THERAPY (2016 - French)

Studio:       Shudder
Director:    Nathan Ambrosioni
Writer:       Nathan Ambrosioni
Producer:  Fabrice Ambrosioni
Stars:     Nathalie Couturier, Remy Jobert, Vanessa Azzopardi, Julien Croquet, Luna Belan, Tania Rieu, Julie Venturelli, Shelley Ward, Cedrick Spinassou, Fabrice Raspati

Review Score:

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Summary:

Two detectives examine footage found in an abandoned house that may be a clue to a series of murders and missing persons.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Through a camera, an unseen man secretly stalks William, Sophie, and Amanda as they drink beer and spray paint tags inside a derelict countryside house. The man captures Amanda and murders her two friends with an ax.

Following a report of blood found at the scene, police investigate the same house and recover a series of recordings. Over time, forensic analyst Anthony processes the footage for detectives Jane and Simon to review as they cover the case.

Home videos show Steven taking his girlfriend Stephanie Laurent on a countryside camping trip with his niece Olivia, Olivia’s friend Samantha, and Steven’s son Sebastien, who records events for a school project. Startled by occasional sounds of screaming in the distance, the family is additionally alarmed when they find their car vandalized with mud and a picture of Stephanie missing.

The distant screaming is heard again at night. Everyone agrees to investigate except Stephanie, who insists on staying behind at the tent.

When they arrive at the derelict house and decide to go inside, Seb asks Olivia if she will go back to camp for his GoPro to have a second camera. Olivia goes back for the camera, but there is no sign of Stephanie at the tent.

Olivia returns to the house to initially find no one waiting outside, although she eventually regroups with the others. Everyone is frightened to hear Stephanie shouting Steven’s name in the distance.

Seb briefly spots a bloody woman in a window of the house. He, Steven, Olivia, and Sam go inside. They find a room with a series of photographs of women on the wall, including the one of Stephanie stolen from Steven’s car. The group finds themselves trapped inside the house as a man in a mask chases everyone in different directions.

The bloody woman Seb saw turns out to be Amanda. The masked man captures Sam.

Olivia finds Stephanie bound and gagged. The two women flee outside together, but the killer catches up to Stephanie. Olivia finds a hatch and hides in an underground bunker among bodies of other victims. Still alive, one of the bloody women grabs at Olivia.

Steven and Seb find a pile of papers and prescriptions indicating the building was once a mental hospital. Steven theorizes that the killer sees victims as his patients. Steven insists that he and Seb separate to explore more of the building. Seb has a disturbing encounter with a strange woman in a wheelchair before later finding Steven murdered.

In between reviewing the tapes, Jane interviews Stephanie’s psychiatrist Richard Spencer hoping to find out something that might lead to Stephanie’s whereabouts. Simon interviews Abigail Parker, an eccentric neighbor who lives near the house and reportedly knows something about the night in question. The detectives conclude that Richard knows nothing useful while Abigail is unstable and unreliable.

Seb follows Sam’s screams and finds her bloody and held captive. The killer enters the room and captures Seb too, putting hoods over both of their heads. The man kills Seb. Sam tries crawling away until the man murders her with an ax.

Olivia regains herself in the hatch. Amanda unexpectedly begins chasing her. Olivia runs into Stephanie while making her escape outside. The two women continue fleeing and make it to Abigail’s house.

Before calling the police, Abigail insists that Olivia and Stephanie recover with a drink and that Olivia clean herself upstairs. Abigail has the two women move to her couch while pretending to call the cops. Olivia realizes that Abigail drugged them as Abigail’s door opens to allow the killer and Amanda inside. Olivia and Stephanie are recaptured and transported to the killer’s personal home.

Simon sends Jane a session video recovered from Richard Spencer’s office. In it, Richard is seen instructing Stephanie to go camping near the abandoned house. After she leaves his office, Richard prepares a bag from his closet that contains the killer’s jumpsuit and mask. Jane and Simon realize the psychiatrist is the killer and the photographs of women on the derelict house’s walls are of his patients.

Jane and Simon go to the psychiatrist’s house. Deranged patients crawl all over the home. Stephanie rushes Jane, grabs her gun, says “he’ll never let me go,” and then commits suicide. Another woman stabs Simon.

Jane recovers her gun and confronts the killer as he puts an ax to Olivia’s throat. Before either woman can be attacked, Simon recovers and shoots the psychiatrist.

Abigail suddenly enters with another gun and kills Simon and Jane before planting her gun on the psychiatrist’s body. Abigail explains to a stunned Olivia that no one will ever believe she was a part of the psychiatrist’s murderous plans. As sirens are heard approaching, Abigail embraces Olivia and begins playing the part of a distraught, manipulated victim.

