Only in Ohio
Only in Ohio: Possibly in Michigan and Surrealist Technique
By Elizabeth Rotunno
If you, like me, spend far too much time trawling the bottomless depths of the YouTube Cinematic Universe in hopes of discovering the next paradigm-shifting feature, you’ve likely stumbled across what might be the world’s most unhinged chick-flick: Possibly in Michigan.
The 1983 twelve-minute long part-horror, part-musical, all-avant-garde filmette has become something of a sensation, amassing over 11 million views on the red-emblazoned streaming service it calls home. For those who lead sensible, horror-musical free lives, here’s the elevator pitch for Possibly in Michigan, according to its director and writer, Cecelia Condit, in the film’s YouTube description: “Possibly in Michigan is a musical horror story about two young women who are stalked through a shopping mall by the cannibal named Arthur. He follows them home, and here the victims become the aggressors.” This pixely, cannibalistic escapade is set to the uncanny chimes and sing-songy melodies of musical director Karen Skladany—and if you aren’t yet sold on the “horror” part of this, there’s also the fact that Condit’s shot-on-video movie is based off the true story of her serial killer ex-boyfriend. It’s all very charming.
Possibly in Michigan is hailed today as a foundational work of analog horror film, a subgenre that derives its fear factor from poor graphics, eerie nostalgic symbolism, and that general sense of dread that seems to pervade all 20th-century home films. Now, whether it’s a good analog horror film is not for me to decide, but I will delve into what makes it so existentially disturbing: its use of surrealism as a subversion of familiarity.
Surrealism seeks to merge imagination and reality. Typical horror movies tend to lose their bite once something completely unbelievable happens. Surrealist movies don’t encounter this issue, though, because everything insane becomes a part of the liminal reality in which they are constructed. After all, there are few things more awful than the breakdown of reality itself. As much is evident in Possibly in Michigan, which is unique in that it uses surrealism to speak to the innate absurdity of the horror genre, at once acknowledging and amplifying it to create an especially troubling cinematic sequence. Sure, you have the stalking, the cannibalism, the revenge cannibalism, the off-putting nonchalance of everyone involved, and the shockingly diverse rotation of rubber animal masks that our antagonist uses to conceal his identity, but nobody would take any of this melodrama seriously were the film meant to be realistic. By virtue of being a musical, however, audiences are transplanted into an unreal space whereby their informational intake becomes dependent upon Skladany’s lyrics and composition. This immediately causes the film to shed the limitations of the natural world, immersing us in full-blown operatic disturbia. Furthermore, it has no well-defined setting, except for, possibly, Michigan, as its title suggests. As such, there is a certain ambiguity which affixes itself to Possibly in Michigan, an ambiguity which serves to unsteady viewers. We know the movie’s world looks like ours (hence, the shot-at-home style), but plays by different rules than ours, and that’s about it. Anything, literally anything, could happen.
Herein lies the rabbit in Condit’s hat: to see one’s known surroundings so terrifyingly warped into a plane of disaster capable of housing such gruesome possibilities registers as a threat beyond anything your typical paranormal horror could dish out. It tugs at viewers through their phone displays and makes them bear witness to the depravity of people who look like any stranger on a street, living in a town that could be theirs, getting eaten in a house that could honestly be just next door. By conceding its grip on plot realism, Condit is able to distinctly stylize her film and uncomfortably juxtapose familiarity with the macabre, rendering it, and your fear, real for the twelve minutes you’re watching.
I leave you here with one note: If you’re curious about this essay’s title, Possibly in Michigan was funded and made possible by none other than the Ohio Arts Council. Go figure.
