Prolific horror director Mickey Keating has a reputation for riffing on other filmmakers and styles in his work, from his Roman Polanski homage Darling to his Peckinpah homage Carnage Park.
He returns with Offseason, his take on folk horror, as well as Lovecraftian weirdness. It’s a visually accomplished movie steeped in atmospheric dread, though it’s curiously slight.
Jocelin Donahue (House of the Devil) stars as Marie Aldrich, who ventures to the resort town of Lone Palm in its offseason, to investigate the vandalism of her movie star mother’s (Melora Walters) grave. Along with her partner George (mumblecore icon Joe Swanberg), she traipses through a fog-choked dreamscape, searching for clues to the desecration.
The locals vary between standoffishly silent and off-puttingly garrulous, and the island itself seems to shroud itself in secrecy, changing paths and disguising roads at will, while holding its residents in a strange mixture of fear and thrall.
All of this is realized beautifully by cinematographer Mac Fisken, who makes strong use of overcast skies at day and black nights queasily lit by the island’s one bar, a raging fire, the lonely headlights of a lost car, and in one of its most potent scenes, the bright lights of a raised drawbridge.
Keating’s script offers some intrigue, but it’s undercut by a few factors, from the lack of chemistry between Donahue and Swanberg, to the emphasis on mood over narrative, to the thin characters, with the exception of Ava Aldrich. Walters has some great moments as the late matriarch, mind fading in her final years but adamantly demanding not to be buried in her childhood home of Lone Palm for very good reason.
Also worth mentioning is Richard Brake (Mandy) as the Bridge Man, who shows up in just a couple scenes, but steals them with a defiant, barely hinged performance that commands the screen.
Clocking in at 83 minutes, Offseason is perhaps too short for its own good, leading to a rushed, heavy-handed climax that deflates all of the tension that had built in its surprisingly strong third act. But it’s creepy enough that certain parts, Brake’s appearances among them, will stick in your head for a while.
* * * * *
Produced by Eric B. Fleischman, Maurice Fadida
Written and Directed by Mickey Keating
Starring Joe Swanberg, Jocelin Donahue,
Melora Walters, Richard Brake, Jeremy Gardner
