To
use Lovecraft’s parlance, these woods should be “shunned.” They are remote and
the weather there always seems to be dank and overcast. It was also where a
hippie death cult dug their mass graves. Two scientists are hoping to unlock
game-changing secrets of nature but they will find human remains and massively
bad vibes instead in Philip Gelatt’s They
Remain (trailer
here), which premieres tonight at the 2017 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland.
Their
division of labor is simple. By day, Keith walks around the woods with a gun,
while Jessica turns dials and does science stuff in the tent. At night, they
talk about the project in maddeningly vague terms as they try to ignore their shared
sexual tension. However, the discovery of the area’s connection to an infamous
Manson-People’s Temple cult throws them off their routine. They worry the area’s
history could adversely affect their double-secret project, but their corporate
paymasters assure them everything is cool. Nevertheless, the news that a team
of forensic anthropologists went a little crazy in these environs not so long
ago makes them justifiably uneasy. The hallucinations don’t help either.
After
three films, the jury is still out on Gelatt. The ugly and grisly Bleeding House, his feature debut as
director and screenwriter was an intolerant and manipulative attack on
Evangelicals that brought nothing new to the horror table. On the other hand, his screenplay for Sebastián
Cordero’s Europa Report (also
screening at the festival) was muscularly lean and inventive. Frustratingly, Remain is not a conclusive tie-breaker.
There
is no question Gelatt demonstrates plenty of skill and craftsmanship. He
maintains a vibe of eerie foreboding throughout the film, even though he
reveals precious little. Viewers can just feel something sinister is going on
just beyond their field of vision. Arguably, it becomes too much of a good
thing, because at some point we expect the narrative to kick into high gear,
but it never really does. We just get more mood and vaguely defined menace.
Still,
William Jackson Harper and Rebecca Henderson quite nicely rise to the challenge
of the near-two-hander (aside from a rat-like corporate stooge here or there).
Their characters’ pragmatic professionalism is also rather refreshing,
especially since it spares us a lot of histrionic bickering.
