30-year-old filmmaker, writer, director, actress Carlson Young came in guns blazing at Sundance this year with her directorial debut, “The Blazing World,” a “feminist horror” and down-the-rabbit-hole surreal fairytale about female trauma. Co-written with Pierce Brown and starring Udo Kier, Dermot Mulroney, Vinessa Shaw, Soko, John Karna, and Young herself, the film was a dark, nightmare fantasy about Margaret (Young), who had been plagued with dreams of a strange world since she was a little girl. After a mysterious man with a map visits her one night, she decides to give in to the constant calls of The Blazing World.
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The film was screened in the Midnight Madness section of Sundance and was undoubtedly one of the strangest and beguiling movies there in Utah. Here’s the official synopsis:
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Decades after the accidental drowning of her twin sister, a self-destructive young woman (Carlson Young) returns to her family home, finding herself drawn to an alternate dimension where her sister may still be alive. Through an epic journey down the darkest corridors of her imagination, she tries to exorcise the demons, pushing her closer and closer to the edge.
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Not all reviews of the film are glowing, our own from Sundance said the film treated female trauma like an amusement park funhouse, and its “failures are a reminder that genre trends—even those rooted in social progress—are prone to eating themselves hollow.” Regardless, the film seems to have made a mark with anyone that witnessed it.
“The Blazing World” is opening in select theaters and everywhere on demand on October 15 via Vertical Entertainment. Watch the first trailer below.