DESOLATION (2017-II)

Studio:       Gravitas Ventures
Director:    David Moscow
Writer:       Matthew McCarty, Craig Walendziak
Producer:  Gregory Thomas, Luke Edwards, David Harris, Todd Remis
Stars:     Dominik Garcia-Lorido, Brock Kelly, Ninja Devoe, Raymond J. Barry

Review Score:

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Summary:

Resurfacing trauma causes a young woman to question her sanity when she moves in with a Hollywood heartthrob seemingly connected to a voyeuristic conspiracy.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Los Angeles – Having been driven mad, actress Monica Leskova commits suicide by setting herself on fire.

Elmira, New York – Rape survivor Katie Connor learns from her friend Debbie that Hollywood actor Jay Cutter is staying at the hotel where they work while he shoots a movie locally. Katie and Jay gradually develop a romantic relationship.

Katie avoids discussing her rape and subsequent abortion with her therapist, who is distracted by a virus that disables his tablet containing session records.

Katie agrees to go to Los Angeles with Jay. Katie moves into Jay’s apartment in The Providence, a dark old building with a sordid history of suicides and murders. Katie meets Jay’s upstairs neighbor Father Bill O’Shea.

After gifting her with a new wardrobe, Jay takes Katie to a party where she meets three of his insensitive friends. Katie later overhears the friends discussing the suicide death of Jay’s previous girlfriend Monica. Katie also discovers she is out of her prescription medication.

Upon returning to the apartment building, Katie has an odd experience while alone in which the stairwell goes dark and she seemingly sees a ghostly little girl named Grace.

Katie and Jay bond over a discussion of their respective suicide attempts. Katie meets another of Jay’s strange neighbors, an overweight woman who works as an online camgirl.

Katie experiences another vision of Grace. Katie also has a disturbing encounter in which she thinks she sees a window washer recording her from outside.

Jay leaves Katie alone in the apartment while he goes on a three-day film shoot. Katie meets a confused resident named Angela Marcus. Katie asks Father Bill about Grace, who confirms no children live in the building. Katie begins using pills found in Jay’s medicine cabinet. Katie follows strong vibrations to a massive server room. Katie sees Grace again.

Words written on the ceiling instruct Katie to enter the kitchen and count to seven. When she does, the phone rings. The man on the other end asks to speak to Grace. The man calls a second time claiming to be Katie’s rapist Charlie. By the time Katie retrieves Father Bill for help, the ceiling message is missing.

Unable to use her cellphone since losing her charger, Katie calls Debbie from a payphone. Katie gives Debbie the address and phone number for Jay’s apartment. Afterward, a man on the street claims to recognize Katie, cryptically referring to a website involving gambling.

Three men attack Katie in the apartment, but only take her purse. A male police officer and a female officer arrive to question Katie. The male cop makes disparaging accusations while the female cop uses her hand to sexually assault Katie.

In frustrated anger, Katie smashes the bathroom mirror. She discovers a camera hidden in the wall.

A straight razor as well as a chair and electrical cord conspicuously appear within Katie’s line of sight. Katie tries calling Debbie, but a different person claims to be living at Debbie’s address. Katie finds more cameras throughout the apartment as well as the building. Katie calls Jay, who tells Katie that her claims make her sound crazy. Katie accuses Jay of being involved in a conspiracy seemingly designed to drive her to suicide.

Katie tries leaving the building, but is stopped by one of the men who attacked her along with the two police officers. Katie encounters Grace, who asks why Katie killed her.

Katie goes to see Father Bill. Bill tells Katie that everything is in her mind, and stems from the guilt of having aborted Grace. Katie is shocked that Bill knows her personal details.

Katie encounters another strange resident, Karen Delgado, as Karen looks for Jay’s cat Flirt. Katie finds a copy of her hometown newspaper reporting her suicide. While smashing up Jay’s apartment, Katie uncovers a secret passage.

Revealing himself as part of the conspiracy, Bill phones a superior about Jay’s apartment going dark.

Katie follows the secret passage to a staging area where she discovers that Jay’s friends and the police officers are actors. Props and scripts confirm that Katie is an unwilling participant on LifeBet, a voyeuristic gambling website that sponsors betting on how suicidal people will kill themselves. Katie uses an ax to murder the actress who played the female police officer.

Debbie shows up at The Providence looking for Katie. Katie witnesses Bill stabbing Debbie to death.

Katie finds a suicide victim who had also been manipulated by Jay in another apartment. Jay enters. Katie takes Jay at knifepoint and escorts him to the roof where she has a confrontation with Bill.

