Ask for Help

All the feedback that I sought for ASK FOR HELP broke along gender lines. For me, that is a clear indication that this film has something worth saying. In horror stories, a character typically commits a clear transgression, so that the horror that's visited upon them provides catharsis for the audience. In this case, though, the rules are unclear, so there's no clear transgressions. That's deliberate -- that's the horror.

The film plays with expectations of behavior. Shoppers want to touch things and to be left alone to browse--they don't like a salesperson following or watching them. Many people are also reluctant to "bother" a salesperson if they need assistance.

On a deeper level, ASK FOR HELP shows how women, specifically, are subject to conflicting rules for behavior. If you smile, you're flirting; don't smile, you're a bitch. Don't dress overtly feminine? There are lots of names and labels for you. Dress feminine, wear makeup? You're trying to attract men so you should be "grateful" when they make advances. Some of these "offers" are actually commands. If you reject them, any subsequent harm that you face is your fault: You should have seen it coming. You should have been smarter. What were you wearing? Why were you there? All of us have found ourselves in impossible, even scary situations--but women and girls in particular face them every day, in the most mundane ways.

In this shop, Heather can either follow the "rules" and ASK FOR HELP -- though Mark is the only person to ask and he creeps her out -- or she can remain independent and put her own safety before someone else's comfort. What's at stake is whether she is a fully autonomous human being, or an object for someone else's amusement -- a doll.

This is the choice women and girls make every day. And often, for many reasons, they choose to be polite to strangers who feel entitled to their very bodies.

That's the horror.