I also enjoyed Jenn Lyon who plays Lily, and I knew I recognized Jenn Lyon before I read she played Cinnamon in 2018’s Blaze. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention the performance by Alec Mapa as Gary, the sassy assistant at the VR clinic.

If you don’t recognize Alec Mapa, you clearly didn’t watch much Dharma and Greg.

While there was nothing inherently wrong with the film, I will admit it didn’t have me on the edge of my seat at any point during the hour and a half runtime. The first two thirds feel heavily padded out with characters just reminding us over and over how insufferable they are without hitting that level of evil the film might have benefitted from. Put it on the watch list but don’t make it a big priority.

Rating: B+