Amongst the worst fears New Yorkers have expressed to me during my 12-year tenure in that city is the fear of being trapped in a subway car. There is a visceral, sharp expression that comes across a body’s face when they say ‘I don’t ever want to be trapped in a subway car’. In 2010, Leonard Zelig directed and released SubHysteria. A thriller which directly explores that particular horror. 16 years later, an update has been prepared, and it is SubHysteria 2026 I will be reviewing, dear reader.
SubHysteria 2026, much like its predecessor, wastes no time bringing us to the moment of hysterics. A massive thud occurs, and the subway car’s path is blocked by a massive pile of rubble. To complicate matters, pools of water have welled up outside the car, and they’ve been electrified by exposed wiring. To leave that car is at this time an instantaneous death sentence. So the 20-odd people trapped in this car must learn to cope with this dangerous predicament they find themselves in. Let me tell you, dear reader, no one handles stress and trauma worse than a bunch of trapped New Yorkers.
Riders share a subway car before chaos erupts in SubHysteria 2026.
“A massive thud occurs, and the subway car’s path is blocked by a massive pile of rubble.”
One of the more intriguing aspects of SubHysteria 2026 is the fact that it is an improvisation, unlike Cassavetes’ Shadows. Here the narrator makes no bones about it. The actors were aware of the plot and their characters, but not how everything ties together. So when shocks and frights occur in SubHysteria 2026, dear reader, they are fully earned and quite realistic given the horrors of being trapped with 20 other New Yorkers in a subway car. Every kind of privation that is possible in this scenario is visited upon our hapless victims.
It is in SubHysteria 2026‘s background stories that we meet these characters. Jamie (Shannon Lower) and Cam (Estelle Bajou) are lovers. On the day of Jamie’s birthday, Cam sought to provide the best surprise: a birthday puppy. Jamie is not into dogs, and this becomes yet another object of conflict for these dysfunctional lesbians. Sally (Sally Gifford) is heading to the chapel with Camilo (Héctor Palma). They have not had sex, and both seem ready to explode with anticipation. Ariel (Osvaldo Benavides) is rushing to the hospital to meet his wife, who is about to give birth. Hannah (Ginger Knoll) is a dominatrix who is looking to get home after spending a day with a client, humiliating him in every way he desires. When these and other characters converge, unsettling tension and distasteful encounters abound. It’s as if no one in New York (at least the microcosm that is this subway car) really wants to be with the one they’re with. They’re all restless, terrible people.
SubHysteria 2026 is a banger of a thrill ride, pun firmly intended. This is one of those films that just gets the blood pounding in the most cathartic of ways. Seek out SubHysteria 2026 if you want a greatly enhanced thriller.
For more information, visit the SubHysteria 2026 official Instagram page.
"…a banger of a thrill ride..."
