A paranormal podcast is sent a collection of audio recordings concerning a young pregnant couple, seeming to be proof of something paranormal. Evy has just moved into her dying mother’s house to stand as caregiver for the woman in her final days and she’s discovering an unsettling parallel between the events on the audio recordings and her own life. Skeptical Evy is frustrated with her current situation and feels as if her podcast is the only thing keeping her sane but the deeper she falls into the pit of the truly eerie recordings, the more she begins to believe something unnatural is going on. Her co-host Justin (the believer of the duo) is the one sent the cryptic email containing the audio files and decided, after a brief listen, to experience it firsthand with Evy for the program. The young man on the recordings is attempting to prove to his girlfriend that she has been talking in her sleep so he sets up the recorder for overnight taping and catches Jessa singing nursery rhymes, sleepwalking and getting into all sorts of creepy shit. What else would you call playing London Bridge in reverse? Which I guess they own on vinyl… that’s also creepy. Real deep cut. Deep diving into hidden messages and the dark history behind nursery rhymes, there’s a nice layer of macabre spread as foundation for the increasing terror to build upon. A real solid setup for Evy’s diminishing nerves and skepticism as the spookiness in her mother’s house ramps up and the mythology behind the machinations is revealed. Ian Tuason crafts an intriguing auditory nightmare, attempting to see how upsetting he can make it for the viewer with expert sound design and off putting audio. It’s a risk in a genre that relies on visuals to pay things off and it doesn’t necessarily lend itself to excitement. Luckily, when combined with tight and nearly claustrophobic cinematography and enough haunted house shenanigans to fill a paranormal podcast, it molds into an effective and simmering horror film.
No comments:
Post a Comment