We’re all brainwashed. All of us. Kindergarten teacher Emily (Stefanie Estes) organises the first-time meeting of the Daughters for Aryan Unity,’ an organisation of white supremacist Caucasian women, which includes ex-con Leslie (Olivia Luccardi), grocery store owner Kim (Dana Millican) and disgruntled single girl retail worker Marjorie (Eleanore Pienta). The members present have various grievances against immigrants, Jews, feminists, diversity quotas, and organisations like Black Lives Matter. The meeting, held in a church building, is cut short when the church pastor (Josh Peters, the film’s producer) uncomfortable with the topic of the group insists Emily leave. To save face, Emily decides to invite the others to her home; Leslie, Kim, and Marjorie accept. The four travel to Kim’s store for food and drink. While Emily is selecting wine, Asian-American sisters Anne (Melissa Paulo) and Lily (Cissy Ly) arrive. Unaware that the shop was closed, they try to purchase wine but are refused service by Kim. Lily confronts Kim refusing service, causing Emily to intervene. Anne attempts to defuse the situation, only to be intimidated by Emily into purchasing the most expensive wine on the shelf. As the two sisters leave, Marjorie initiates a verbal confrontation with Anne which degenerates into violence. Kim arms herself with a pistol and forces the sisters out at gunpoint; while leaving Lily taunts Emily about her brother, who is currently in a county prison serving time for raping Anne. Emily’s husband Craig (Jon Beavers) arrives and attempts to defuse the situation but Leslie is incensed and suggests going to Anne’s home to vandalise the property and steal her passport Craig initially refuses but is embarrassed by Emily into going along. Emily mentions certain details about the house, such as Anne’s living there alone and that she inherited it when her mother died. Craig tells Emily he is disturbed that she’s been keeping track of Anne like this. The four women and Craig arrive at the lakeside home and perform acts of petty vandalism before Kim finds Anne’s passport. Before they can leave, Anne and Lily suddenly arrive home and discover the intruders. They weren’t supposed to be fucking home! Confused and unsure of what to do, the home invaders bind and gag Anne and Lily at gunpoint and discuss their options. Unable to condone the situation, Craig leaves. Leslie suggests cleaning up the property to remove physical evidence of their presence and intimidating the sisters to keep them quiet. While drinking, Leslie and Marjorie beat Anne and Lily and force-feed Lily various food and drink. Then Lily begins to choke … The first thing you’ve got to do is take the media back from the Jews. This audacious and disturbing debut written, produced and directed by Beth de Araujo shocks and disturbs from the get go: when Emily arrives at the mixer she gets the first piece of the cherry pie she’s brought. It has a swastika cut into it. The camera lingers on that pie for an awfully long time. Our minds think, Nice as pie. American Pie. This is a meeting of Daughters for Aryan Unity. That’s just the first jaw drop: this isn’t some allegory, this is about actual American Nazis. And they’re all women. When they’re booted out of the church the solution for Emily is to get some wine and make an evening of it but then a girl surfaces who reminds the jittery Emily of what happened to her brother. She instigates a vile prank that goes horribly wrong and results in torture, rape and murder. Her husband exits early as the marital differences that were manifest in a failure to get pregnant now reflect on his masculinity – he’s just concerned that he’s being embroiled in a felony and doesn’t want to go to jail. He’s already participated in kidnapping. It’s the escalation to extreme violence at warp speed that’s so compelling. It’s paralleled and to an extent driven by envy: those apparently mixed race girls (Leslie accuses them of having had a wetback father) have a piano. They have a lot of cash. They live in a really nice house. They can afford a $300 bottle of wine. But Ann is a waitress. So what gives? The screenplay pulls no punches about the older women’s class and financial positions – they’re cheap people with dodgy records, their politics are on the nose and directly confrontational. The aesthetic choice to shoot this entire film in one take (kudos to cinematographer Greta Zozula) gives this a striking urgency. We just can’t look away as we are immersed in awfulness. The media loves to portray us as big scary monsters. Am I really that scary? The rape and murder occur literally just under the camera. The contrast between how Emily looks – she moves like a ballerina, she could be a model with those symmetrical features, lean body and long straight blonde hair – and what she says and how Leslie carries out what Emily really wants to happen couldn’t be starker. And it seems like she’s doing it as a quid pro quo to get Emily to pose in her vintage clothes online. The stakes are high for everyone concerned – Kim is freaking out about losing her kids – but they each just go along with the unfolding horror. White people are the worst! As a comment about the state of race relations in the US this presents a spectrum in terms of representation. One woman is the daughter of a KKK member, another is a housewife stuck at home with her kids, one is a baby boomer, another can’t have babies – and she’s the protagonist, the kindergarten teacher telling a little boy to have a go at an immigrant cleaning lady at the school. The politics they espouse are ‘soft and quiet’ and other than punky crim Leslie they look like butter wouldn’t melt but they’re participating in a gendered race war. It slides straight into genre action territory for the last half hour and there’s even a twist. It’s horrible but like we said – this is made from the perspective of racists and you just can’t take your eyes off it because the viewer is implicated from the off. A Blumhouse production. We all have great genes
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