Nothing A Cheery Commercial Can’t Fix (Spoilers)
Claire (Millie Brady) is one of seven participants in an experimental drug trial. The person in charge of the trial is Dr. Burke (Pollyanna McIntosh), who works for Blackwood Pharmaceuticals. While staying at the company’s underground facility, Claire shares a room with Alison (Abby Fitz). Unlike her roommate, Allison is super bubbly and optimistic, which is sad because you know she’s not going to stay that way in a psychological thriller.
Funnily enough, you could argue that even after violently hemorrhaging to death, Alison suffers the least since the first one to go. She misses out on learning that the drugs they’ve been driven fry your brain to the point where if you fall asleep, you die. And how the situation then goes from bad to worse when the facility goes into a 24-hour lockdown, trapping the test subjects.
Lab Rats
At one point, before everything goes to hell, Alison and Claire spot some lab rats in cages (NSFW). While Alison thinks it’s sad to see them locked up because they could be out having adventures, Claire says they could be killed and are lucky to have a roof over their head. The symbolism is so obvious that Tess herself asks if Claire has anyone to go home to (she doesn’t).
During the same conversation, Claire says that if she were a mouse, she’d rather be stuck in a cage if it meant being fed and looked after instead of fending for herself. Tess disagrees, saying that “she’d be in there planning a little mice jailbreak or something.” That might be the most blatant case of foreshadowing I’ve seen since Saltburn.
Character Tropes
Alison, the most innocent of the test subjects, being the first to die is a prime example of a sacrificial lamb. The next character to die is Marcus (Frank Blake), who shattered his ankle while hiking in the Sierra, but walked it off because the cold night was coming and he didn’t want to freeze to death. That’s an example of what Tv Tropes call the Worf Effect, where you take out the biggest and/or the strongest to show how screwed everyone else in.
Similar to The Woman, McIntosh plays a sinister character who is made more sympathetic when juxtaposed against someone or something worse. Despite going along with the experiment for a while, Burke doesn’t seem to realize how soulless Blackwood is. She’s surprised to realize that there weren’t any placebos in the trial and is alarmed at how blatantly unsafe things are becoming. Her final words are even “I’m sorry.” That’s not being a good mad scientist.
In Conclusion
One of the finest lessons that horror teaches you over and over again is that humans are deeply flawed. Even in a situation when working together is crucial, internal strife will still pop up. Movies like Saw II recognize that, but don’t know how to make the character’s conflict seem natural, which hurts the overall film. Movies like Double Blind or The Thing excel because all the animosity between characters has a natural buildup.
Having to stay awake or else you’ll die is such a great premise because it’s so terrifying. If you stay awake long enough, you could either go insane or fall into a coma. However, the thing I like most about Double Blind is the actor’s performances. I could believe each of them as these characters. Because of that, I would recommend giving Double Blind a watch.
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