CONTENT ADVISORY: frank discussion of suicide ahead. If you or someone you love is struggling, support is available nationwide by calling or texting 988, or visit 988lifeline.org to chat with someone.

I arrived at Facets Theater in Lincoln Park, Chicago, before the doors opened on the final day of the 2024 Chicago Horror Film Festival Part 1 to set up my recording gear. We had an awesome opportunity to interview many of the filmmaker attendees of the festival that afternoon, but it seemed like it would be a tight window of time, so I wanted to be ready to go. When everything was set, I decided to go to the Mr. Submarine next door for a Vienna Beef, because I’d been in Chicago for thirty-six hours and still hadn’t eaten a hot dog.

There were only two other people in the place, and one of them was wearing an Evil Dead 2 cap, so naturally a conversation struck up. They were Dylan Young and Emily Parker. It turns out Dylan is a filmmaker, and his short, Sorry for the Mess (which Emily assisted on as PA, production still photographer, and crucial moral support), was going to be playing that day. I foolishly but genuinely promised yet another person that I would see their film. I lost count of how many such promises I made. As it turns out, when you go to a film festival, you can’t see literally everything. Who knew? I also invited them to stop by to promo the film on the podcast, even though I wouldn’t be able to see it before the recording.

The day schedule screening block went by, I saw some great films, and then interview time came. I ended up talking with more than twenty filmmakers, and among them was Dylan. This is where I learn that it’s a film about suicide that Dylan describes as “heavy”, and he mentions that some audiences haven’t been sure how to react to it. The modern wave of trauma/mental health horror is something of which I am endlessly fond, but is also challenging terrain to navigate, even with the best of intentions. And this topic is one of the most challenging of all. But they showed up for me when they said they would, so now I am pot-committed to seeing Sorry for the Mess. But now, in order to finish this story, we have to take a brief narrative byway. 

Head’s up – things get a little rough from here.

In October last year, one of the very best friends of my life committed suicide. I met Dee at a stand-up comedy show I did in Aberdeen, South Dakota, and she was a part of my life from there to the end of her days. Dee had a hard, hard life. She struggled with mental health issues like bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder. She had been battling methamphetmine addiction for the entire time I knew her, gotten clean and relapsed multiple times. But no matter how often she fell or how long she stayed down, she kept getting back up. And I loved her in a way that transcends definitions (and she would mock me endlessly for saying it in such a cheesy way).

See, the thing about addiction is that it’s a disease, but it’s also a symptom of bigger things. A lot of addicts get addicted to avoid dealing with those other things. And Dee sometimes decided (understandably) she couldn’t fight them, and so she drugged them. She drugged herself. But part of healing from addiction is that you have to fight the big boss now. And sometimes, sadly, it turns out someone was right. The big boss was just too much, and they lose the fight. And that’s what happened to Dee. Those of us who knew her well all kinda quietly knew this was probably how we were going to lose her; it was suicide or overdose. And from that perspective, this sentence hopefully makes sense: I’m glad it was this way and not the other. Every sober day she gave us was a gift, a struggle behind her curtain that she faced everyday for us.

But here’s the thing that was odd to me. People who know me can tell you that I’m a big bleeding heart softy who isn’t afraid to get real openly emotional. Strength and vulnerability are not the same and traditional tough guy shit has gotta go, but that’s another blog for another time. I mention it because when Dee died, I thought for sure it would devastate me, but it didn’t. I had an odd calm about it that surprised even me. I barely cried at all. I was just so not surprised by the news, and frankly glad for her that she wasn’t suffering anymore (“he doesn’t judge a man by how honorable his death is on a scale you made up anyway” – Aesop Rock). I chalked it up to that, the sense of almost inevitiblity. That’s why I didn’t cry.

So now we fast-forward back to Sunday afternoon at CHFF, and I sit down to watch Sorry for the Mess, a Dylan A. Young film. Five minutes later, when the credits rolled, I rushed from the screening room to find whatever modicum of privacy I could and proceed to bawl my eyes out. This film somehow managed to kick open that door I had slammed shut and locked with emotional shock, and then assumed I had just somehow been suddenly super emotionally resilient for some reason. A lot of lingering pain finally let itself go, like a cramp you just got used to suddenly let go. I let the relief wash over me, and then I went to find Dylan.

I showed him Dee’s photo. I told him her story. Our story. I thanked him for his film and for the message he is trying to send with it. And I get what he was saying about people not knowing what to make of the film. No blood, no violence, no scares, none of the hallmarks of what we have come to see as horror. I don’t even know that I would call it one. But the more I sat with it, the more I understood what is so horrific about it: the stark, unflinching simplicity, the almost mundane nature of it all. This is a portrayal of a very real thing that happens every single day all over the world. It happens right under all of our noses, so commonplace we can’t even recognize the horror of it anymore. And that, ultimately, is the real horror: that this horror has now gone on so long we don’t even recognize it anymore. I mostly appreciate, though, that this isn’t the final message of the film. There is hope. There is a chance to save lives. And it all boils down to simple human connection.

Sorry for the Mess was a cathartic experience for me, and I believe it can be for plenty of others as well. If you get a chance to see it, please do, and share it with the people you love. It won’t reach everyone. It won’t connect with everyone. But if it can do for anyone else what it did for me, it will have done more than most, and I am glad we have it.