Things Heard & Seen Review (Film, 2021) #31DaysOfHorror
content warning: blood, eating disorders, domestic abuse, violence against women, nudity
I have to address the content warning straight away on this review. I almost didn’t finish the film because of the eating disorder content. Catherine is bulimic. She constantly goes on the scale and the film even shows her trying to purge. It’s an incredibly sensitive subject that can be dangerous to approach in fiction. I could write incredibly terrifying stories about my own experience with eating disorders and disordered eating but choose not to because of how strongly those narratives can impact other people’s well-being. Here, it feels purely like shock value with no greater meaning.
Catherine and George move to upstate New York after George accepts a professor position immediately after completing his PHD. His thesis discussing the influence of Emanuel Swedenborg’s art and philosophy on George Inness’ landscapes landed him the position, putting his family in a beautiful and incredibly haunted house.
Things Heard & Seen is written and directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, adapted from the novel All Things Cease to Appear by Elizabeth Brundage. It is a beautiful horror film, pulling massive influence from the artwork of the Hudson Valley.
Not to diverge into close-enough-to-local history for me, but the setting of the film is home to an impressive collection of historical artists who spent their careers capturing the beauty of the region. They typically worked in these massive landscapes that can feel almost overwhelming in their detail. One of my professors once used a collection of this artwork to illustrate the sublime, something so overwhelmingly beautiful that it becomes impossible to describe. It’s been a massive influence on my own approach to creating horror, because this specific critical theory terrified me. The idea that something is so overwhelming that it cannot be described genuinely scares me. It does feel like it’s a concept at play in this film, and I imagine Brundage leaned into Swedenborg and Inness specifically for that effect.
Conceptually, the film has a simple thesis: what if George Inness and Emanuel Swedenborg were right? It’s discussed throughout the film, casting a shadow over everything. The framing of the landscapes and coloring even matches Inness’ more famous paintings. The setting and plot align with their beliefs on spirituality and the afterlife. It’s said plainly at the top: every living thing has a spiritual counterpoint. Inness’ goal was to capture this energy in his work.
In the film, it means haunting is real and not hidden. You see the stuff move on its own and the full body apparitions straight away. The driving force of the film is not the haunting itself but the strain on George and Catherine’s relationship. The relative isolation of upstate New York gives them nowhere to hide from their problems. Everyone knows everyone else but George and Catherine admittedly don’t know all that much about each other. Dating led to pregnancy led to marriage led to grad school led to a professorship far away from either’s support group in a few short years.
Things Heard & Seen is a film I did not feel safe watching. It’s not because of any extreme horror narrative or shocking visual but because of its narrative choices. I’ve seen horror films where a haunting represents the state of a toxic relationship or some incredibly damaging secret in someone’s life. I haven’t seen a modern horror film approach it figuratively and literally in quite some time. I wasn’t scared by the story; I was repelled by the whole thing. The concept of taking an artist’s philosophy as fact is fascinating to me, but I don’t like how this particular film approached it.
Things Heard & Seen is streaming on Netflix.
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