The Underbug & Starring Jerry as Himself (Slamdance 2023) (Review)

We are dropping in on the Slamdance film festival in Utah every day – yesterday we had Mad Cats, and today we have the Underbug & Starring Jerry as Himself. Starting with a punchy Indian horror movie from Shujaat Saudagar called the Underbug. Punchy as it’s only 68 minutes. On paper may seem short, but as the horror world learned a few years back with Rob Savage’s Host – sometimes a film is as it needs to be, whether interpretable as short or not. A byproduct that fits into one of the many themes of Slamdance: a festival host to movies, art and culture from emerging voices across the globe, and those voices don’t often fit into the more conventional shapes that cultural scenes have erected.

On the eve of India’s independence, communal riots are ravaging vast parts of the country as Hindus and Muslims fight in the latest violent altercation – caused by the English upper-class establishment. Two men in fear for their life find their way to an abandoned townhouse. The first to enter, Hussain Dalal, hobbles inside and quietly tries to find out if he is alone or safe. Moments later, an equally hurt Ali Fazal finds his way inside carrying a large knife. The Underbug starts as a rivalry between two men who bicker and throw accusations at one another. Then, talking about their bloody history and families, they slowly become friends. However, they picked the wrong house – something happened, and the culprit is still there. Something not of this earth – an eerie presence that haunts the men to the edges of sanity.

As a pure piece of speculative horror, the Underbug is excellent. Dripping in dread and atmosphere, helped along the way by a doomy, sparse score from Clinton Cerejo and sound designer Anirban Dasgupta that rumbles, echoes and scrapes in just the right way – making this lovely house feel like the worst place in the world to hide.

On a more base level, I find the Underbug otherness fascinating. As an Englishman with Irish heritage, I know nothing of the trials and tribulations the Indian people suffered at the hands of the English empire’s occupation, just what I consume through pop culture brave enough to depict that reality. A horror that engages with the themes, concepts and ideas of what Indian people find scary has a freshness in both perspective and its approach to storytelling. The character work and the performances of the two leading men show that horror is of a country falling to pieces. And the ghosts that linger on the land aren’t of demons or gods but something closer to home – yes, it’s a “ghosts as subtext” movie, but the underbug works due to it discussing the wreckage wrought upon Indian history and approaching it through an abstract genre. To see subtext horror approach something with maturity and for it not to be that ever so-trite A24 trope: the dissolution of the family unit was engrossing.

Yet, it ends with a climactic twist that is hard to see as much more than an unnecessary distraction. Sleeping on it, it makes perfect sense. With this being a slow-burn, thoughtful horror film with a political and historical context, it makes sense – but within the context of a film festival, there isn’t room for that level of pause and contemplation.

Starring Jerry as Himself is a tricksy film. Law Chen’s entry into the Slamdance Competition Documentary Feature Film is both a documentary and not. Starring Jerry as Himself stars Jerry Hsu as himself, an unassuming Taiwanese ex-pat living in America. He lives alone, but he has three sons and an ex-wife who all feature in the film. He’s a frugal man who doesn’t spend money unnecessarily; even if his pants have holes, he will continue to wear them as long as he can. An unusual subject for this fluid documentary, all told, as the narration explains, the film exists to highlight what happened to Jerry in the hope that it doesn’t happen to anyone else.

One day, out of the blue, Jerry was phoned by a Chinese Policeman regarding a money launderer who was using a bank in his town and to exclude him as a suspect, he’d need to do things for the police officer. Reading between the lines, I imagine you can assume what unfolds, but I’m not going to go further into the synopsis than that. Even referencing films like “Jerry as Himself” would reveal the reality of those calls, and even though that is the point of the film’s existence – the power comes from being blissfully unaware.

To address the opening idea that this is slippery when it comes to the identity of the documentary, it is because this is a recreation of an event that happened, albeit acted out by those involved. The sole additions are scenes with the police in china and little fantasy moments of what will happen to the banker when his role is complete, gentle moments of amplification you get in movies based on “true stories,” in essence. The execution is lo-fi and noninvasive, and the performances are naturalistic; tone and style are in line with how a documentary would tell the same story, only it’s not. Law Chen is playing with a great tradition of cinema classics that are both and neither (docufiction, according to a cursory google), think of Abbas Kiarostami’s Close Up or Shôhei Imamura’s A Man Vanished.

A story of vulnerability and trust, Starring Jerry as Himself is an unshowy film (yet still slick), but therein is the point. The fact that the lead is an everyday guy reenacting something which happened to him previously is not what sells this film. Law Chen’s movie depicts what happens when people slip through the cracks and when trust is abused. And on a more base level, the loneliness the elderly experience every day. A powerful and very emotional film that perfectly captures that sinking feeling in your stomach, that slow creeping dread of realisation. Here’s hoping for distribution down the line – as Jerry’s story could save lives. And what better reason is there for a film to exist than that?

Rob’s Archive: The Underbug & Starring Jerry as Himself

More Slamdance Coverage coming tomorrow with Stars in the Ordinary Universe and Where the Road Leads