Digging Deep: Bystanders (2024)

Now more than ever, we need a film like “Bystanders” and what it has to say about those who refuse to stand idly by in the face of atrocities.

The horror community has been excited about Bystanders (2024) – the directorial debut feature from Dread Central Editor-in-Chief Mary Beth McAndrews – since the rape-revenge film was announced.

The excitement bubbled over into ecstatic raves and reviews when the movie was released earlier this year (January 21st in the United States), following a successful run on the festival circuit (including the award for Best Feature from the Nightmares Film Festival and Fall HorrorHound Film Festival).

Not only is Bystanders a cut above the rest but it was also released at a time when real-life horrors are at a high, making its catharsis particularly poignant.

It’s important to look at the historical context surrounding any piece of art. The day before the film’s release, the U.S. held a presidential inauguration for a man who immediately began his plan to roll back protections for vulnerable populations, including immigrants, the BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ communities, and women.

Horror has always been able to say something meaningful while providing an escape for its fans.

It can make viewers feel in control, or it can make them feel satisfied that they’ve faced their fears. There are a plethora of reasons why people soothe themselves with horror books, films, and TV series. However, rape-revenge films are a special type of horror. While most people have never experienced what it’s like to be chased by an axe-wielding madman, sexual assault is disturbingly common. One in five women in the U.S. has experienced an attempted rape or rape during their life.

With rape-revenge films, survivors of assaults can sometimes feel a measure of justice and an emotional catharsis.

Over the past century, there have been dozens of rape-revenge movies, from Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring (1960) to Wes Craven’s debut The Last House on the Left (1972)—itself inspired by Bergman’s haunting masterpiece—to Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi’s Baise-Moi (2000).

While these films can be cathartic for viewers, they are often not as enjoyable as other horror films. Turning the lights on after a rape-revenge movie, you might feel more depleted than energized. But Bystanders is different.

McAndrews and screenwriter Jamie Alvey (who also stars as Clare) have done the impossible: They’ve created a rape-revenge film that is as fun and funny as it is searing.

The sexual assaults in the film – which are heard rather than seen – are extremely upsetting: The audience hears a group of frat guys congratulating each other while drugging and raping three young women at a remote cabin. Viewers don’t see anything other than the face of Abby (Brandi Botkin), one of the victims, who drops in and out of consciousness as she’s assaulted, and a pair of her blood-stained underwear.

The camera doesn’t linger on the women’s bodies – in fact, the camera doesn’t show their bodies at all. In McAndrews’s thoughtful framing, there is absolutely no lasciviousness during the rape (which, sadly, isn’t always the case with horror films).

The scene is chilling, but it’s thankfully only about a minute long. What the rest of the film focuses on is the delicious revenge that Abby gets on her rapists. After Abby escapes from the cabin where she was assaulted, she stops a car on the road and meets Clare (Alvey) and Gray (Garrett Murphy).

The audience has already been introduced to Clare and Gray, a sweet and funny couple who lounge in bed under a poster that says, “We Are Living Our Adventure.”

The lovebirds are instantly relatable. Clare talks about her stomachache, and Gray brings her breakfast in bed. Clare prepares for being a bridesmaid at her sister’s wedding, while Gray prepares to make endless small talk with Clare’s father.

The couple is driving home from the wedding when they meet Abby, bruised and bloodied, at the side of the road.

The frat guy rapists from the cabin soon stumble upon the trio. Abby is freaked out, but Clare and Gray are preternaturally calm. Bored, Gray checks his watch while the bros try to intimidate him; Clare reassures a worried Abby, who warns her that she doesn’t know what the guys are capable of.

Clare tells Abby, “I don’t know what they can do. But they don’t know what I can do, either.”

In a stroke of incredible luck for Abby, Clare and Gray are serial killers who target rapists.

They easily dispatch a couple of frat brothers, then spend much of the movie toying with Cody (Bob Wilcox), the leader of the pack and the person who drugged and assaulted Abby. Cody prominently wears a cross necklace throughout the film; it’s impossible not to connect this rapist’s vapid display of religious devotion to the modern-day “Christians” who have crept into the U.S. government with plans to diminish women’s bodily autonomy and the rights of LGBTQIA+ people.

He’s also a product of the privileged family he was born into – he points out multiple times that the gun he is carrying is his father’s and that his father is “golf buddies” with the owner of the cabin.

During Bystanders, parents of the frat guys stop by the cabin, and with a sinking feeling, viewers realize that not only do they know about their sons’ crimes, but they condone them. They laugh about their sons getting blood on their expensive furniture when they murder young women.

The reminder that this system of power has been in place for longer than one might realize is terrifying – and again, very reminiscent of the rise of (mostly) cishet white men who are at the helm of the U.S. government.

Clare and Gray gradually reveal their backstories as victims of assault who want to protect others from being attacked and suffering as they did.

Clare was molested by her stepfather, and no one believed her. Gray was bullied by his father and other kids, and his teacher told him to “toughen up.”

The emphasis on Gray having to change his behavior instead of the abusers and bullies having to change their behavior echoes the offensively faulty “boys will be boys” reasoning that has been given for decades to excuse abhorrent male behavior.

During the film, Gray describes what he and Clare do as “bystander intervention.”

It’s a wake-up call to everyone who has seen people be harmed without doing anything about it.

While the couple’s vigilante ways are purposely extreme to fit the circumstances of a horror film, now is a time when everyone can exercise their bystander intervention muscle. When there is a destructive system of power in place, it’s up to everyone to protect each other, just as Clare and Gray protect Abby, a stranger they stumbled upon by chance. And like Clare, Gray and Abby, sometimes those who have been harmed the most are the ones who fight back the hardest.

Bystanders would stand out on its own merits no matter its release date.

Whether Gray’s drowning a frat bro in a tubful of bright blue punch or quipping that his girlfriend is the most philosophical serial killer he knows (her reply: “I’m the only serial killer you know”), Murphy’s comedic time is perfect, time and again.

As Clare, Alvey is the cool older sister everyone wants – she lets you in on her wild lifestyle and lends you her clothes, but also protects you when it’s necessary.

(In a heartbreaking moment, Abby begs to kill Cody, but Clare tells her no; this vigilantism is Clare’s way of coping, but it doesn’t have to be Abby’s. Abby breaks down in tears, telling Clare, “I need it to go away.” Clare tells her that it doesn’t.)

Botkin’s Abby has to make the transition from an innocent young teen at the start of the film to a badass hero at the end, and she balances strength with wearing her heart on her sleeve.

The timing of Bystanders means it has an even deeper emotional resonance with viewers. The hopelessness and helplessness many people in the U.S. felt on January 20 has left Americans looking for an escape and a way to feel in control in an out-of-control situation.

With McAndrews and Alvey’s film, the recognition of misogyny and violence in our culture is there – but so is the possibility of bystander intervention, which can save lives and give people hope in a dark time.