3 stars (out of 5)
Writer/director David Robert Mitchell’s low-budget horror story was, according to him, inspired by a recurring dream he had as a kid, and it has the feel of a nightmare, with a striking sense of the irrational and uncanny.
Jay Height (Maika Monroe) is a student in an often adult-free city that looks like rundown, boarded-up Detroit, although the geography is never made clear, and she’s considering taking the plunge with her rather intense boyfriend Jeff (Jake Weary). After a slow-burn build-up (for the plot and their relationship), Jay finds that after the deed she’s seemingly being followed by something supernatural, an entity that changes forms and walks in malevolent pursuit. Taking a while to be fully convinced, Jay then turns to her sister Kelly (Lili Sepe) and friends, including longtime admirer Paul (Keir Gilchrist) and grungy Greg (Daniel Zovatto), and after a scary experience at the Height home, they escape to a beach house for what must be the most frightening sequence of the film. So frightening, indeed, that the final act doesn’t quite measure up, relying, as it does, on FX, and not just the creepy sight of someone appearing in the back of the frame and proceeding, at an unhurried pace, towards our heroine.
Well-played by an unfamiliar cast and creating a sense of dread in sunny suburban streets, Mitchell’s movie has been compared to teen slashers but feels more like a classic ghost story, like MR James’ O Whistle And I’ll Come To You My Lad and A Warning To The Curious, with a contemporary overlay and much modern paranoia. Horror fans might be surprised at the lack of gory action, and yet those willing to let this one work its eerie magic should find that it follows them home.
I Wake Up Screening 