Bloody Perfect: I’m Only Sleeping
Isaura Barbé-Brown brings us the next post in her monthly column, Bloody Perfect.
There has been lots of nap-taking over the last two years. Be it from boredom or the exhaustion of getting through a pandemic and everything else, a lot of laying down has been done.
During my own epic pyjama sit-in, the lawless week between Christmas and New Years, I woke up from a death like sleep under a (new) weighted blanket and knew what my first 2022 Bloody Perfect would be.
Se7en (1995) is technically a crime drama but anyone who has seen it knows the horror elements are undeniable. There is a serial killer loose in the city killing people in accordance with the seven deadly sins. A morbidly obese man force fed until his stomach bursts represents gluttony. A lawyer forced to cut a pound of flesh from himself represents greed. And then there is victim number three. Detectives Mills (Brad Pitt) and Somerset (Morgan Freeman) follow the clues left at previous crime scene to the apartment of a convicted child molester and drug dealer, thinking they have identified their murderer. When the detectives and armed police break through the door, they find the emaciated and rotting remains of the man, strapped to a bed and covered in sores, and missing a hand. He is surrounded by pine air fresheners, filth, debris, needles, medical tools and oxygen tanks. On the wall above him the word SLOTH is scratched in big, black letters. In a box by the bed there are Polaroids of him taken over a year, as he slowly wastes away, as well as hair, urine and stool samples and fingernail clippings. The scene is horrific enough on it’s own. One police officer is running his torchlight up the body, taking in the decay, and as he gets to the skull-like face, he leans in and whispers, “you got what you deserved” and a fraction of a second later, the supposed corpse starts coughing.
The first time I watched this was in the basement/games room of the theological college where my mother was training to be a C of E vicar, and my companions were the teenage children of other soon to be vicars. It is often the case the kids of ordained are usually the ones who are up to no good, hence us terrorizing the neighbourhood on skateboards, sneaking out to meet friends at night and huddling around a little tv in a basement to watch an 18 certificate film, that one of the older teens “borrowed” from their parent’s collection.
When the corpse that is not a corpse start coughing, rather than be happy that their victim is alive, and maybe even after some very serious medical help, could answer some questions, they jump back and pull their guns. I myself made a noise I have never made before or since. And unholy noise. Somewhere between a scream and gasp with something guttural thrown in. Everyone was scared. Even the older teens felt it appropriate to pause the tape and take a moment to recover.
It’s my favourite ever jump scare because I have never recovered. Every time I watch this film my body tenses in anticipation of the sloth murder corpse cough. The cough heard around the games room. This scene lives vivid and rent free in my head. I could honestly have written this whole piece without even watching it. Besides the “what’s in the box” scene, I couldn’t describe any other section in this much detail. It’s always there. I have a grim fascination (or fixation) with it. I’ve talked about it on dates with a sort of manic glee. If I ever meet Brad Pitt, I am one hundred percent certain it will be the first thing out of my mouth.
All this to say it is perfect because it is so unexpected and too terrible to really think about. Rotting away for a year, bones rubbing against each other, skin stretched too thin, the smell of the room, corpse breath… it’s all too much, which makes it the perfect amount. Now I am slowly emerging from my pyjama state, I would like to remind you all to wear a mask, get vaccinated, wash your hands and make sure the dead thing is actually dead before you get closer than six feet.
Isaura Barbé-Brown is a Hackney born and based actress. She studied at AADA in New York and BADA in Oxford. She has written for The BFI, Black Ballad UK as well as The Final Girls/Bloody Women and been a guest on The Final Girls podcast and the Evolution of Horror podcast. She has done talks at the BFI for their Squad Goals event and during their Love season with the Bechdel Test Fest on race in romantic films. Isaura has also been on panels for BFI Future Film, The Watersprite Film Festival and The Norwich Film Festival. Her acting work covers theatre, film, tv and voiceover. She has also written for short film, TV and theatre as well as short stories and poetry. You can find Isaura on Twitter and Instagram.
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