Monsters are real. Living as a woman or femme-presenting person will teach you this. They lurk in dark alleys and well-lit bars and frat houses and office buildings and within your local government. They have teeth and claws and an appetite for getting what they want. They seldom resemble actual monsters, and instead take the form of neighbors, friends, coworkers, and people who seemingly have only good intentions. In the case of Gia Elliot’s film Take Back the Night, the monster looks like a monster, but it represents something far more tangible, true, and familiar.
Take Back the Night follows up-and-coming artist Jane (Emma Fitzpatrick), who is celebrating her first ever art show. After getting thoroughly drunk and dancing to the most casual but brilliant needle drop of Peaches’ classic “F*ck the Pain Away,” Jane helps a more inebriated woman to her Uber, only to get locked out of the party. Left on her own, with a dead phone in downtown LA, Jane hears the buzzing of flies in the distance, and comes to the terrifying realization that she is not alone.
A sinister creature I can only describe as the lovechild of Candyman and the Babadook presents itself and begins a brutal attack on Jane, one that leaves her in a traumatic, reckless state. After miraculously ending up at the emergency room, and learning that the police won’t do much to help, Jane takes it upon herself to get rid of the beast herself. Featuring an almost entirely female cast of compelling, interesting characters, Take Back the Night catalogues the plight of women who are forced to face the things that go bump in the night. It captures the victim-blaming, gaslighting, and general sense of patriarchal ambivalence that is wrapped up in rape culture — without ever mentioning the word “rape.” In a culture that is often too afraid to make bold moves narratively, but perfectly comfortable casting rapists and rape-apologists, it was so refreshing to see a film like Take Back the Night confront this challenging topic with guts, glory, and girl-power.
Jane is a victim, but she is never treated as one. The moment she realizes that, much like that fateful night, she is on her own, Jane schemes, sketches, and does everything in her power to get rid of the monster that now follows her. Just as Emerald Fennell presented in Promising Young Woman, Take Back the Night shines a light on the pervasiveness and insidiousness of rape culture, but here there is somehow the chance for hope, and even a solution. While I generally don’t love the use of social media as a vehicle for storytelling, I appreciated this film’s simultaneous criticism and positive use of the internet. Jane details much of her attack online, to a community of strangers who at first lambast her, then support her. It is through Jane’s retelling of her story that she finds fellow victims of the same type of monster — women who, like Jane, are tired of not being taken seriously and must put an end to the chaos themselves.
The monster in this film is surely a metaphor, but it is also an actual, horrifying monster. The visual effects, particularly with regard to this creature, were used in unpredictable, unnervingly casual ways. Just as the trauma of assault can come creeping in at any time, Jane’s monster found ways of haunting her, even in moments of quiet and solitude. Gia Elliot, along with writer and star Emma Fitzpatrick, delivered a subtle but brutal story of assault and absolution. With some bitingly bitchy dialogue and some impressive scares, Take Back the Night successfully showcases the bold feminist agenda of taking back the power from our oppressors — whether they look like the big bad wolf or the boy next door.
