This was a movie that I didn't hear about until the writer/director Colin Bressler reached out to me via Instagram. I'm always down to help independent cinema as I've said before so I told him I would give it a viewing. Since the movie is a 2020 release, I am making it a Featured Review on Journey with a Cinephile: A Horror Movie Podcast as well. The synopsis is an autistic man fascinated by the paranormal struggles to balance the microcosm of his universe along with those around him.
Now I did cut the synopsis a bit short as it was wordy and there's a reason for that. The movie does run 105 minutes long. We start this off though Regan (Magda Porter) as she is conducting a ritual with her son, Remy (Isak Tufic). She thinks she has completed it, but Remy continues chanting until she yells at him. We then see they've succeeded in summoning what looks to be a demon. We only get see a dark figure with horns, no actual features.
Remy grows up to be Jason Scarbrough. We see that he's autistic through different interactions and for a living, he gives tours of places where crimes happen. Because of his mother, Remy is blessed with the ability to be attune with spirits and can relay what he's seeing to his customers. For the most part, it seems to freak them out and for good reasons. He also has his own YouTube type channel as well. Remy still lives with his mother. She isn't doing as well though, her health is failing.
The movie then introduces us to Vera (Aisha Love). She is a bit odd herself, as she goes to the local cemetery to 'talk' to her deceased parents. It is interesting is that she's a fan of Remy and watches his videos. The two of them meet officially as he comes to this same cemetery.
His world though comes to a halt when his mother passes away. She tried to overcome her illness through magic and refused to go to the doctor. With Remy's condition, he's struggling to cope. It doesn't help that his aunt, Mildred (Angelita Aronce Sorensen) has power of attorney over him and he needs the type of care that is a bit much for her. She is a recovering alcoholic which doesn't help. She is spooked staying in the house, as she keeps seeing her dead sister with a warning.
There are more problems when Remy befriends Robin (Ronald Mercado). He's a former convict that wants to set up the next place for Remy to do tours for the supernatural. He claims in prison that he felt powerful entities. Things take a turn though when he does something unspeakable and takes a book from Remy of how to conduct rituals.
That is where I want to leave this recap of the movie. If you couldn't tell, there is a lot of moving parts to this movie that I felt I needed to establish before getting into this section of my review. I do want to say, that I think this movie builds some interesting aspects for sure. The first one would be that of Remy. I find it interesting that we're following an autistic man and Scarbrough does a solid job at portraying someone in this condition. I don't think he actually is, but I could be wrong there.
What is fascinating here for me is that autistic people from my understanding really need structure. It seems he is on the lesser side of the spectrum, as he can talk to people in a fairly normal way. He knows what his passion is, which isn't the greatest in the supernatural. I just really like the idea of how they act, putting them into something like this where in order for it to work you need full belief and structure to the ritual.
Vera is also an interesting character here. Love does a solid job in portraying her. I wasn't sure if she was on the spectrum herself or just odd. I'm still not entirely sure, but it seems she is just a different type of person that works well in this story. She likes Remy and wants to help him.
I didn't really love everything here though. I do think that the movie runs too long with some things that really don't add a lot for me unfortunately. It took me awhile to figure out where this was going and it really just the last 15 or 20 minutes or so. I think that they wanted to cram as much as they could into this and it really just doesn't work as well as they want. It also seems like it would work better as a series to flesh things out more instead of this in-between that we get. There were some legit times where I was freaked out with some of the scares that we get, but it really just seems to play more like a drama for a good portion of this.
To get back on to the positives though, the soundtrack to this movie is great. There was a few times where it got my anxiety going. On top of that, there were times when nothing really was happening in the movie and I was still feeling this way. That is obviously something that works very well in setting the mood for a horror film. I did have some slight issues where the sound was a bit off. It never lasted too long and it really seemed to be for some of the outside shots, which I know can be difficult.
As for the next aspect, there weren't a lot in the way of effects for this movie. I'm kind of glad that they didn't go CGI or do anything cheesy as that would have hurt the movie. I do think they do some really good things with shadows and cinematography. The demon we get to see a few times was creepy, especially by keeping it all in black and how the person portraying it moved. There was some good shots using mirrors and using the focus where we would have something blurry in the background to build tension.
I've already really talked about the two main actors, so I'll briefly talk about the rest of the cast. Porter was solid as the mother. The only real issue is that she looks the same from when Remy is a boy until he is an adult. It is a bit of a problem that she is supposed to be sick so something should have been done to play this up. Sorensen wasn't great in my opinion either. I was questioning how she was a sister to Regan, but I can buy she is a younger and possible having a different parent to explain that. Mercado is okay and the rest of the cast was fine in rounding this out, but no one really stood out.
So now with that said, I do think there are some interesting concepts here. I like the idea of taking the supernatural with someone who is autistic. It is something I don't recall seeing, outside of something like Hellbound: Hellrasier II. The acting is fine for the most part. I really liked the soundtrack and how the movie was shot was well done in my opinion. If I have an issue, it is just that the movie is too long and focuses on things that I don't really need. I feel this is just slightly over average for me though as it just didn't come together as much as I wanted it to.
My Rating: 5.5 out of 10
