ABSENTIA: 2011: Horror: Sometimes a movie comes along that challenges the way you look at a genre. With all the gratuitous violence and blood in some of the horror movies you see today, it's refreshing to come across a movie that uses subtle changes in lighting, music, and mood to initiate the conditions that lead to fear. Absentia succeeds in this respect and strays away from the common elements of horror to serve up a stylish and innovative movie.
Absentia uses mood and lighting to great effect.
Instead of making you fear what you see, Absentia truly makes you fear what you don't see, but anticipate. This makes the movie more involving and immediately puts you in the cross hairs of it's intentional fear driving techniques. It has been said that if you take music out of most of the horror movies, many of the scares will not work. In essence, music and special effects are key ingredients that constitute a successful scare in a movie. This is especially true in Absentia. The music sets the mood and creates a tense and heavy atmosphere.
From the beginning of the movie, things are dark and stay that way.
The characters in the movie are unknown which gives you the sense that you are part of the events unfolding and not a viewer watching the movie. This is emphasized by the use of strategically timed first person perspective camera angles. There is very little back drop in the movie but you know that a pregnant woman has lost her husband to unknown events and she has to declare him dead by absentia. There is a tunnel near by that seems to draw the attention of the camera in many shots, so you get the feeling that this will have much of the driving force in the plot.
T'he camera seems to focus on the tunnel in many shots early on.
You don't have to wait long for the first scare, which was a very effective one. I was startled and caught off guard. The way that the husband's ghost just appears in front of the camera was abrupt and sudden enough to give me a shock. It was one of those scares that you have a feeling is coming, but don't know exactly when. This is one of the consistent techniques that permeates the movie. Characterized by a slow, deliberate buildup, the scares then take a sharp, sudden twist accented by music and special effects. After the scare, you realize that you were only scared of a shadow, or a slight movement of light. It is very subtle. That's what makes the scares in Absentia unique. Instead of being a brutal blood fest, Absentia takes a more cerebral approach to fear.
Often the elements that are used in the scares are off to the side of the camera.
The pace of the movie keeps you involved and there isn't really a portion that is boring. Mike Flanagan uses enough scares scattered throughout the movie to build anticipation for the ending. 3 or 4 of these were excellent. While there is some gore in the movie, it's really not emphasized until the end, which makes the movie more believable. Again, it's the subtlety that makes the movie work, so it wouldn't make sense to start throwing around decapitated heads and corpses right away.
While there is some blood, it's kept to a minimum until the end.
Apparently, this movie was almost entirely funded by a Kickstarter compaign, which is surprising. I watched the movie without knowing this and didn't get the impression at any moment that it was constrained by money in anyway. Hard to believe that this movie was made by just $70,000. Let this be a lesson Hollywood. It's possible to make a decent film without exorbitant amounts of money.
How much did it cost to make this movie??
Back to the characters in the movie. The main character Tricia is a little annoying and serves as main focal point in the movie, while her sister, Callie, gives the movie it's impetus or drive. They both seem to bounce off each other which creates some inherent conflict and disharmony in the movie that lends to the movie's uneasy mood. Again, subtle but intentional. The viewer is left to side with either one, but not both. This is also a great technique because it essentially allows you to pick a side and see if you are "right" in the end.
Although they are sisters, Tricia and Callie are polar opposites.
Without Callie, the movie wouldn't go anywhere because it is during her daily morning jogs that she gets involved with the tunnel and it's many odd inhabitants and features. She is initially hesitant to go in, then gets scared of it, and finally is terrified of it but knows it holds the key to the terror that starts unfolding around her and Tricia. I won't give up too much more of the plot, because it unfolds nicely and wraps up with a huge ending that leaves you puzzled.
Weird things happen in the tunnel as Callie finds out.
Clever use of darkness in Absentia.
As the movie progresses, you find out more and more about what is going on in the lives of Tricia and Callie, but there seem to be two sides or perspectives. One is to simply believe what is logical and the other is to believe the supernatural explanation. Then there's a completely different explanation that comes into play near the ending of the movie. What you are left with is a menagerie of plot twists which give different endings. In this way, you have to decide what the ending is, furthering your involvement in the movie while making you feel like a participant, not a viewer.
By the end, the viewer is likely to have their own idea of what truly happens.
If you're looking for a new twist on a horror movie that uses some very effective techniques and delivers some great scares, Absentia delivers. It's ending will also leave you wanting more and just might make you want to watch it again..81%
Hey, where's the rest of the review? That's it?
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