This
camping trip was supposed to be cathartic, but the closure could be permanent.
Abby, her young son Sam, and her best friend Jen set out to scatter her recently
deceased husband’s ashes, but they could be toast if the hiker stalking them
has his way in Sam Patton’s Desolation,
which premiered last night at the 2017 Los Angeles Film Festival.
It
was a long, agonizing illness that left Abby and Sam emotionally exhausted.
This trip should be the start of the healing process, but the big creepy dude
in reflector shades gives off massively bad vibes. Sam sees him first and then
Abby and Jen come across ominous signs of his presence. They hope he will just
get bored and go away, but this is a film from a former Blumhouse employee, so
not likely.
Of
course, when the situation turns dire, they will also have to manage dwindling
water and food supplies. It will be a case of surviving in the wild as well as
surviving a psycho killer, especially when they go “off trail.”
Desolation cleverly pays
homage to 1970s exploitation films with its key art and opening credits, but it
is actually a surprisingly tight and restrained character-driven psycho-stalker
thriller. All three primaries have believably complicated relationships with
each other as well as the dearly departed, which gives the film real stakes.
Jaimi Paige, Alyshia Ochse, and Toby Nichols all give realistically grounded performances,
completely eschewing flashy theatrics or phony sentiment. If there is a weak
link, it would be the evil hiker, who is a somewhat pedestrian bogeyman by
genre standards