CARA (2024)

Cara (2024)
Directed by: Hayden Hewitt
Written by: Hayden Hewitt
Starring: Donna Louise Bryan, Elle O'Hara, Jacob Roberts, James Dreyfus, Johnny Vivash, Laurence R. Harvey, Michaela Longden

CARA (2024)
Written and Directed by Hayden Hewitt
Available on digital

Paranoid and frightened of being sectioned and returned to Sunnyside hospital, a young woman named Cara will do whatever it takes to avoid revisiting her traumatic past.

Psychological horror CARA is film director Hayden Hewitt’s debut feature film following a string of shorts and focuses on the battle a young woman has with herself when facing a return to a past she thought she’d escaped.

Cara (Elle O’Hara) lives with a friend in a rented property and makes money by performing solo sex acts on a web cam for horny men. Although some women have lucrative careers on the likes of OnlyFans and other such outlets, it doesn’t seem that Cara’s career choice is that profitable and the abuse she gets off her customers means it’s not strictly a one way affair she can walk away from. She’s treated more like a slave. Being out of control seems to be a familiar feeling for Cara and we see her experience more and more bouts of paranoia and disillusion as she interprets conversations with others in ways that are detached from reality as the pressure in her life begins to mount.

It’s plain to see that Cara is suffering, even though she tries her best to cover it up, as she begins to act out of the ordinary, putting the lives of those around her at risk, including her own. However, those around her either simply can’t see or are too wrapped up in their own world that they fail to observe what’s happening in front of their eyes.

In this slow-burner, we see Cara’s gradual unravelling as the mask she wears and the veil she’s lifted up to protect herself begin to drop, resulting in facing the true reality of her own psyche, even if it’s not strictly the one the rest of the world sees.

Also in the movie, after appearing in Hewitt’s short film LIPS, is James Dreyfus as Cara’s doctor Gregg Wilson who’s concerned for her wellbeing after her caseworker Jane reports that she’s experiencing day-dreaming episodes again. Along with her mum, Dr Wilson just wants to help Cara but she’s unable to see this and thinks that the world is out to get her and put her in the box she so desperately escaped previously. It seems their intervention is a little too late.

The resulting unravelling leaves a disturbing and bleak taste with onscreen visuals to match. It’s quite gruesome and terrifying to watch unfold as Cara executes her plan to avoid a return to Sunnyside. Surrounded by toxic individuals who only further her negative thoughts, she becomes a destructive entity to both herself and those surrounding her, and inadvertently invites the wickedness into her life that she’s so vehemently fighting against.

Not one for the faint-hearted, CARA is unflinching as it subjects the viewer to the horrors as Cara’s world breaks down around her.