Review: ‘Is God Is’ Celebrates the Perverse Poetry of Revenge [Review]
Female rage is nothing new. It’s the crux of the horror genre. But what’s special about this new wave of female-led horror is that we’re not just seeing girls and women as projections of men’s fantasies. We’re hearing about women, in all their emotional beauty and philosophical grotesquerie, from the women themselves. Aleshea Harris’ Is God Is provides a portrait of the moral tug-of-war many people face, especially when they’re forced to make sense of systemic violence enacted against them.
Harris’ Is God Is film was born from her play of the same name. In it, twin sisters Racine the Rough One (Kara Young) and Anaia the Quiet One (Mallori Johnson) reunite with their estranged mother, God, who tasks them with killing the father who sought to burn them all alive. If the idea of bloody Good for Her cinema wasn’t attractive enough, the all-star cast felt promising: Vivica A. Fox is God, Sterling K. Brown is the godforsaken father, Erika Alexander is Divine, and Janelle Monáe plays the new wife.
While the casting is fabulous, Is God Is transcends its dope premise and stacked callsheet. Equal parts terrifying and funny, Harris’ Is God Is feels so artful because the plot is heavy on spiritual decay, but presented in such a pleasing way. The movie could arguably feel like any other gritty family drama. But Harris builds tension in a decidedly horror-movie fashion — lensing stomach-turning events with glamorous camera work. Harris deserves all the kudos because she never falls into the trap of “style over substance” that bests so many horror directors.
Every element of the film, from the set design to the lighting and coloring, works in tandem. And the existence of each character feels equally intentional: God seems to represent the little voice in your head that says that maybe getting your lick back is a good thing. But that’s the thing about revenge: Even if you secure it, you’re still hollow inside when it’s all said and done.
Meanwhile, having two Final Girls on screen feels like a brilliant choice because Young and Johnson play off of each other. [Link to TWINS IG REEL on bolded text] I also can’t help but feel like, as twins, Racine and Anaia represent the two sides of oneself. They’re the age-old devil on one shoulder, angel on the other. Racine wants blood. Anaia goes along with it, but not without asking Racine if there is some other way to right the universe’s wrongs and fill the void inside of themselves.
This thread of revenge and women telling their own stories feels crucial in the horror genre. Meir Zarchi’s I Spit on Your Grave (1978) has been hailed as feminist because, following in the footsteps of Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left, the film portrays violence against a woman and her revenge in response. I Spit on Your Grave, and its sequels as feminist films, continue to be a hard sell. But now we have Jen and Sylvia Soska’s American Mary, and the simply-titled Revenge, the film that put The Substance’s Coralie Fargeat on the map. Now the Women’s Rights and Wrongs canon includes Harris’ Is God Is movie.
The idea of fighting fire with fire feels resonant right now. No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, you can agree that your ideal world is in shambles right now. If you’re American, violence, be it verbal or physical, feels like a natural response. Unload the clip in the comments section; build up your weapons arsenal in case our country falls into civil war. In the case of Is God Is: Get a couple of rocks and wrap them up in a sock, so it doesn’t leave any evidence.
The film also feels resonant because even if you don’t have violent impulses, you’re likely caught in the crossfire as a woman, especially a Black one. Recently, two instances of fatal brutality against Black women and their children came to light. The Justin Fairfax murder-suicide and the Shreveport killings have left the Black community reeling — something Harris acknowledged in our conversation.
The best horror movies have something to say, beyond the spectacle of gore. Harris’ Is God Is feels like a fable of mythic proportions, with its core story of gender-based harm being a tale as old as time. The cool thing about Harris is that she makes this age-old narrative feel fresh and dangerous as it plays in the horror genre.
Likewise, in an era of bloated, auteur-indulgent epics, Is God Is makes you ponder individualism, morality, generational trauma, and the nature of good and evil in 99 minutes that feel like a breeze.
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Is God Is
Summary
Is God Is showcases the hollowness of revenge with style — and shows us what’s possible when women get to be the architects of their own stories.
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