We're All Going to the World's Fair

Schoenbrun, a native speaker of the language of the internet, has uploaded into the cinematic landscape one of the most thoughtful depictions of self-discovery in the digital age. Through Casey’s plight of suburban isolation, the artist reaches out to us from a corner of the web’s endless abyss with an unmissable invitation, quite literally demonstrating the transcendental prowess of storytelling.

By framing her characters’ inventiveness with boldly bizarre imagery, Schoenbrun is getting at what makes internet horror such a unique mode of cinema. The viewer is unsettled not just by the content, but by their ambiguous relationship to who’s sharing it.

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair isn’t an exposé on internet culture or social media. Nothing about it is shocking, nor is it meant to be. That’s why it feels so real when it reaches its natural conclusion.

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is a moody, slow-burn horror drama about loneliness online.

A standard setup for a horror film, but filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun (who, among other projects, was ringleader/executive producer for the equally slippery SXSW 2016 feature collective:unconscious) has not made a horror film, but a fractured portrait of teenage malaise, of deceptions (both of self and others), and of the awkward probing of a cocoon’s inner shell.

In the tradition of internet science fiction, “World’s Fair” teases the boundary between the actual and the virtual, though in a frame of mind that is quietly ruminative rather than wildly speculative.

The lack of frights and jolts and general mesmerizing tone of We’re All Going to the World’s Fair make it “horror” only in terms of the mood. It feels more like a stab at social commentary and satire.

I felt like It showed really well how weird, fake, and lonely the internet can be, but I kind of wish It leaned more into the horror aspect of It because a lot of this movie felt like long black spaces that were building tension towards nothing.Still, very unique

Huge fan of Jane Schoenbrun’s follow‑up films, I Saw the TV Glow and Camp Miasma. I can see the themes and the directing style taking shape, and I appreciate this early work even more now. She has grown in leaps and bounds as a director. Everyone has to start somewhere. This one has a great idea and a few interesting moments, but it can be a bit of a chore to get through. Thankfully, the lead, Sarah Winshall, is very strong and the runtime is very short.

An amateurish portrait of loneliness masquerading as a horror film. Cinematic dead air. Goes nowhere at a snail's pace. Avoid.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Please, don't waste your time. Probably the most dissapointed I've been in a movie, followed closely by the director's latest film: I Saw the TV Glow. I wanted to like both of these, and had been often reccomended this one... but its totally uninteresting. There is hardly a plot. Nothing actually happens - the events of the film are not really connected to eachother, nor do they go in any real direction. Its like I spent over an hour watching youtube videos from a single channel with 5 viewers, with some sad behind the scenes interspersed. If you are a lonely teenager who is desperate for a fictional lonely teenager to relate to, then you might enjoy. If you are an adult looking for a horror movie (as this is almost always advertised as... it is decidedly not) then go watch something else.