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Review:

Unless you intend to explore an idea such as how Ridley Scott’s male worldview may filter “Thelma and Louise’s” female focus, or to examine the influence of a director’s culture on themes in his/her movies, it’s otherwise poor form to unnecessarily reference gender, race, religion, etc. if it has no bearing on academically assessing a movie.  The truly tone deaf may even assume they are encouraging when they are actually insulting with phrases like, “I can’t believe that was directed by a (fill in the blank)” or “not bad for a (blank).”

A similar consideration applies to age.  But since seemingly every article about wunderkind French filmmaker Nathan Ambrosioni insists on a reminder of his youth, I feel it is fair game for a worthwhile mention here.  Particularly because in this instance of his sophomore feature, awareness that Ambrosioni was only 16 during filming seems essential in understanding why “Therapy” is the rather green movie it is.

There’s a masked madman on the loose in an abandoned building.  Steven has unknowingly taken his girlfriend Stephanie and a trio of young family members and friends on a quiet camping getaway nearby.  One of those teens, Sebastien, is killing a second bird with the trip by recording the weekend for a class project.

The quintet is split when upsetting screams in the night compel four of the five to unwisely explore the building.  Once inside, the crew is split once again as everyone discovers not only are they not alone, but they might not make it back out alive.

The “twist” to this tale of familiar “found footage” is that the family’s fate plays out in pieces over a traditionally-filmed parallel plot where police investigate the case.  We see what happens in step with detectives Simon and Jane as they gradually review each recovered video.  These two don’t know if they have murders or missing persons on their hands yet, though they soon learn there is more to this mystery than initially meets the eye.

Simon and Jane’s interludes finally have a payoff when they collide with the “found footage” storyline at the film’s conclusion.  For the most part however, they are interrupting nuisances of little to no substantive narrative value.

Jane has one solo scene over her bruised shoulder of a motel room phone call with an abusive husband.  That generic beat is basically all the backstory constituting her character.  Simon isn’t even afforded that much development.  The two detectives are hollow conduits acting as eyes and ears for an audience who doesn’t need assistance seeing or hearing.

As for the “found footage,” it’s mostly made up of routine derelict building atmosphere.  A couple of creepy dolls.  A room with a random wheelchair.  Flashlight beams shooting shadows down cobwebbed corridors.  If a TV was anywhere in sight, you can bet it would be tuned to static.

The movie doesn’t have a story so much as a suffocating series of standard scares.  “Therapy” is an aggressive offender of overusing audio bumps and sudden jumps at an obscene frequency.  They can work, but are so flat in context that after initially offering a startle, the moments fade and are forgotten.

As conventional as it all is, a lot of the eerie imagery is nevertheless unsettling.  Something about screams and shouted names echoing from the dark in the distance is genuinely unnerving.  Now if only the masked killer didn’t look like a cheap knockoff of Michael Myers, not even the good Nick Castle incarnation but the “Halloween 4” (review here) version mind you, “Therapy” would at least have the fright side of things zippered up.

By knowing Ambrosioni’s age, perhaps that unfairly influences perception of “Therapy.”  Still, I can’t help but look at his film and both excuse it as well as criticize it for being something that might make more sense from a teenage mindset.

If for some reason you have a creative writing assignment lying around from your own high school days, take a peek and ask, “would this make a strong movie as is?”  Knowing that its co-creator was only five-years-old is part of what gives the absurdity of “Axe Cop” its unusual charm.  At 16 however, you’re playing on a less-forgiving middle-ground of being held to a higher standard, yet lack of life experience is unavoidably an impediment to realizing the full potential of a creative endeavor.

Ambrosioni probably hasn’t consumed enough material to recognize certain clichés as overplayed.  In an imagination not yet filtered by adulthood, including too many twists and excessive standoff gunplay likely sounds exciting.  A kid filming an ill-fated expedition into a former mental hospital and a detective dealing with divorce might feel like fresh ideas.  To more seasoned tastes, all of this frankly plays like a whole mess of noise only a teenager would find original or intriguing.

None of that is meant to malign Nathan Ambrosioni.  He created a professional feature film (his second) screened internationally and that’s an impressive achievement for anyone at any age.  Yet while Ambrosioni shows natural instincts for constructing a cinematic presentation, what he has still to develop is the ability to adapt that aptitude into strong storytelling not overrun by exuberance.  That can only come with more maturity.

Review Score:  55

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