This Free-To-Stream Found Footage Gem Flew Under the Radar — But It Features One of Horror’s Best Female Leads Ever -

Horror has supplied plenty of strong female leads over the decades. From such classics as Rosemary’s Baby and Halloween to modern entries like Run Sweetheart Run and Promising Young Woman, the genre gives women the agency to fend off their monsters with wit and physical gumption. When you examine the modern landscape, one particular woman in horror leaps to mind when discussing the strong female archetype. In writer/director Gillian Wallace Horvat’s 2020 film I Blame Society, Horvat plays Gillian, a filmmaker who uses her anger and frustration over a male-dominated industry to mount a project in which she hypothetically pretends to be a serial killer. It’s her mission to prove she has the creative instincts and vision to compete with her peers. Much to her dismay, several film bros don’t buy her character as a strong female lead, so she turns up the heat and makes a real-life serial killer documentary. As a result of her gruesome work, Gillian emerges as one of horror’s strongest female characters—competing against the likes of Norman Bates.

What Is ‘I Blame Society’ About?

Gillian Horvat as Gillian in 'I Blame Society' standing outside holding gardening tools. — Image via Cranked Up Films

Gillian’s serial killer documentary begins with an interview with her good friend Chase (Chase Williamson, also the film’s co-writer). The conversation takes a hard left turn when Gillian proposes coming over to Chase’s apartment and mapping out how she would kill his girlfriend. Naturally, their friendship falls apart after that. When a separate film project is rejected by her manager, resulting in him dropping her as a client, she resurrects the documentary idea. It’s her way of retaliation, opting to make her art on her own terms without having to get permission from any man.

She builds up to her murder spree. She steals cough syrup from a local convenience store so she can get a taste for crime. It’s simply a primer for what happens next. When she begins eyeing potential victims, she commits fully—scoping out their homes, circumstances, and habits. She needs to get a sense of their routine before she can actually kill someone. Horvat creates a fully dimensional character here, a real charmer who we come to champion in her murderous schemes. It doesn’t take long for Gillian to develop a taste for blood. She eventually crosses moral lines from which she can not come back. She’s all in, and now, it’s all about shaking up her patterns and evading the cops.

‘I Blame Society’ Crafts a Complex and Strong Female Lead

In making Gillian a complex protagonist, Horvat provokes the audience to question their own code of ethics in rallying behind such a complicated character. There are times when Gillian unsettles the audience so much, they squirm uncomfortably in their seat. In presenting moral questions about murder, the director delivers a character that stands out in the sea of similarly themed movies—from Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon to Get Away and Lowlifes.

Gillian doesn’t take no for an answer; she simply sees it as a challenge. She confronts a male-driven industry with a sharp, determined glance as well as a sharp, glistening butcher’s knife. She’s the most unassuming serial killer there is, playing by no one’s rules but her own. “You can’t anticipate me,” she eyes the camera following a news segment depicting the killer’s supposed routine. While serial killers are primarily males (with a few exceptions), she flips the script on having any sort of killing pattern—sometimes, she murders transients, and other times, it’s stand-up, working-class citizens.

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“It’s convention, Taylor. You have to respect it.”

Gillian knows no bounds for her work, pulling off a wide range of kills from poisonings to classic stabbings, making it impossible to anticipate what she’ll do next. Her cool demeanor, the sly way she pounces on her prey, and the ability to completely elude the police make her a rarity in many modern horror movies. She crafts such diabolical plans that there’s no questioning her will, strength, and mental acuity to pull off such a blood-hungry enterprise.

Throughout I Blame Society, Gillian transforms from a doormat to a confident killer, whose biggest crime is not committing these morally questionable acts sooner. And that’s the very nature of the character. Her complexity is a necessary part of the package. If she weren’t so charming, the film would collapse. As it stands, Gillian rises to the occasion to become one of the greatest female characters in all of horror. She might not be a household name, but she certainly deserves to be.

I Blame Society

Release Date: January 27, 2020
Runtime: 84 minutes
Director: Gillian Wallace Horvat
Writers: Chase Williamson
Producers: Laura Tunstall, Mette-Marie Kongsved, Michelle Craig, Jamie Rabineau, Monte Zajicek, Brett Brewer, Brent Brewer, Piero Frescobaldi