hey, You cant park there

First off, I have to say that the story itself is incredibly compelling. I was aware that there was a nefarious agent being employed from the trailers that I could recall. I knew something was supernaturally on the prowl and that there would be victims in this cat and mouse game. I'm not sure if I merely misremember the trailers or if there was a measure of intentionality to the misdirection. If that's the case, I do feel even more ripped off that we didn't get that in the finished product. I'm going to do my best not to give away spoilers without ample warning. This IS a brand new movie and while I feel there were some crucial missteps at times, it still has merit and watchability that many would find perfect for this time of year. So what has been teased from the onset in this film is entirely enjoyable and that only stands to work in it's favor.

I think one of the practical things I have to give credit for in this film is the casting. There's nothing profound about the players involved but with a limited cast, it's incredibly easy to manage to make the protagonists just unlikable enough to be taken out of the film straight away. If I've said it once, I've said it a million times. If I can't find someone to latch onto in the opening of the film, then kill them all and see if I care. But while there's nothing terribly remarkable about our couple, they manage to be just plucky and relatable enough to find them worth hanging around. Additionally, the way they marry the cold open to the film with a place slightly downstream is surprisingly well done and a complete subversion of my expectations within who I assumed were the players and who were not.

I'm going to note that this critique is going to go in both columns. I'll focus on the good first. The visual aspects of this film were quite compelling. There were a number of times where what you see as the audience changes perspective. It's an interesting use. The antagonist has the ability to manipulate the physical world around people so they see things in different ways. At times we are privy to our vantage point and others we are restricted in the same way as the cast. It's an interesting balance that draws you closer in to the film. There are other visual queues that really created a great tension that is allowed to bake. One of my favorite parts of the more subtle horror elements found in many modern films is the use of extra space on screen. Some are more deliberate in use and some are more nuanced in this approach. Frankly I enjoy both. I'm always going to lean towards nuanced but even if you align the foreground to the left side of the screen and the background to the right and allude to a presence in the latter, I'm pleased. If you're able to achieve the same result through a bit more deftness of hand and not be quite as pronounced about it, I'll give you bonus points for that. This film does employ a lot more of the latter but there is still a relatively well rounded approach to it and I was in favor.

The third element I'll expound on a bit is the lore of the road. As a concept, this is such a wonderful piece to explore. I'm certain this isn't the first film to trudge down this narrative exploration but I found the approach to be an incredibly unique idea. We take a couple unsuspecting folks who are signing up for van life, an exclusive means of living their shared experience in real time without the standard structure of a stationary residence. Many times our haunting comes from a place and a spirit or spirits that inhabit that place. By untethering the couple from that landscape, we open up a lot of possibility. And by introducing a darker nature to the idea of hobo code into the story, there is a very peculiar and curious aspect of storytelling that has the potential to unfold. What if a couple who are excited to explore the road is not quite as welcome on that road by a force known specifically for wandering said road. What if their acceptance of the road as an alternative way to live life is rejected by the open expanse in front of them and the invitation is actually for malevolence to interrupt simply for being ignorant to the rules of a mode of existence they were all too thrilled to embrace? A very interesting crossroads of structural composition.

The problem is that much of it falls somewhat flat. That's probably my biggest criticism. It's not necessarily executed egregiously in some sort of fashion that just fizzles out. It's the promise of something elevated and not delivered. The hinting at hobo code and exposition of the idea is deliberately handing the audience the necessary information and essentially saying to them "Here, know this. It's important, kind of." But there's a much richer experience to be had, I believe. She is confronted earlier with supernatural happenings than he is. She's an adopter, he's a rejecter. It creates an inequality in their shared value structure and puts a strain on their relationship. That's a great place for tension to birth. But they operate outside of general human expectations and it becomes a little cartoony at times. So they just sort of trudge through a setup. Like presenting a carefully crafted blueprint for a living room fort and then draping a sheet over some couch cushions and calling it a day.

