Lucy’s Tale
2018 · 17m · Estados Unidos
Directed by Chelsea Lupkin
Genres: coming-of-age, drama, horror
Tones: contemplative, dark, tense
Between mean girls, her first romance and budding hormones, Lucy begins to realise that she is not quite like the other teenagers in her class, in this coming-of-age horror.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Coming-of-age horror isn't exactly fresh territory, but Lupkin's refusal to wink at the premise—treating teenage alienation as genuinely monstrous rather than metaphorical—is the kind of tonal commitment that actually lands.
There's a clear debt to body horror cinema and the Cronenberg lineage here, executed with deliberate restraint; Lupkin's editing rhythm respects the viewer's discomfort rather than exploiting it, which elevates this above the usual teen-genre noise.
The decision to hold on Lucy's face during the key moment of realization—letting the performance carry the horror rather than cutting to practical effects or shock imagery—is what transforms a familiar premise into something that actually unsettles.