Falling somewhere between a horror film and dark comedy about wellness crazes, The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick is, like director Pete Ohs’ previous Jethica, a film that suggests watching a play within a movie. Both features are difficult to discuss without spoilers––they seem to operate on a wavelength beyond genre boxes.
It might help to know the creative process going in. Tick was made collaboratively by its main cast: as Ohs explained during the SXSW premiere, they isolated on location at a country home where they would write three scenes at a time, film and analyze said scenes, and then move forward. The result is a kind of mumblecore version of an Ingmar Bergman film that feels both loose and heavily controlled. But if you’re not on the film’s wavelength it may feel like a disjointed mess. Like the wellness cures offered by AJ (James Cusati-Moyer), the resident chef in the group, they require buy-in and faith. Framed by Baz Luhrmann’s quote that “a life lived in fear is a life half-lived,” it was simply this film’s title that was enough to get frequent Ohs collaborators on board.
Camile (Callie Hernandez) invites old college friend Yvonne (Zoë Chao) to her upstate house to stay in the wake of a personal tragedy, a detox and an escape from the city. Greeted by Camile’s realtor Issac (Jeremy O. Harris) and his partner AJ, they encounter all kinds of supernatural forces in an old home that features holes in the floor ostensibly to spread out the heat, but really serve as voyeuristic portals.
The ultimate DIY filmmaker, Ohs shot and edited this picture as he had with Jethica, a kind of deconstructed Thelma & Louise with supernatural and Shakespearean undertones. As one might imagine, The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick operates with a similar approach, ratcheting up the tension in creepily effective passages proving it might only be a matter of time before Blumhouse comes calling.
Restraint is the order of the day: Ohs’ film grapples with themes of motherhood, friendship, health, wellness, and fantasy, creating a hypnotic biological narrative that is difficult to describe without spoiling details. The aforementioned tick tips the film into a light body horror category as it continues to get worse for Yvonne, who plots her escape but is ultimately captive to the quasi-family into which she’s been indoctrinated. The film veers into the spiritual territory of Being John Malkovich as the group thinks about life cycles and the next generation.
Your mileage may vary when approaching The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick, but it is a film that quite effectively melds joy, beauty, and horror elements that defy characterization. Yet it somehow sticks the landing with a sharp tone and an ensemble that has come together to make a film almost by workshop. In that way, this is a movie about the making of a movie, and independent film is largely a family affair as well. The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick is the creative process that flows from that initial idea, an obvious metaphor that doesn’t dawn on the viewer until one gleans more about its process.
The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick premiered at SXSW 2025.