31 Days of Horror: When I Consume You is under the radar, heartfelt horror
For my last 31 Days of Horror selection, I’m going to talk about When I Consume You, a film that you probably haven’t seen or heard of. That’s a real shame too, because this 2022 heartfelt horror movie deserves to be seen and appreciated.
When I Consume You was written and directed by Perry Blackshear, who also created 2015’s They Look Like People. That film premiered at 2015’s Slamdance Film Festival, where it received a Jury Honorable Mention for Best Narrative Feature.
When I Consume You is about siblings Daphne and Wilson, who live in a shoddy apartment in Brooklyn. These two have hard lives, and have learned to depend on one another to survive both physically and emotionally. As children, they were abused. As an adult, Daphne found solace in addiction, and Wilson is a teacher who has to fight off crippling anxiety on a near daily basis.
Daphne has now been sober for five years, and desperately wants to adopt a child, but she reveals to her brother that she is being stalked. Though he is struggling with his own mental health issues, he is determined to keep Daphne safe and keep her on the road to sobriety.
If you have read my movie reviews in the past, you know that I do not like to give spoilers, so I can’t give away too much here, but Daphne lets Wilson know that her stalker is not human, and he is soon left on his own to find this entity and figure out how to stop it.
An unexpected twist takes When I Consume You in a new direction
Daphne has to get pretty harsh with her brother to get his head in the right place, and he is forced to stay strong through some terrifying (and heart wrenching) incidents.
When I Consume You is my favorite type of horror film, full of genuine terror, but with a lot of heart at its center. Most of that heart is provided by Libby Ewing as Daphne and Evan Dumouchel as Wilson. These two are completely believable as siblings bound together by both love and trauma, and their story stuck with me long after I watched a screener back in 2022. The last time I tried to find it streaming, it was missing in action, but lucky for you, that is no longer the case.
A little research showed that When I Consume You is available to stream on both Tubi and Prime Video (free with an Amazon Prime subscription). I suggest you look it up…you might find that Daphne and Wilson’s story stays with you as well.
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