Absentia (2011)

by Mike Schoonveld:

PLOT:

Tricia has been looking for her missing husband for seven years.  Her younger sister Callie comes to live with her as she is forced to declare him “dead in absentia.”  While Tricia tries to put her life together, Callie is drawn to an ominous dark tunnel near the house.  She soon begins to piece together the mysterious disappearances in the neighborhood to the tunnel.  Callie comes to realize that his presumed death may be anything but natural and that the tunnel may have set its sights on her and Tricia.

REVIEW:

I love independent horror but have been wary of late of the recent flicks on the market.  So, when I found that this movie was available I immediately bought it and watched it and to my surprise, I enjoyed it.  With the help of a Kickstarter fund raiser, writer/director Mike Flanagan delivers a tense, creepy horror film that sets the mood with the characters and the story.

I love Mike’s drive and determination here.  You can tell her cares about his work, and doing double duty as the writer and director did not deter him from creating what he wanted to make.  The cast is headed by inexperienced actors, but that isn’t the reason to skip this movie.  If anything, it should make you want to see it.  Had the film been made with “name” actors in the genre, it may not have fared well because we all know how they act in horror.  We get used to their expressions and their movements, and that  doesn’t hold much for the rest of the film.  Instead, we have very good, capable actors here with Courtney Bell (Tricia) and Katie Parker (Callie) as the female leads who play well off each other.  Morgan Peter Brown creates an unsettling performance as Daniel, Tricia’s missing husband.  He is so convincing as a traumatized victim, that his reappearance made me uncomfortable because I didn’t know what to expect from him.

I have to give points to Flanagan for giving us some unexpected jump scares.  While they aren’t relevant to the story, they certainly added a punch.  The greatest quality is the pacing of the story.  Every scene flows so smoothly into the next that I wondered just how much time was spent in the editing room.  There isn’t a single scene out of place and the visuals are impressive.

FINAL WORD:

This is definitely worth viewing.  “Absentia” is an eerie, creepy film that grabs on and doesn’t let go until the last second.  It’s the perfect example of what happens when you have a low budget, talented actors and a creepy story.  Who needs the big studio dollars?  Flanagan knows what he’s doing here and is definitely one writer/director I hope we see more of.

“Absentia” was also a festival favorite with it being the “Official Selection” at the Toronto After Dark film festival (2011) and the Fantasia Film festival (2011).  It was also the winner for “Best Feature” at the Sonoma film festival and Shriekfest film festival.

Mike is a newly appointed contributor to DarkMedia. Covering mainly movies, there’s nothing that gets his blood going like a good horror film, old and new. When he’s not writing or watching horror, you can find him catching re-runs of television shows like I Love Lucy, The Simpsons, and Reba, among many. Last year, Mike was able to flex his writing muscles by submitting a screenplay to the Shriekfest Film and Screenplay festival where he was a finalist for “Best Feature Screenplay.” While he didn’t win, that hasn’t stopped him from pushing forward to establish a screenwriting career in horror. You can follow Mike on Twitter at @horrorguy30, Stage32.com and you can check out his blog at horrorguy30.blogspot.com.

Mike is currently working on two scripts: Slicer: The Sauk County Massacre (formerly titled Hell Weekend) and The Haunting of Willow Falls Manor.