The Scary of Sixty-First – Film Review

While out apartment hunting, college pals Noelle (Madeline Quinn) and Addie (Betsey Brown) stumble upon the deal of a lifetime: a posh duplex on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. But soon after moving in, a more sinister picture of the apartment emerges when a mysterious woman arrives and claims the property used to belong to the infamous and recently deceased Jeffrey Epstein. With this news, Noelle becomes obsessed with the visitor–to the point of infatuation. As the pair plunge deeper into the conspiracies of the Epstein case, Addie falls into her own bizarre state: a pseudo-possession complete with inexplicable fits of age-regressed sexual mania. As they peel back on these strange occurrences, the truth reveals itself to be more twisted than they could have ever imagined.

I genuinely cannot remember the last time I saw a poster and absolutely fell in love with it but ended up truly hating the movie. Sadly, these are exactly my feelings towards Dasha Nekrasova‘s The Scary of Sixty-First, (a film that has a stunning poster). It starts off legitimately promising and it seems as though it could be a 90s-esque horror flick reminiscent of something like Candyman but after about the first twenty minutes or so, it becomes crystal clear that nothing exciting is going to happen.

The whole time I was praying that I would be proven wrong; that some crazy scene would come out of nowhere with a big plot twist that flipped the film on its head, but that never happened. Diving deep into the case of Jeffrey Epstein could have made for a deeply uncomfortable and tense mystery but the script here is the main problem. It doesn’t find clever or reasonable ways for our lead protagonists to wind up being wound up into this case.

One of my favorite shows in years is the new Hulu original Only Murders in the Building, starring Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez. The show follows the three who are obsessed with true crime and get caught up in a murder that occurs in their building, causing them to launch a true-crime podcast and investigate the case. It makes for an amazingly hilarious yet intriguing show and each episode delivers something different. That show has a good reason for them to be involved with the case.

Don’t get me wrong – I understand why Noelle and Addie are investigating the Epstein case in this film, but I just don’t think the script found exciting or thought-provoking ways to explore them dissecting the case. At times, it feels like it wants to be an eerie horror movie (especially with its admittedly solid cinematography and atmosphere) but at the same time, it feels like it wants to be a romance and a mystery film all wrapped in one and it just doesn’t work.

And as for the acting… well, it’s just okay. Madeline Quinn and Betsey Brown don’t do magnificent jobs in the roles of Noelle and Addie respectively, but they’re not necessarily bad either. They just feel quite inexperienced and honestly, with a script and direction as bad as depicted in this film, I don’t blame them too much for not being delightful here. Who knows? Maybe they’re legitimately great actresses. Sadly, this film doesn’t prove that.

I’ve seen worse films this year and some that were absolutely cringe-worthy, but even still, The Scary of Sixty-First is actually not scary at all and features a weak and uninteresting script with misguided direction.

Also, what’s up with that title?