Disc Reviews

Memory Lane Review

memoryMade in 2012 but making its debut in the UK on the 12th March, Memory Lane is marketed as a horror film. This is missing the point. The story focusses on Nick Boxer (Michael Guy Allen), an orphaned Iraq War veteran who returns to his small middle American town. He has clearly been traumatised by events in the conflict in Iraq, as have his friends he has returned with. (This is clearly a comment on American society recovering from war.) One night he meets a cooky girl called Kayla and over time the pair fall in love. When he met her she was bruised on her face from what she claimed was a beating by her ex-boyfriend. Kayla has had a troubled life and Nick swears to protect Kayla, gets a house for her and prepares to propose marriage. When he returns home with the ring he finds that she has slit her wrists in the bath. Nick is distraught and besides himself, falling into depression and contemplates suicide himself. He eventually plucks up the courage to electrocute himself in the bath. He throws the switch and fries there but as he does his mind takes him to gentle and sweet moments with Kayla. His friends find him and revive him. Nick soon becomes obsessed with electrocuting himself and transporting himself to his love and does this on many occasions and each time he has experiences and visions of times he spent with her but is unable to help her. His friends soon become disturbed by Nick’s mental condition as he becomes more paranoid and convinced that by stopping and starting his heart he can be with his love.

 

To call the film a horror film diverts the film from its true meaning about trauma and loss. It meshes some ideas from such early nineties classics as Flatliners and Jacob’s Ladder with the more syrupy The Time Traveller’s Wife. Made on virtually no budget the film works very well and maintains a moody atmosphere throughout. The mostly non-professional acting shows in places and there are moments of dialogue that fail to convince or don’t really work. However, director and co-writer Shawn Holmes demonstrates some considerable talent as a director who clearly understands montage and editing and the whole film process (he did all this and more), even if he doesn’t get the best out of his performers, although Allen as Nick is good. Throughout there is a moody soundtrack that mirrors the blue-grey tones of the wintry mid-American locale. Nick is convinced that he is a terrible person for things he has done and seen in Iraq. He saw his relationship with Kayla as the one good thing in his life that gave him stability and when that was taken away from him he was lost. The convergence of war trauma and loss fuse in such an explosive and wonderfully inconclusive way and hopefully more can be expected from Holmes in the future after the success of his first film here.

 

This is a dual disc issue and despite the film being a snip at 70 minutes there is only the commentary on the main disc with a few brief extras and making of documentaries on the second disc which include interviews with the cast, writers and crew on Memory Lane but is a film worth checking out.

 

Chris Hick

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