An Enigmatic Mystery Which Requires You To Fill In The Blanks [FrightFest]

The opening film of this year’s FrightFest was Nervous, a deep and moving psychological horror drama from director Abner Pastoll (Road Games, A Good Woman Is Hard to Find), who co-wrote the screenplay alongside Richard Hobley. If you are paranoid about losing your hearing, Nervous is certainly a film that will chill you to the bone.

The film begins with an American woman named Sarah (Sarah Bolger) and her South Korean partner, Sungsoo (Sungsoo Yune), travelling to a remote South Korean house for a retreat. After finding an old record player in the attic and trying it out, Sarah soon finds it difficult to understand male voices, and she begins to question her own sanity as a result. The doctors she sees insist that she is fine, which further leads Sarah to question if she is losing her grip on reality.

Bolger does a brilliant job of depicting Sarah’s vulnerability as the character desperately struggles to find an answer to her predicament, while also showcasing Sarah’s inner perseverance as she struggles to abandon hope. Since Sarah is an investigative journalist, she resolves to get to the bottom of the mystery, even though she probably already realizes that she will not like what she finds. As a character, Sarah is strong and determined, despite her sanity coming into question, and Bolger manages to balance both Sarah’s inner strength and turmoil with equal believability. There is also a scene where Sarah struggles to keep her cool after overhearing two South Korean women, who clearly do not know she can understand them, discussing her in a restaurant, and anyone who has overheard people talking about them behind their back will certainly resonate with Sarah’s frustration at this moment.

Yune also does his best as Sungsoo, who tries to be patient and understanding, despite the fact that he is clearly at his wits’ end because Sarah mysteriously does not hear him. It is clear from early on that Sarah’s relationship with Sungsoo is troubled, and Sarah’s affliction only makes things worse. Therefore, Nervous could be seen as an examination of how patience and understanding are vital in order for relationships to work, with Sarah and Sungsoo’s struggling romance no doubt serving as a grim reminder of this. While the couples’ neighbor Eunbyeol (played by Ko Asung, who is known for her collaborations with Oscar-winner Bong Joon Ho) soon begins to form a deep friendship with Sarah, which may or may not be leading to something else, with Asung delivering a standout performance as an understanding friend who possibly has an agenda.

Nervous can be interpreted in several ways, with the most obvious being that it serves as an analogy for how women are often ignored by society. Since the film does not spoon-feed the audience details about its deeper meaning, viewers will be left to figure out what it is trying to say themselves, as this is a film which really requires you to think and come to your own conclusions. And the excellent sound design makes Sarah’s mysterious condition seem disturbingly realistic, and you will almost begin to wonder if you are also losing your hearing as the male voices slowly get drowned out. And, despite not having a huge body count on display, the infrequent violent scenes are still gruesome and harrowing, truly making Nervous into a film which you will not be forgetting in a hurry.

Some viewers might be deterred by the way in which Nervous asks them to fill in the blanks themselves instead of clearly explaining itself, but others will appreciate it for presenting a mysterious and unnerving story which unfolds at its own pace and leaves its questions unanswered. You will certainly be wondering about a lot of things after watching Nervous, making it one of the most mysterious and enigmatic films to play at FrightFest this year.

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