CAMERA OBSCURA (2017)

Studio:       Chiller Films
Director:    Aaron B. Koontz
Writer:       Aaron B. Koontz, Cameron Burns
Producer:  Aaron B. Koontz, Amir Zbeda, Andrew van den Houten
Stars:     Christopher Denham, Nadja Bobyleva, Catherine Curtin, Noah Segan, Gretchen Lodge, Andrew Sensenig, Chase Williamson, Jeremy King

Review Score:

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Summary:

A seemingly cursed camera shows a troubled photographer images of deaths yet to come, including his beloved fiancée’s.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Recovering from PTSD, former war photographer Jack Zeller has his regular session with psychiatrist Dr. Vogel. Elsewhere, Jack’s fiancée Claire buys Jack a vintage film camera at an estate auction and gives it to him as an early anniversary gift.

Despite his initial reluctance to take up photography again, Jack uses the camera to take building and property photos around town for Claire, who is a realtor. Jack later drops off ten rolls of film to be developed at a commercial lab.

That night, a mysterious fire breaks out at the photo lab. Meanwhile, Claire goes jogging and has a frightful encounter with a perverted stalker, which she tells Jack about when she returns home.

Jack meets his friend Walt at a bar for a drink. Walt encourages Jack to embrace his return to photography.

While watching the news with Claire, Jack learns of a boy who broke his neck at a community park. Jack recalls photographing that same park the previous day.

Jack returns to the lab to pick up his photos. The manager tells Jack about the fire and explains that all of Jack’s photos somehow came out black and white.

While looking through his photos at home, Jack finds a picture of the dead boy at the park. He also finds photos of a dead construction worker, a dead boy at a local pool, and a dead woman in a house.

Jack revisits the construction site. A worker suddenly plummets to his death, exactly as depicted in Jack’s photo.

Jack goes to the community pool the next day with Claire and her realtor friend Shannon with the intention of preventing the boy’s death. Jack experiences haunting visions of himself taking the photo and of a bloody boy wading in the water, but eventually leaves without incident. Later, Claire tells Jack the news that a boy drowned shortly after they left.

Without explanation, Jack shows his photos to Walt to make sure he isn’t seeing things. Although he is on medication, Jack begins losing time and experiencing hallucinations that cause him to question his sanity.

Jack goes to the home of the dead woman in the photo in time to rescue her from a house fire. The woman, Elise Partridge, survives. However, Elise’s elderly mother dies in the blaze.

Jack researches Noah Straum, the camera’s previous owner. Jack discovers that Straum collected serial killer memorabilia and his camera originally belonged to Charlie Hibbert, a missing family man accused of being the infamous Honeymoon Killer. Charlie’s wife took her own life in front of Charlie when she discovered their son poisoned in a family cabin.

Jack takes the camera to antiques dealer Bernard for examination. Bernard confirms that the camera contains custom pieces, but claims it is incapable of generating an exposure.

After Jack’s remaining photos are developed, he finds a photo of Elise Partridge as well as one depicting Claire lying dead on the ground outside Petermans restaurant. Jack calls Claire to cancel their planned anniversary dinner at Petermans, but discovers she is already there. Jack rushes to the restaurant and convinces Claire to leave with him immediately. A mugger confronts the couple at gunpoint in the parking garage. Jack tosses Claire’s purse to the mugger, causing him to fire errantly. A nearby vagrant is struck by the bullet and falls to the ground below, landing exactly as Claire did in the photo. Detective Dawson questions Jack about the incident while Detective Ford takes Claire’s statement.

Jack sees that Claire is now shown tied to a barbell bench in another photograph. Jack searches Charlie Hibbert’s last known address and finds an underground bunker containing a skeleton and videotapes. Jack watches the tapes, which show Charlie ranting madly about stopping a cycle of death. Jack concludes that in order to save someone from a foretold death, another victim must die in that person’s place.

Jack tracks down and captures the pervert who stalked Claire previously and murders him according to the picture with the barbell bench. The photograph eventually changes to depict the murdered man instead of Claire.

A new photograph shows Claire dead in the foyer of a vacant property she is selling. When hardware storeowner Tad questions Jack about supplies he is purchasing, Jack kills Tad following a brutal fight and positions him in the empty house according to the picture. Claire finds the body while showing the home to prospective buyers, which prompts detectives Dawson and Ford to question the couple once again.

Claire confronts Jack about his increasingly bizarre behavior and lying. As haunting imagery escalates, Jack purchases a gun at a pawnshop and finds that a new photograph shows Claire dead in the bathtub of another vacant property.

