The ICE documentary as chilling as a horror movie: ‘We’re trying to put the audience in a position of terror’

Film-makers Laura Poitras and Rachel Lauren Mueller’s new short is an unvarnished portrait of ICE-occupied Minneapolis Get Out . The Texas Chainsaw Massacre . The Purge . All three films build on an august tradition of using horror as a Trojan horse to comment on the social, political and racial anxieties of their day. They’re Here, a new documentary featured in this year’s New York film festival , flips the script.

Directed by Rachel Lauren Mueller , a film-maker and journalist, and Laura Poitras , Academy award-winner, the 24-minute film employs horror tropes to re-examine the surge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement ( ICE ) officers in Minneapolis last winter. “For film-makers and journalists, there’s a great sense of responsibility in these moments when they arise,” said Mueller, a Minneapolis resident. “This is my neighborhood. It was my community. It was very clear to me what my role in this moment would be. ” Framed as a dystopian story set in an urban tundra, They’re Here follows the Trump administration’s border control campaign in Minnesota – officially dubbed Operation…