Intensity: 🩸🩸out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸, with sexual assault trigger warnings.
Directed by Sarah Tice
Written by Sarah Tice and Zachary Beckler
DID I?, the winner of the Portland Horror Film Festival’s Goule D’Or (Best Feature in Festival) Award, takes an honest approach to the cruelty and ramifications of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). The psychological thriller invests its time with Genevieve, a bookish junior editor at a publishing company who struggles with her alter ego, Stevie, who is a bit of a wild child. Her traumas are buried deep, and it puts several new wrinkles into the good/evil dichotomy that films that used what used to be called multiple personality disorder under the microscope.
The title is very clever. Did I? not only puts the psychological disorder front and center, but it also emphasizes one of the key complications that our protagonist encounters. She doesn’t know what her other personas are doing. Did I do something that I might regret? Did I hurt myself or others? What happened last night? What did I do? Rather than diving into the more fantastical elements that have appeared in films like Psycho, Secret Window, Moon Night, Shutter Island, Identity, and most famously, Split, this film plays the condition empathetically.
Our protagonist isn’t suffering from a good and evil complex, but she is distressed about not being in control. Her mirror side, Stevie, is a free spirit and a wild child. This woman’s mind and behavior have fully compartmentalized her personality as a coping mechanism. The big question is… why? What caused this shattering of self? As director Sarah Tice told me in our podcast interview, most people who suffer from D.I.D. have been victims of childhood sexual trauma.
Uh oh.
There’s your horror. And the movie will explore what happens.
The Cast:
- Alexandra Pica plays Genevieve and Stevie, a woman broken into personality fragments from a tragedy she has yet to come to terms with fully.
- Raven Wynn plays Rachel, Gen’s psychologist.
- Nicola Masciotra plays Barabara, Gen’s co-worker and Stevie’s lover.
- Trinity Soos plays Aimee, one of Gen/Stevie’s younger personas
- Michael Vitovich plays Martin, an ominous man from Gen/Stevie’s past
- Ana Monet is a runaway whose fate mirrors Gen/Stevie
A Short Synopsis of Did I?
Genevieve is good at her job, but she struggles with the office culture. She’s overworked, and everyone in the office takes advantage of her willingness to be helpful. The publishing company has a very popular detective/murder mystery series titled “A Book Called Murder.” Though very successful, the book is derivative and stale. The ghostwriter has quit on the publisher, and now the office is in scramble mode. When asked for her perspective on the series, she pitches D.I.D. as a means for the characters to extend the story’s lifespan. She is uniquely qualified to write this story. She’s been living it.
She invests in therapeutic routines, stress balls, and finger motions. She depends on patterns to get herself through the day. In the end, though, it can all be undone when Stevie takes over her body. She wakes with bruises and lipstick and the mystery of somebody else having fun in her place. Unlike many other characters in other horror movies, she is aware of her condition. Though she is aware of her D.I.D. condition she hides it from even her therapist, Rachel. She admits that she has a bipolar condition and O.C.D., but she knows that the stigma of multiple personalities could be ruinous.
Gen forgoes taking her prescription medicine, which leads to more time on screen for Stevie, and we get to see her perspective for a good portion of the second half. Stevie is certainly a lot more fun but spends less time inhabiting the body than when Genevieve takes her medicine. Now in control, she opts to take social risks when it is her turn professionally and romantically. In addition to surrendering much of her waking time to Stevie, Gen starts to see apparitions and horrifying visions. Clearly, putting aside the medication was a consequential decision. It all comes to a head when something vicious happens to someone close to Gen, and a reckoning is inevitable.
Stevie and Gen argue about their situation in an elevator, a metaphor that the movie frequently returns to. Eventually, this taps into the memories of some other personalities dissociated from Genevieve. Is the original persona Stevie? Or perhaps it is young Amie, whom we meet in the third act. Amie had to do some courageous and awful things and eventually was traumatized for her actions and inactions. Stevie has recollections of their traumatic past, and she has protected Gen from these memories by burying them in other personas.
Evaluation of Did I?
You will need to be patient with Did I? This is a slow-burn modern psychological drama. The film builds its story brick by brick. The horror does arrive, and it invests a tremendous amount of time with our protagonists, who are different versions of the same person. Key to this movie’s success is the dual roles played by Alexandra Pica, a young actress who was a high school classmate of director Sarah Tice. The best moments are often when Pica is on-screen simultaneously in both roles, having an argument with herself. She also does a fine job of presenting two versions of the same character that are divergent, but not so wildly different that they don’t seem aligned to the same body.
Artistically, this film punches far above its weight class. The film cost a measly $10,000, but it looks perhaps fifty times more expensive. Both Tice and screenwriter Beckler took on multiple responsibilities in making this film. They teach film in Orlando, Tice at The University of Central Florida. She is also the production Cinematographer. When I met Sarah, she was wearing a Suspiria Tee Shirt. Not surprisingly, she utilized primary color schemes to indicate a change in persona, with each color representing a different variant of our protagonist.
In addition to the color schemes, mirrors and elevators convey great symbolism. Personal reflection: who is on the other side of that mirror? Each of the floors the elevator serves has a different set of memories. Every button accesses different versions of Gen/Stevie/Amie… and more.
You will need to be on your toes for key pieces of information. There are fun nods where Gen/Stevie will drop hints to others that they have D.I.D., but it often skates right past the people they are talking to. The third act is also a bit of a chaotic scramble by design. Much of the horror shows itself late, and key revelations will be given in the closing exposition.
Conclusion for Did I?:
Did I? is an astonishing debut feature for Tice. She was fascinated by dissociative identity disorder and delivered an honest depiction of the malady. At Crytpicon Seattle, I participated in two-panel presentations with my friend Terri Harden, a licensed trauma therapist who fed me tons of information about D.I.D. before going to see this movie. I hope Terri gets an opportunity to see this and to get her feedback.
In addition to winning the top prize at the Portland Horror Film Festival, Did I? also won the 2023 John Wiggins Independent Spirit Award and the best feature award at the Toronto International Spring of Horror and Fantasy Film Festival. It will remain on the festival circuit for a while longer as it looks for distribution, but it seems only a matter of time before Shudder or Tubi picks up this film for their library.
Though the film looks like a Giallo film, closer comps for the feel of this film would be two older black-and-white movies from the 1960’s: Repulsion and Eyes Without a Face. If you really want to shoot the moon, try David Fincher’s Fight Club.
This film is not rated. It has some jump scares and a trigger-inducing origin sequence. It would be fine for some mature teenagers, but the assault scene in the third act is creepy to the point of utilizing the veil of fear. (Looking through your fingers.)
Review by Eric Li
An Interview with Sarah Tice and Zachary Beckler
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