Rating: C+
Dir: Jason Trost
Star: Jason Trost, Coy Jandreau, Tallay Wickham
This is certainly an odd one. The island of Tasmania, off the South coast of Australia, has been evacuated because… Well, weirdness. Sam Everett (Jandreau) has gone missing there, and his older brother Brian (Trost) journeys to Tasmania, to try and find him. He’s a somewhat reluctant saviour, largely there only at the behest of their sister, Molly (Wickham). On arrival, we discover the island is home to a portal, which has allowed the spirits of the departed to come through. That’s what led to the evacuation, because they’re… not happy. There are ways for the living to protect themselves against them: coating yourself in the ashes of the dead, for example. Graveyards offer a sanctuary. Electricity might be a weakness.
There’s a tiny cast here, and little in the way of dialogue – the audio is almost a collage, of radio broadcasts, taped diaries and answering machine messages. For the first hour, you’re mostly watching Brian wandering around the deserted towns and wilderness, which occasionally gave me a distinct 28 Days Later vibe. The film uses visual effects to depict the ghosts, almost as shadow people, and the results are certainly creepy. There is a distinct lack of much going on, and I’d have like to seen more made of the “rules”. I mean, how did anyone discover that smearing cremains on your skin hides you from the dead? It’s clear the movie isn’t interested in the paranormal nuts ‘n’ bolts, more in generating a sense of dread.
This kind of thing can become a pain for the viewer, because low-budget movies tend to use it as an alternative to anything happening – in particular, anything that would cost money to depict. Here, you don’t often get this sense, because the film never looks cheap, meaning you rarely have reason to suspect it’s trying to cut corners. I won’t deny, my attention did wobble somewhat. Though less than I would have expected, given the previously mentioned lack of many things happening. I did wonder how the movie would be able to tie things up – or if it would bother to try. To the film’s credit, it does a better job in this area than I expected.
The finale sees Brian go through the portal to the other side. There he is forced to confront the unpleasant truth about his childhood, his own guilt about having failed to protect his siblings, and the role he played in his parents’ deaths. It’s pretty heavy stuff, but does provide a decent payoff, for your patience in sticking with this slow-burn of a spectral drama. While there is not much video-game influence here, I did appreciate the use of a gratuitous Nintendo Power Glove as an anti-ghost weapon. I think coming in at a terse 78 minutes was probably a wise choice: any more would potentially have tried my patience to an unacceptable degree. Yet it all works a little more effectively than I would have thought.