Jack picks up a prostitute and kills her in the bathtub of that empty home. Claire’s friend Shannon stumbles upon Jack after the act, forcing him to murder her too.

Violent visions continue haunting Jack. He finds a final photo depicting Claire gagged in a warehouse and prepares for one last murder to save her life.

Detectives Dawson and Ford bring Jack down to the police station for questioning. Without any evidence to hold him on, Lt. Vincent forces the detectives to let Jack go.

After Jack leaves, the photo lab manager comes to the station to report Jack’s strange photos, setting Dawson and Ford after Jack once again. Dawson and Ford find the final photo of Claire while searching Jack’s home and rush to the warehouse.

Unable to find a vagrant to kill, Jack orders a pizza to be delivered to the warehouse. Jack takes the deliveryman at gunpoint only to discover that the driver is his friend Walt. Jack prepares to shoot Walt anyway, but is drawn away when he hears a gunshot in the distance.

Jack rushes to another part of the warehouse where he finds Claire dead as depicted in the photograph. Holding a gun over her is Charlie Hibbert. Charlie says, “this had to end Jack.” Jack collapses on the ground next to Claire’s body as sirens are heard approaching from the distance.

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Review:

Still struggling with the trauma of having been a press photographer in war-torn Afghanistan, Jack Zeller isn’t sure he is capable of picking up a camera again.  But after his fiancée Claire surprises him with a vintage camera as an early anniversary present, Jack cautiously gets back on the horse by taking snapshots of local properties for Claire’s realty business.

When Jack later picks up his developed film rolls, the shop manager mentions a lab fire before apologizing for the photos inexplicably coming out in black and white.  That’s not the strangest thing.  Jack thumbs through his photographs and notices that several of them show much more than architecture.

One photo features a drowned boy lying dead beside a pool.  Another shows a prone woman on the floor of her house.  These bodies weren’t there when Jack took the pictures.  Yet when he connects news of a local boy breaking his neck at a community park with a photo he took the day before, Jack realizes his camera is foretelling deaths yet to come.

The biggest problem of all is that one photo depicts the demise of beloved Claire.  Now Jack must find a way for someone else to take his fiancée’s place in the picture, assuming his slipping sanity isn’t projecting all of this into Jack’s haunted mind.

For lack of a more flattering description, “Camera Obscura” is a perfectly competent little low-budget thriller.  I mean that in as positive of a manner as possible.  There isn’t anything particularly remarkable to mention regarding the movie.  But it works as a “get the job done” bite of straightforward horror entertainment.

Having spent time in the industry working in various capacities, perhaps most notably as an executive producer on “Starry Eyes” (review here), Aaron B. Koontz wisely keeps things simple for his directorial debut feature.  From script to cinematography to production design to acting, nothing bites off more than can be chewed by a crew balancing a slim checkbook with ingenuity and ambition.

“Camera Obscura” probably doesn’t need all the side characters stuffing its roster, although staples of the indie genre scene including Noah Segan, Chase Williamson, and David Jensen give the production a minor boost via supporting roles.  Journeyman character actor Lance E. Nichols also shows up to confirm that the film was shot in Louisiana, as Nichols rarely appears in productions shot outside the state.

Capably leading the way is Christopher Denham as a mostly milquetoast man nevertheless affable enough to keep the “Twilight Zone”-style story compelling in between splashes of gore and psychological tension.  Nadja Bobyleva as Claire is most noticeable for creating an auditory distraction by neither fully embracing nor completely divorcing herself of her Russian accent.  Though that is more a fault of the screenplay for developing characters like hers only perfunctorily and leaving it at that.

The script’s greatest sin is mandating a significant disbelief suspension specifically with regard to Jack’s photos and how the subsequent mystery unfolds.  You’re regularly required to quiet your own questions about why Jack takes certain actions instead of others.  You’ll also marvel at the convenience of how clues are revealed piecemeal despite Jack literally having all of the evidence in the palm of his hand.

A final bump in the road arrives with an ending that comes together too quickly without satisfactorily tying up the fiction’s loose ends.  “Camera Obscura” isn’t cerebral enough to get away cleanly with its “what do you think was really happening?” conclusion, yet it tries for this light touch of interpretive ambiguity anyway.

Still, invest in the atmosphere and stick with the story and “Camera Obscura” rewards with a moodily macabre chiller, albeit a quietly self-contained one.  A repeat viewing may not be on the agenda, but for a one-and-done Friday night fright film, “Camera Obscura” meets the mark with a thumbs up.

Review Score:  65

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