Rating: C
Dir: Dallas Ryan and Ryan Vania
Star: Dallas Ryan, Ryan Vania, Chloe Gay Brewer, Steve Bilecz
Ryan was the director of Live One, and this feels similar – in particular, basically unfolding in a single location. It could be the same house, a bland and generic suburban cookie-cutter. It might even be Ryan’s. This also brings back Vania and Brewer, who had supporting roles in his previous film. I think this works fractionally better, with another intriguing premise. However, at one hundred and thirty one minutes, it’s stretched very thin. For the first hour – or possibly hour and a half – you might want to catch up on some ironing or other light housework, simultaneously. The salient points here should be clear enough, and those dishes aren’t going to clean themselves, are they?
Brim (Ryan) and Sean (Vania) are siblings, who have shown up at the house of their late grandfather. The aim is to spend five days giving it a good clean-out, then decide, in conjunction with their sister, Brenda (Brewer), whether or not to sell the property. However, precious little cleaning takes place. Instead, there is an industrial quantity of drinking, sitting around and chatting, along with the discovery of the titular device outside. Initially, they think it belongs to eccentric neighbour, Old Man Morris (Bilecz). Then weird occurrences start, with Brim especially vulnerable to the speaker’s power. He starts seeing a seductive woman around the house, begins to sleepwalk, and develops the kind of stare a Vietnam POW would find concerning.
There are no particular surprises here. You know this won’t end well, because almost the first thing the brothers find in the house, is their grandfather’s favourite, very sharp axe. As foreshadowing goes, it’s not exactly subtle. Thereafter, you get a burn so slow, it should be working at the DMV in Zootopia. On the other hand, the less than 100% of my attention it retained was adequately entertained. Particularly when the paranoid Morris (contact lenses are hidden government cameras) and the foul-mouthed Brenda show up, the resulting conversations are lively. In the latter’s case, often in a “Did she really just comment on the size of her brother’s penis?” kind of way. You get ominous cutaways to the bluetooth speaker… On a table in the corner… As if it were listening… And waiting…
Basically, this is a film where the electronic device is a slasher by proxy. It proves every bit as indestructible as Jason or Michael, and with just as little explanation for its powers. The axe makes its inevitable return, and Brin’s inability to blink reaches genuinely impressive levels, just before he finally snaps. Seriously, there’s one shot where I tried to match him. Couldn’t do it. I do reckon proceedings would be improved significantly by some heavy editing of the first half; it absolutely does not need to be so long (Live One had a similar issue). Yet it’s unsettling in small ways, and might just make you look twice at the (semi-)smart device sitting in the corner of your living-room.