Review: 'I Blame Society' an uneven mock-documentary horror story, but a good introduction to filmmaker Gillian Wallace Horvat

A Hollywood satire that isn’t as cutting as it wants to be, the mock-documentary “I Blame Society” nonetheless suggests first-time director Gillian Wallace Horvat is a filmmaker to watch out for — in more ways than one.

Horvat plays a variation of herself, a struggling filmmaker who can’t find a way into the hearts and minds of producers who tell her that her screenplay’s lead female character isn’t likable enough. When a couple of friends make an offhanded comment that she’d make a good murderer, Horvat decides the’ll make a documentary where she plots out the perfect murder.

In the opening scene, Horvat presents her plan to her friend Chase (played by Chase Williamson, Horvat’s co-screenwriter) — because Horvat’s intended target is Chase’s girlfriend, whom Horvat dislikes so much she’s given the girlfriend the nickname “Stalin.” Chase is repulsed, and cuts off ties with Gillian.

Flash-forward three years, and an underemployed Horvat, now with a film-editor boyfriend, Keith (Keith Poulson), decides to revisit the perfect-murder film idea. She decides some practice crimes — like a breaking-and-entering on an actress (Jennifer Kim) she sees on the street — will be a good warm-up for a murder. Then, after accidentally killing someone and getting away with it, she develops a taste for blood.

Horvat makes an intriguing argument — that killers and filmmakers both must be organized, detail-oriented and a little ruthless — and she displays the lo-fi cinematic chops to keep the faux-documentary format rolling longer than one might otherwise expect. The movie loses steam, though, in the final half-hour, as the body count and Horvat’s to-the-camera rationalizations get bigger and bloodier.

At the risk of sounding like the shallow Hollywood “suits” that Horvat skewers, “I Blame Society” is interesting and shows a lot of potential — but it didn’t grab me.

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‘I Blame Society’

★★1/2

Available starting Friday, January 8, at virtual cinemas, including SLFS@Home. Not rated, but probably R for violence, gore, some sexuality, nudity, and language. Running time: 84 minutes.