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Reviewed by Elliot V. Kotek
(June 2011, screening at the 2011 Los Angeles Film Festival)

Directed by: Dallas Hallam and Patrick Horvath
Written by: Michelle Margolis, Karen Gorham, Dallas Hallam and Patrick Horvath
Starring: Suziey Block, Karen Baird, Karen Gorham and Joshua Grote

Handheld camerawork shot on the fly around Los Angeles by Dallas Hallam sets the tone for this collaboration among a half-dozen creatives.

Following Suziey as she gets by without a car, works at a coffee shop, gets her hair done and falls asleep to a horror movie, we’re unsure of anything story-related and know little other than that she looks good on camera. The lack of any detail upon which to hang our expectations is initially translated (by this audience member) as a confident start to a film that feels as if it’s going to deliver something artistically fulfilling.

One small thud and a series of footsteps later, our intrigue is piqued. Will this be another “Paranormal Activity”? An “Insidious”? Or is this just a pretty hipster girl hearing noises from a neighboring abode?

The nature of exactly what is unsettling during the setup of the film is that the instances suffered by Suziey are happenings that one could imagine would strike fear and unease into the daily lives of young women every day: a dark-windowed car slowly following her every step on the sidewalk, a group of boys walking toward her and turning as she passes, a dog that goes missing — all daily exigencies in the lives of millions. And then things get interesting.

Unfortunately, despite the uniquely simple and mostly quiet aspect of the majority of the film, the filmmakers undermine the stake they’ve given us in Suziey’s character by introducing one key scene of excess exposition with which the carefully crafted unease and urban paranoia is decimated, undoing many of the elements of the unknown that drove the audience’s interest earlier and thereby reducing the film’s final act to a one-note narrative that must be considered to be, unfortunately, of little merit.

Photo courtesy Los Angeles Film Festival