I'll revisit the visuals now as well. I do still have an appreciation for them. However, I also have a bit of a beef with them. I'm fully on board to suspend reality for the sake of the film. However, in establishing certain elements of the story, I do still need some pieces of reality to remain intact to elevate the fright. Lights can stop working suddenly but a bulb going out in the parking lot does not create a vacuum of all light. Sitting by the side of the road against a blinking taillight does not completely suck all light out of the scene. There are plenty of creative ways to implicate the presence of the antagonist. I would submit that hinting at him is far more effective than simply jump scare after jump scare, reaching for the lowest hanging fruit. There's just nothing long term satisfying about that approach and after a while I simply waited for the jump out of obligation. I knew where the all were. It doesn't mean they were all cheap. But the volume of them eventually created significantly diminishing returns. Had there been a morsel more tempering to how some of the visuals were handled it would have anchored the terror in deeper realistic roots and only stood to intensify the scares, of which not all needed to be jumps. Some could simply be that we alluded to the presence of an entity and left it at that. Seeing it's shadow on screen in growing succession of passing headlights would created a crescendo of anticipation that could simply remain in a prolonged waiting as we collectively held our breath only for the scene to expire and reveal how much more frightening it was to wait and not see the specter than to be confronted with immediacy that a jump scare ultimately provides.

Finally, and this is going to be full of spoilers so if you don't want it, pass this one by and simply move on to the next paragraph, if you're still reading at all. The finale of this film is atrocious. We've danced around what this thing is with limited understanding and were clued into the effectiveness of Catholic trinkets as the Chekov's gun needed for resolution. This thing is evil so clearly a religious widget should do the trick. Ok. I gotcha. We're going to play the Catholic rules card at the 10 yard line. Not surprising. But what makes it worse is there's a set up for camp fire lore to be established much earlier in the film and boomerang back to it now. They still try this but with much less overall success in my estimation. We need an ending all of a sudden and that ominous lady from before seemed to have an idea of what was going on. Let's drive to Sedona and just start shouting her name like Bill Murray's Bob Wylie in What About Bob. I wouldn't have been surprised to see them pull up to a Winnebago campsite and just start shouting "DR. LEO MARVIN!" Which is essentially what they did. They decide to go to St. Christopher's Church because that's probably going to work. She gets her head ripped off because contractually she's not allowed to help them any less than she already has. But they leave and make their way to the middle of nowhere, finally paying attention to extremely deliberately placed hobo signs that send them to the one place that apparently this demon can be killed. For an entity with remarkable ability and penchant for murder, he seems quite resistant to simply end our protagonists before allowing them to escort him to his execution chamber. There's a big, dumb, dramatic conclusion where the indulgence works and Martin Luther rolls over in his grave. Yay! The good guys won, I guess.

The ending doesn't completely ruin the film for me. There's still parts to this movie that are fun. They could simply be better and that's frustrating. I think this movie cold have easily been in the B range but I can't, in good conscience, put it there in the end. It's a C grade movie. And the things it did within that world, I'm docking it further and giving it an overall C-. It's not an overtly generous offer. I think it earned that rating. Like I said, I could have easily been higher but they made the choices they did. I don't regret watching it but it served it's purpose and it was ok. I wouldn't want to dissuade others from watching, just to temper your expectations. Part of the line I walk is I'm not a horror guy and so these movies aren't necessarily in my wheelhouse. I'm sifting for diamonds in the rough but I also have an appreciation that the intended audience had a blast with this movie. I can only recommend or not according to my own sensibilities. But given that this movie is put together the way it is, I think plenty of people would be able to sit back and enjoy the strict progression from beginning to end with some spooky moments, plentiful jump scares, and relatively pleasant conclusion. For someone looking at what was presented and seeing potential for so much more, it is obnoxious to be left wanting when it feels like they could have provided a much richer overall experience. In the end, it is what it is. And now I've watched it and here we are. Three weeks done. 10 days left to go. Still feeling good but this is when horror fatigue does start to set in. We've got about a week and a half left so lets make sure we can finish strong. Hopefully tomorrow is a good horror movie day with more goodness in store for us. Until then, I'll catch you on the flip side.