It’s not often that an experimental horror film generates buzz outside of horror geekdom, especially one made by a transgender writer-director-editor, with a newcomer who’s not yet 20 as its star.
But critics have been foregrounding Jane Schoenbrun’s new indie, “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair,” since its debut last year at the Sundance Film Festival.
The movie is currently in theaters and set for an April 22 digital release. Shot mostly in Ellenville, N.Y., in Ulster County, the film stars Anna Cobb as Casey, a teenager who lives with her father in a rural home, where she binges creepypasta videos (or web scares) in her attic bedroom and awkwardly tries to connect with other lovers of the macabre, including an anonymous older man who goes by JLB (Michael J.
Rogers). The film’s title comes from its opening scene, when Casey makes a video announcing that she’s taking the World’s Fair Challenge, an online role-playing horror game that, if the videos Casey watches are to be believed, makes people go mad.