Movies like Daniel Isn’t Real (2019) are great examples of why I love the horror genre; they truly are a safe space to express our darkest wants and needs as individuals, a window into the depths of our ugly side as humans, a mirror forcing us to see what we don’t want to see so we can reflect, if we so choose to, with quiet humbleness. Horror movies are not only cautionary tales, but learning opportunities if enough attention is paid to their message. Movie making is quite literally an art, not only visually, but as a larger-than-life representation of humanity, of what we love, hate, fear, aspire to, dream of, wish for, and, put simply, of all the things that make us give a damn. Horror is the best.
Hello, horror friend, it is nice having you here, thank you for stopping by. Hey, real quick and just between you and me, the above short clip of the house party scene was the one that moved me the most, I don’t know what to say about it other that it made me see Luke for who he really was, a powerless victim who was also his own abuser and protector, paradoxically rejecting and defending himself from himself. But I am getting ahead of myself, let’s start from the beginning.
**SPOILERS AHEAD**
Luke was the only child of an affluent couple who was going through a tumultuous divorce, you see, the mom, Claire, had a type-A personality and also suffered from schizophrenia, the dad, well, we did not know anything about him other that he had had enough of the mom’s moods, so divorce it was. Luke, on this particular day, decided to let his parents fight in peace so he went out to the street to distract himself, unfortunately, one of the places that caught his attention was a barricaded crime scene where a crazed shooter had taken several innocent lives at the local coffee shop; the crime scene was so recent that sheets had not even been placed yet on top of the corpses which, of course, must have been awfully traumatic for any six-year old, and, luckily for this six-year old, a new friend pretty much materialized at that exact same moment to keep him company. Daniel.
Daniel and Luke were inseparable and played and learned together, that was until one day Daniel got jealous of the motherly love Luke was receiving from Claire so Daniel, showing his true nature, tricked little Luke into poisoning her. Claire survived the attack and when she confronted Luke about it, she was told it was Daniel, not him, who had done it, so Claire explained to Luke how bad and dangerous it all had been and asked him to “lock” Daniel inside grandma’s old dollhouse. And so he did.
Twelve years passed and Luke was now a freshman in college, on his way to becoming a Lawyer to maintain family tradition. Luke had been artistic and with a great imagination in his early years, but now his life lacked the joy, the color, the excitement from his true nature. He did not have friends either, or a girlfriend, just mom.
Claire’s schizophrenia seemed to not be managed well, so when Luke went to visit her during a short school break, he had to play the role of the parent toward her: keeping her company, listening to her, feeding her, showing her love and compassion, all while still trying to be a regular young adult who goes to parties and drinks and sleeps around. But Luke was failing at being a regular young adult, you see, he fainted to the floor when dealing with high levels of stress, and talking to attractive women was stressful to him, so he decided to seek treatment in therapy for it.
Therapy made him feel better, but while talking about his social circle of friends, or lack thereof, he remembered the imaginary friend he used to have as a child and goodness gracious, he must have realized how toxic Daniel had been at the end that he did not even mention the fact that he tried to kill his mom because of him. Luke ended that particular session with the heavy, dark secret fresh on his mind and decided to pay his mom another visit. That night, Claire had a horrible episode where she tried to kill herself and Luke was there to witness it, but it was all too much. School. His personal life. His home life. He was alone. No one was there to help him cope with it…
Daniel, adult Daniel, was everything Luke wasn’t. Tall, dark, handsome, well-dressed, confident, brave, self-assured, and, most importantly, skilled at providing words of advice to Luke, scratch that, skilled at commanding Luke of exactly what to say and do to overcome any and all challenging situations. A mom trying to kill herself? Check. A difficult school test? Check. A gorgeous girl at a party? Check and check.
Nevertheless, exactly as before, Daniel started getting jealous of the female attention Luke was receiving thanks to his help, so much so that they started feeling negatively toward each other and, once again, Daniel tricked Luke but now into letting him borrow his body so he did not “cheat” on the artist girl he just started seeing.
This did not go well at all. Luke wanted out. Daniel had to go.
Luke remembered there was a copy of the old newspaper detailing the coffee shop shooting, so he got it and looked for the name of any person who might have known the shooter. Why? Maybe because he associated the fact that Daniel arrived into his life at the exact same moment when he saw in front of him, right there and then, the corpse of the shooter… (*side note, this is why horror can deal with difficult topics so brilliantly and easily, it does not have to give you a logical explanation to make sense as you already know that monsters signify bad human behavior, and that evil signifies illness*)… and since he perhaps saw himself now as the evil monster, just like the shooter, maybe those who knew the shooter could guide him into understanding what he did and saw before losing it, all in hopes to prevent him from losing it too.
And he does, Luke actually finds the home of the father of the shooter and, yes, it was confirmed that the shooter also “dealt with” Daniel before “going crazy” all those years back… (*another side note, did you know that the average age of schizophrenia onset tends to be in the late teens to the early 20s in men? And that even though it may result in hallucinations and delusions, among other things, it may be controlled with lifelong medical treatment? Schizophrenia is a serious, debilitating mental illness, but it does not mean life is over for the sufferer, or that the affliction has a free pass in films and entertainment – schizophrenia should definitely not be used in horror movies as a metaphor for evil and danger*)… right, so the father gets scared of Luke and calls the cops discreetly so as to not agitate him, but it is too late, Luke knows his fate is sealed, he just got the confirmation he was hoping not to get.
What happens next in the movie is a unique visual exploration of what it would look like to have your mental illness come to life, of it eating you, taking over, all while you are pushed aside into the depths of your own loneliness, of your own abyss.
The movie had a sad, gory ending, but it was a good one. Luke died fighting for himself and that’s what truly mattered to him, given the unfair and precarious circumstances he was in; had he been emotionally supported by his dad, had his mom been taken promptly to the psychiatric hospital, had he been more honest with his own therapist about his childhood demons, had he taken his meds sooner and more consistently, had he given up Law and study instead something that made him happy, had he had real friends and a loving girlfriend, then, and only then, his life would have had a better outcome thanks to the pillars of life needed for resilience. (And that, my dear horror friend, was the movie’s message, hope we all took notes ;)
In Love and Fear,
—Marath
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