The Pause: A Comedy on The Horror of Being Reduced to the Butt of Jokes

Sam Grierson’s The Pause is a laugh-out-loud meta-horror-comedy about a woman reclaiming worth in menopause. Where it is funniest is the seriousness of its horror elements that make it look like they have had the luxury of greater attention than its bare comedy—that idea makes best sense when you watch the film.

Charlie (Suzy Bloom) is experiencing the coming apart of her life, its steady decline on the public front while her body stages its own private sinking: she is unemployed and going through menopause. She knows, and we know, that in the subtext of the world, she may as well be scrap metal. Obsolescence is hard for anyone to suffer, but especially so when you have only begun to enjoy a firm grasp on being in the world. When you are, in essence, at your prime. 

Her bathroom is littered with products marketed at menopausal women. None of it is working, in a very unsurprising fork-found-in-kitchen outcome, or she would not be so summarily rejected from humanity. She has even started hearing voices—the main source of the film’s snarky commentary on womanhood and filmmaking. The result? A hilarious and slightly scary descent into metatextual madness and horror from which well-meaning friends like Sammi (Louise Osbourne) can only initiate rescues through childlike belief in possibility and silliness. It is up to Charlie to decide if and how far she wants to indulge. 

Indulgence becomes the reigning theme of The Pause after Sammi talks Charlie out of fear. The comedy leans into its theatricality from thereon, and the joy of the indulgence is infectious. Charlie learns from experience of the pleasures and peace of radical self-acceptance. It sounds like a wellness buzzword, but in the context, that phrase is a robust feminist fight against socially mandated withdrawal and oblivion. For Charlie it is also ridiculously fun. 

Watch The Pause Horror Short Film Trailer