NoSeeUms
Ember Wyley knows who she is, though there are parts of her past which remain in shadow, the identity of her father, the reason her mother relocated them from the backwoods of Florida when she was eight years old, any knowledge of her wider family, always just the two of them and the nightmares which she used to have which have now begun again on spring break with Tessa, Abigail and Lexi.
Aware she does not quite fit in with the crowd, Abigail and Lexi wealthy, privileged and blessed with the whitest skin upon which no stain will ever linger, the summer house by the lake is one of many properties belonging to Abigail’s father, and while Ember was invited as a friend it becomes apparent she is to be treated as a servant, given the smallest room with no air conditioning where she sweats through the night dreaming of insects.
Directed by Raven Carter from a script by Jason-Michael Anthony and Hendreck Joseph, NoSeeUms takes its name from the family of insects Ceratopogonidae, also known as sand flies or biting midges, found across the world but favouring hot, moist climates such as Florida and haunting the dreams of Ember (Aleigha Burt) and waking traumatic memories not her own but tied to the buried history of her family.
So specific and contrived in its engagement with systemic and endemic racism and the generational trauma which persists decades after the end of slavery and segregation that the opening scene is a lecture on the subject during which Ember is the only student who converses with the professor, with Abigail and Lexi (Tabby Getsy and Jessie Roddy) caricatures who are indifferent to others in their blithely presumed superiority, less culturally insensitive so much as oblivious airheads, they are straw women to be knocked down.
The rich bitches expecting Ember to carry luggage and fetch drinks, Tessa (Jasmine Gia Nguyen) is her only ally along for the ride while calls to her best friend Jasmine (Chase Johnson) offer “I told you so” support and her mother Sonja (Dee Selmore) confirms backstory already made obvious in the overly specific narrative dream sequences, any gaps filled in when handyman harbinger Earl (Tyler Bibb) takes her to visit the local cryptic wise man who tells her that an angry spirit means unfinished business.
The plot and subtext writ conspicuously large and the aspects of horror as awkwardly inserted as the swarms of digital flies which recall The X-Files’ Darkness Falls, egregious stupidity creeps in as the woman with the head injury is shaken rather than calling an ambulance and Ember hands over crucial evidence without protest, and in the same year as Sinners stood tall it is clear that while well-intentioned NoSeeUms is also so clumsy that, like The Blackening, it might have worked better played as knowing comedy.
The UK premiere of NoSeeUms was at FrightFest 2025 on Friday 22nd August
