User Reviews

This film is like a 4th grade school play about bisexuality, drug addition and crippling emotional problems. Or maybe it's more like devout Mormons trying to do gangster rap. Whatever the metaphor, Horsey and the people who made it stink of being poseurs.

Delilah Miller (Holly Ferguson) is an inner city sprite who lives above a laundromat and pays her bills by working at a porn shop. She's one of those magnetic but needy people who build a little community around themselves. In Delilah's case that includes her former lesbian lover Lilly (Victoria Deschanel), her roommate Simon (Ryan Robbins), another young woman named Carol (Tamara Rambaran), who disappears from the story unless needed by the Almighty Plot Hammer, and a couple of generic homosexuals. Delilah also happens to be an aspiring painter and a practicing nymphomaniac.

The story essentially revolves around Delilah falling in love with this wannabe rock star named Ryland (Todd Kerns), who's a huge drug addict. It's about how Delilah is this exceptional person who keeps sabotaging her own life by wallowing in emotional and social decadence and her co-dependent relationship with Ryland is the ultimate expression of that, alienating her from her little community before leaving her all alone. That's when the religious old lady (Tara Lea) who lives next door to Delilah steps in and gives her a safe environment to live in and get physically and psychologically healthy. So, I guess the moral of Horsey is that even the flightiest, most selfish tramp can turn her life around if she finds some old hag to take care of her.

I don't know if it's because the actors are so bad, the script is that terrible or some combination of the two, but there isn't a single moment in this movie that seems even vaguely real or believable. Delilah is like the Reality Bites version of Scarlett O'Hara. Lilly is Rush Limbaugh's idea of a college lesbian. Simon is like Puck from MTV's original "The Real World" on anti-depressants. Ryland is supposed to be a heroin addict but comes off like a guy who wouldn't even drink non-alcoholic beer. The drummer in his band is so ridiculously angry that you expect him to yell out "Drummer smash!" at some point. Everything is so inorganic and shallow and tin-eared that this attempt at hip, young drama turns into an hilariously unintentional spoof of such films.

It's like writer/director Kirsten Clarkson tried to write a script about urban youth after living her entire life on a farm in rural Idaho, something reinforced by the total lack of sex or nudity in Horsey. I can appreciate a filmmaker who wants to avoid gratuitous nudity. A big element of this story, though, is supposed to be about how recklessly, self-destructively sexual Delilah is, yet the film fades to black every time she gets past first base. If you're going to have your characters throw around the F-word and shoot up with heroin, being that prudish about the human body is jarringly weird.

Horsey is one of those movies that can only be enjoyed by laughing at how bad it is. If that's your thing, you might want to rent it. Don't if you prefer films that are actually, you know, good.