Honestly one of the most relatable depictions of mental illness I've seen in a movie. There's so much in here that really expresses how I experience depression and anxiety. The sense of detachment, then those bursts where you just don't want to, can't, be alone. (When she goes to that diner with her neighbour). How you are followed by fear (here taking the form of the undead man). Those periods where you feel you're not part of the world and/or everything isn't quite real. (Dissociation - here where everything goes silent and no one can see her). That moment where she's in the park and the birds chirp and the sun shines and it's that break, even a really small one, in all the shit. But the anxiety, the depression, can pop up when you least expect it, as it does for Mary. (Candace Hilligloss's performance as Mary is excellent.)I mean, I'm not sure if it's meant to be a metaphor for depression/anxiety/what have you (there IS a psychiatrist in it) but it serves so well as one, and that's what I see when I watch it. (Not to pathologise the aspects of Mary where she expresses her seeming contentment at being alone - there's nothing wrong with liking your own company, or being introverted - but the sense of detachment/isolation she expresses, above and beyond those dissociative periods, just reminds me of what depression and anxiety does for me.)(I will probably, at some point in the near future, become uncomfortable with getting so personal, and heavily edit or just plain remove this).Aside from that, the pervasive mood of the film, the eeriness is heightened by that excellent organ score and the black and white photography. I really need a nicer copy than the $2 five-in-one public domain horror collection I bought years ago at a cheap shop. I guess I should invest in the Criterion blu-ray?
