I had to watch this first thing in the morning (though it’s a truth universally acknowledged that horror movies work best at night). Even so, Trey Edward Shults’s second feature left me jibbering. It’s not exactly scary but it made me so tense I could hardly breathe, let alone think.
A deadly plague has America in its grip and, in order to stay well, a family led by ruthless patriarch Paul (Joel Edgerton) have holed up in the woods. One night, a masked stranger (Christopher Abbott) gatecrashes the party. Paul’s 17-year-old son, Travis (Kelvin Harrison Jr, superb), has dreams in which he sees the man’s face. When the guy is unmasked, he looks just like he did in the dream. Is Travis psychic? Or is this a clue that the film is one long, grim reverie?
Whatever, the emotional temperature rises once we meet the stranger’s wife, Kim (Riley Keough), and three-year-old son Andrew (Griffin Robert Faulkner, heartbreakingly wan). Playing a sensitive, playful housewife, Keough (so hard-bitten in American Honey), gives yet another multi-layered performance. Her scenes with Faulkner are pulverisingly good.
Shults’s ingenious shots and sound design complete the picture. The camera lingers and loiters in strange corners of the house (there’s a phantasmagorical red door). Disorientating sounds are rooted in the everyday. Shults is obviously a fan of John Carpenter, but David Lynch’s work (especially Lost Highway) is in the mix, too.
Should families hold back? Should family come first? And are some members of the family more important than others? Don’t look to this film for easy answers. Some viewers have complained that not enough happens. Those of you who fall in love with Travis, Kim and Andrew will beg to disagree.
Cert 15, 92 mins
