City dwellers who harbor a mistrust in the countryside may have their fears validated by The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick, an anti-thriller intended to tickle your biophobia like a bug crawling on your arm.
In desperation after the death of her dog, Yvonne (Zoë Chao) calls her old college friend, Camille (Callie Hernandez), who implores her to come stay at her house in the country. What she doesn’t mention is that the painfully hip A.J. (James Cusati-Moyer) and his boyfriend, Isaac (Jeremy O. Harris), will be there too, as will the titular tick.
Fear not, canine lovers, the demise of Yvonne’s dog happens offscreen, but it’s no less disturbing because of the aural assault developed by sound designer Danny Madden and composer Isabella Summers – all insect chatter, electronic buzzes, and unnerving cottagecore pianos and strings. There’s clearly something out of sight, but the question of whether it’s creeping up on Yvonne from behind or too small for her to see is pivotal. It’s a constant and oppressive barrage that plays against the understated performances and a low-key body horror subtext, leaving the audience suitably unnerved.
The effectiveness of the sound design does much to drown out the lack of a clear structure that undercuts Tick. Much as with his feature 2022 feature Jethica, writer/director Peter Ohs developed the script with the cast, and maybe that’s the real problem with The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick. At its core is a discussion of how hipsterdom intersects with crunchy culture, where young suburbanites start talking about biodynamic nutrients and perfect a look that’s part J.Crew and part sister wife. They’re the kind of people who would earnestly discuss the aspirational qualities of the cultists in Midsommar, and nowhere are those themes more explicitly stated than in the rambling monologues from Camille that sound like they’d be rejected as a Kinfolk magazine op-ed for being too Magnolia Silos meet New Age froth. It’s an interesting and timely topic to discuss, as the fine line between eco-awareness and semi-mystical Neo-Darwinism continues to blur.
In the moments when the script feels most focused (and, dare one say it, most written), the film is at its most effective. But there are longueurs in which it fails to truly resonate and instead just drags. The characters are deliberately paper-thin, which explains why they fall for the ridiculous philosophical thesis that underpin their actions. It’s that purposeful understatement again, which reveals its pastoral evil in an ending that is both chilling and restrained. But the audience may wish, like the tick itself, that there was something a little meatier for them to bite into along the way.
Screens again Tuesday, March 11 and Saturday, March 15.
The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick
Narrative Spotlight, World Premiere
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This article appears in March 7 • 2025.
