By Horror is cinema’s most versatile genre, exploring themes like grief and family through the typical tropes we expect of scary films. Booger is another example of horror’s adaptability. Mary Dauterman’s debut feature film combines body horror with grief, using the transformation of main character Anna (Grace Glowicki) into a cat as a vehicle for processing the loss of her best friend, Izzy (Sofia Dobrushin).
Booger
Director: Mary Dauterman
Release Date: September 13, 2024 (Limited Theatrical)
Rating: Not Yet Rated
Booger starts by introducing us to Anna and Izzy’s life as best friends in NYC. Izzy adopts a little black cat and names him Booger. Anna is hesitant at first but reluctantly looks after him when Izzy dies in a bike accident. One day, Booger bites Anna and escapes the apartment. She looks all over for him, posting flyers around the neighborhood and leaving his wet food outside.
From Dark Sky Films.
The horror elements in Booger develop as the bite transforms Anna’s body. She coughs up hairballs, chases bugs, and adopts other feline behaviors and traits. Anna struggles to reconcile with her transformation and pulls away from her boyfriend, Max (Garrick Bernard). In her state of grief, she loses her humanity and her ability to connect with the people in her life. Her only goal is to hold onto Izzy, even at the cost of her own humanity.
Booger smartly straddles the line between its body horror elements and its exploration of the deep bond shared by Anna and Izzy. Dauterman deftly sets Booger and its story into the Gen-Z city experience (complete with sarcasm, karaoke, and therapy speak), with iPhone videos of Izzy and Anna on the subway and hanging out around the city. But in Izzy’s absence, these videos are all Anna has left – and Booger, of course.
From Dark Sky Films.
Izzy’s ghost is manifested in Anna’s grief and her attachment to the material things she left behind. At the loss of Booger, Anna falls deeper into her depression and her subsequent transformation is her grief manifested. The horror is reflected by the grief Anna experiences, and as she spins out of control her transformation is exacerbated. The two are so intertwined that it’s only when Anna accepts her grief and begins to heal from her loss that her turning into a cat stops.
These aspects of Booger – the grotesque and often comedic transformation into a cat and the presence of Izzy through her videos – are the highlights of the film. The supporting cast is also wonderful. Heather Matarazzo (Welcome to the Dollhouse) plays a ridiculously obsessed cat lady and Marcia DeBonis plays Joyce, Izzy’s grieving mother. But at the heart of Booger is Glowicki’s performance, particularly as she undergoes her transformation into a cat. She moves fluidly and mimics the facial expressions of a domestic cat, and the practical effects give the film a campy quality.
From Dark Sky Films.
Where Booger didn’t quite work for me was the film’s pacing. Although it is not a long feature film (running at only 78 minutes) it didn’t quite know how to fill all of its space. Booger could have benefited from a shorter run time, allowing the transformation and suffocating grief to fill each scene. Instead, the film stretches itself thinly over its allotted time and relies on repeating several of the iPhone videos. Perhaps it was filmed during stricter production COVID-19 guidelines, and that’s why the scenes feel sparse at times, but for a film alluding to NYC, it’s oddly quiet and empty of people.
Booger is fun and full of the type of practical effects that are making a huge comeback in cinema. While not the most original story (grief as horror is an expansive subgenre), Booger’s central theme and performances are enough to be enjoyable.
