By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Ben Wheatley
Starring: Ellora Torchia | Hayley Squires | Joel Fry | John Hollingworth | Mark Monero | Reece Shearsmith
Country: united_kingdom
Year: 2021
Running time: 100
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13429362/reference
Brett says: “From Director Ben Wheatley comes this eerie tale whose paranoia and alarm runs parallel to the global COVID-19 pandemic, but as the viewer soon discovers, this is no “Coronavirus: The Movie.”
“After an establishing montage of the haunting, threatening canopies and significant objects of the surrounding forest and park areas, the film opens with a cautious visit to a lodge steeped in pandemic protections and precautions that will be very familiar to the audience. This is a world of on-foot travel, an alternate earth that has apparently been ravaged for several months by the disease plaguing the planet (or at least this particular part of the planet), which gives way to pioneer-style living in this remote area. A traveler named Martin Lowery makes a pit stop at the lodge during his quest to reconnect with Dr. Olivia Wendle, a fellow researcher and personal interest who just dropped off communication as pandemic priorities and adjustment eventually took over (sound familiar?). While at the lodge, among the team stationed there, park ranger Alma offers guidance to navigate the woods for the two-day hike toward Lowery’s destination. Before making the journey though, the sense of dread and ominous foreshadowing is set in some disturbing pagan artwork at the lodge that is explained away rather dismissively at first.
“Wheatley doesn’t waste time imagining that the audience has forgotten his little introduction to the big, bad forest and lets the good times (or bad times) begin to roll in this journey to find Dr. Wendle. As the film progresses with a moderate, deliberate build, Wheatley eventually takes off the reins and dabbles once again in the extreme and uncomfortable to create his shock value goals that seem to be common in his less-than-mainstream section of his library of films. Despite some clearly stretched attempts for attention with shock and cringe plot moments, where the film really maximizes its effect is in the more atmospheric and mysterious elements of plot-building that eventually begin to peep out once the ‘grossness coast’ is clear. There are far more frights in the scenes that have the audience questioning what is unfolding than in the more brutal and gory moments, which seem arbitrary more often than not.
“Conventional plot tactics hamper the overall narratives in a few places, but the payoff that results with the truly imaginative and different parts of the film are worth it; that is, if your patience through the unknown cluster is greased and oiled prior to diving in. Disguised beneath the horror elements is a solid mind-trip that turns nature into a non-technological Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey. All combined, the film is an ebb and flow of slow-burn eerie and ‘all bets are off’ extreme. Given the restrictions of COVID-era independent film-making, this is a worthwhile romp of resourcefulness that is clearly limited, but shows that this filmmaker is not going to take the effects of a pandemic lying down. 3 cats“