The setup is familiar: a couple goes to a secluded location for a romantic getaway, only to have it ruined by acts of violence. But that’s the only thread What Keeps You Alive shares with the typical horror film; immediately, director Colin Minihan (It Stains the Sand Red, Grave Encounters) choice of centering on a lesbian couple reimagines the cat-and-mouse plot, and curbs the genre’s tendency to punish gayness. This is not a film about the slaughter or punishment of queer characters. Rather, What Keeps You Alive is a practice of building tension and bending common horror tropes to create something refreshing.
[Ed. note: this review contains minor spoilers]
What Keeps You Alive finds Jules (Brittany Allan) and Jackie (Hannah Emily Anderson) headed to Jackie’s family cabin to celebrate their one-year wedding anniversary. As they cozy up by the fire, play guitar, and soak in nature, Jackie begins acting stranger and stranger. An old friend comes to the door and greets Jackie, but instead calls her Megan. Jules’ suspicions begin to climb and it is revealed that there is no masked killer in the woods stalking the couple. Rather, the danger is coming from inside the house. From Jackie.
Instead of the usual man-hunts-woman plot, Minhan’s slasher offers one of woman-hunts-woman, and the power-dynamic inversion is a thrill. The film serves as a companion piece to Coralie Fargaet’s 2018 Revenge, though where that female protagonist is hunted by men with a very obvious tilted power dynamic, there isn’t the same patriarchal power in What Keeps You Alive. A woman can’t be exclusively understood as a victim, leaving room for surprises.
Jules and Jackie’s relationship raises the stakes of the slasher mechanics. In horror, there are tendencies to punish queerness or have it be the cause for becoming a villain. In Alexandre Aja’s 2005 film High Tension, the protagonist Marie has feelings for her best friend, Alex, but won’t speak of them. Instead, she represses her sexuality, which manifests as another personality: a psychotic killer who kidnaps Alex and murders her whole family. In this case, queerness is represented as demented evil.
Unlike High Tension, What Keeps You Alive’s villain is bad just because she’s bad. Jules asks Jackie, “What made you like this?” Jackie says, “It’s nature, not nurture.” the behavior isn’t based on trauma or obvious mental illness, other common tropes in horror, but something more primal, more terrifying. The villain’s gayness also isn’t flipped once it’s discovered that she’s bad. That kind of bait and switch is common in all media, making sexuality nothing but a tool to achieve a goal. But here, it is implied that Jackie does this to only women and she is in fact a lesbian.
While the film’s gay characters are refreshing, Minihan is not a lesbian, and had a curious explanation for why he chose to make this film. Initially, What Keeps You Alive was about a man and a woman, inspired by times when Minihan got frustrated with his partner, Brittany Alan, who plays Jules in the film. However, the male actor who was originally cast dropped out of the film. “I started going back to an idea that I had while writing it, that it would be really exciting to actually have this character be female, and write an iconic psychopath female character,” the director told Deadline after the film’s SXSW premiere. “It was a blessing in disguise, but that’s how it ultimately came together.”
That sentiment is particularly frustrating as a queer woman. What Keeps You Alive is tense and respectful , but one wonders how it might have played out if it was a queer narrative from the beginning. Over the course of the movie, the power shifts between each character so often, and conflicts you hope end in major payoffs blow up into bigger conflicts. But the rigorous experiences builds Jules’ resilience, which is appreciated — she is a tough woman who will do it what it takes to survive. Maybe too much, it seems.
What Keeps You Alive is an admirable addition to the horror genre, particularly in including queer characters in a commonly male-versus-female trope. The film is also particularly beautiful. The surrounding forest and lake seem to take on a life of their own as Jules and Jackie traverse them. Minihan utilizes these set pieces to the max, capturing mesmerizing wide shots of the couple on the lake that create a sense of isolation and, by the end, the futility of screaming for help.
What Keeps You Alive is out now in theaters and on VOD.
Mary Beth McAndrews is a freelance film writer based in Chicago. Her work was appeared in Much Ado About Cinema, Nightmare on Film Street, and Vague Visages. Follow her on Twitter @mbmcandrews.
