I’ve always had a hard time understanding how people can enjoy horror movies, a genre I — a person with generalized anxiety disorder — endure like an extreme sport. It seems like you’re supposed to find the scares fun, and not lay awake for a week awash in adrenaline because what if the Paranormal Activity lady is standing right there when I open my eyes??? So it was a delight to stumble on All My Friends Hate Me at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival a horror comedy I was able to enjoy without my whole life falling apart (you can test this out for yourself when it hits US theaters on March 11.) Instead of manifesting anxiety into actual murderers or demons that can and will get you, it offers a humorously cathartic rendering of how ridiculous the world would be if our social anxiety was at all based in fact and not an overactive amygdala.
In the above exclusive clip, we get a fun scare for anyone who wakes up at 3 a.m. to think about everything they’ve ever said out loud: Main character Pete (played by Stath Lets Flats’ Tom Stourton) arrives at what is supposed to be his birthday party, only to slowly realize no one is there. Yikes! He’ll certainly be up all night replaying this moment in his head amidst a lot of negative self-talk. But you won’t, because not only would this never happen to you (first, you’re way too permanently embarrassed to have a birthday party), you’ll also be busy blasting “Sandstorm,†by Darude. Remember that song? Yes, you do.