Now that we’re officially into spooky season (which is to say, August has recently finished), I finally have an excuse to start writing about horror films again. Not that I ever let not having an excuse stop me, but hey, any reason, you know?
With that said, I’d like to talk to you about a slightly different kind of movie today: namely, Milk & Serial. Don’t worry if you haven’t seen it, because it’s available on YouTube, for free, in its entirety – it’s a micro-budget indie found footage horror flick (try saying that three times fast), starring, written, and directed by Curry Barker. Barker gained some notoriety in the indie horror scene with his short film The Chair (which is also worth a watch), but Milk & Serial has been earning some serious chatter around the scariest corners of the internet. Following a pair of roommates who run a prank channel, the movie tracks the escalation of their goofing around, as some sinister truths begin to come to light about what’s really going on between them.
I love found footage, I love social media horror, I love indie directors who work around budget constraints to bring their ideas to life in inventive ways – in some ways, Milk & Serial was always going to be a movie I liked. But what I didn’t expect was for it to be a movie I loved.
There’s a level of polish and craftmanship on display here that, frankly, have been missing from some more mainstream examples of the genre – a tight script, solid acting, and a hard-to-predict plot that doesn’t present itself easily to the viewer. Whatever limitations there were due to the budget, they’re barely noticeable, the found footage storytelling device papering over any small cracks.
Much as Milk & Serial has been marketed as a horror movie – and certainly has plenty of horrifying moments – the command of various tones was what really convinced me that Curry Barker knew what he was doing, on and off camera. It’s as much Coen Brothers as it is Paul brothers, witty and sharp in a way that never undercuts the slowly-mounting dread. The prank channel premise laces the whole story with an uneasy absurdity, where you’re never quite sure who to believe or whether what you’re seeing is real – the film doubles back on itself, showing the same scenes from different perspectives, pulling away pieces of the façade until it all starts to make some kind of sense. You’re never quite sure who to root for, a discomforting place to find yourself in as a viewer, but an undoubtedly interesting one.
The standout for me, though, is Curry Barker himself, as the titular Milk – what he brings to this character is so compelling, a kind of wide-eyed enthusiasm for his craft that fails to differentiate the pranking severity of changing out someone’s pillowcase and bashing someone’s head in with a brick. This performance is, without a doubt, one of my favourite of the year so far, an odd, slippery, and constantly intriguing kaleidoscope of a character who Barker breathes real life into.
Milk & Serial is such a treat – an inventive, tight horror-thriller with a lead character who stands up to any great slasher villain. And, if this is anything to go by, it’s a promising start in the feature arena for Curry Barker, who I, for one, can’t wait to see more of.
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By Lou MacGregor
(header image via Variety)
No But Listen 