Bill intentionally shoots Jay. Bill then exploits Katie’s growing despondency by convincing her to jump off the roof. Katie does, but she survives the fall. As authorities arrive at the scene to take Katie away in an ambulance, Bill orders over the phone for all of the servers to be wiped clean.

Bill proposes moving the LifeBet operation to Bulgaria. Bill and a casting agent interview an actress for a role that involves breaking a man as their next victim.

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Review:

Katie Connor didn’t share the common celebrity crush on actor Jay Cutter.  She didn’t even know who he was.  But a chance film shoot in Katie’s hometown brought the troubled assault survivor and the Hollywood heartthrob together.  Now Katie gets to live out a romance novel dream as Jay’s live-in girlfriend, having accompanied him back to Los Angeles in hopes of exorcising old ghosts through a fresh start.

Dreams have a habit of turning into nightmares at Jay’s apartment building, The Providence.  Despite Jay’s success, he lives one step above squalor in an old L.A. landmark with a reputation for murder and suicide.  It’s the kind of place where if tap water tastes funny, someone might want to check the rooftop reservoir for a decomposing body.

Katie pauses in midair while being swept off her feet when a sudden job opportunity calls Jay away.  Left alone inside this sinister sibling of The Bramford, Katie could swear other residents and Jay’s strange circle of friends are conspiring against her.  Why and for what, Katie can’t be certain.  Just like she can’t be certain if what she fears is real or a figment of her medication-addled imagination.  As visions of a ghostly little girl intensify along with other odd encounters, Katie comes to suspect she made a grave mistake by moving in with Jay, and it could cost Katie either her mind or her life.

Director David Moscow’s “Desolation,” doomed to be mixed up with Sam Patton’s woodland thriller (review here) bearing the same title and release year, is 1/3 linear narrative, 1/3 Lifetime movie boilerplate, and 1/3 experimental indie.  It’s this eclectic concoction that sharpens both edges of the film’s sword.  One of those edges makes for a weirdly intriguing setup with an artfully off-kilter atmosphere.  The other side curiously cuts with a slow build to a silly reveal that doesn’t sustain enough suspense to etch a deep mark.

Making his directorial debut here, David Moscow has been acting since 1986.  The “experimental indie” texture found in his film clearly comes out of Moscow’s performance background, as characterizations motivate mood as much as cinematography or set design.  A similar actor-oriented aesthetic can be seen in Tara Subkoff’s “#Horror” (review here), for example.

Understandably when experienced actors flip to the other side of the camera, performances take the wheel.  “Desolation” drives down a bumpy road though, because uneven acting can’t keep everything convincing.  Veteran actor Raymond J. Barry’s presence overpowers every scene he appears in.  Barry stays the standout in his juicy turn as a mysterious neighbor, yet he spends less time on screen than his counterparts.  That’s problematic for other players.  Dominik Garcia-Lorido has the capacity to hold her own as Katie, but isn’t always afforded the opportunity to prove it.  Staging often relegates Garcia-Lorido to moments of mopey introspection that aren’t visually engaging.  And Brock Kelly as Jay, frankly, doesn’t have the magnetism to read as a love interest worth upending one’s life for.

Even with these cards on the table, exploratory acting gives the film its unusual personality.  “Desolation” lands in a nebulous place where the triangle of its three leads melds hits and misses for a weird reality emblematic of the atypical tone.  It doesn’t fully work, and is probably unintended, but the movie would be more milquetoast without that odd element.

Of course, the nature of the premise and underlying themes of abuse and gender dynamics suggest the Lifetime layer referred to earlier.  “Desolation” is far too dark to play as a soapy MOW drama, however.  In fact, viewers sensitive to the subject should be advised that the film features a number of rape trauma triggers, including one of particularly poor taste involving a rubber glove and olive oil whose necessity is arguable.

“Desolation” feels slightly dreamy at first, yet its sequential story eventually floats to the surface.  Once the plot fully takes shape, the film dips into more traditional territory with a “what’s really going on?” mystery playing alongside “is it all in her head?” psychological horror.  Far from original as thrillers go, this is where the script travels a trodden path toward familiar formula.  Overall value isn’t entirely depleted, although a preposterous twist and predictable climax fold a pedestrian flavor into the recipe for routine.

Weighing both sides to everything above, “Desolation” steps off the scale as a respectable first feature from David Moscow, but one that doesn’t blaze any trails.  Attracting attention for its mildly bizarre initial atmosphere, rational moves take the movie off track as a darkly nightmarish drama.  Its final position as a mediocre mystery doesn’t aspire high enough to lift what’s left above a middle ground of average entertainment.

NOTE: There is a mid-credits scene.

Review Score:  55

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