By David Dent
Horror and race history converge in Raven Carter’s feature debut. Student Ember (Aleigha Burt) is black but far from proud, having a rather rootless upbringing. She’s recovering from a relationship with a white jock, and while her best friend Jasmine (Chase Johnson) is keen for her to get back on track, Ember is drawn back into the world of white privilege, courtesy of her roommate Tessa (Jasmine Gia Nguyen).
Tessa’s rich friends have invited the pair to a lakeside retreat somewhere in Florida (whose state sign proudly displays the name of Ron DeSantis) and Ember’s experience of micro aggressions – the suggestion is that this is common in her life – ranges from being denied the key to a garage restroom, to almost being designated as the help by brat Abigail (Tabby Getsy), whose parents own the place where they’re all staying.
But as soon as Ember arrives she experiences strange visions, and her sleep is disturbed. She finds her concerns treated lightly by the other girls; only local handyman Earl (Tyler Bibb), who turns up to fix the aircon in Ember’s room (predictably she’s allocated the shittiest in the whole house), confirms that her fears may have a supernatural foundation.
Watching the entitled Abigail at work (“Deal with the mistakes of your past” she hollers at Ember), blind to any sensibilities around her, reminds of those awful ‘Karen’ videos that litter the internet. Make no mistake; in Noseeums the history of land loss by black people and Ember’s own ‘blackness’ are not applied subtly. The horror elements (a horde of rampaging noseeums – midges to us Brits) are borrowed from Candyman, and there’s an ill advised comedy coda which brings this brief and rather blunt, but not entirely unenjoyable movie, to its close.
Noseeums screened as part of Frightfest 2025.
Bloody Flicks 