Absentia Review

3rd Jul 2012

Not having heard too much about Absentia, other than that it was partially financed by Kickstarter.com, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The cover artwork is very DVD dungeon: semi-naked girl being dragged into a smoky tunnel. I was pleased to find that the old adage about not judging books by their covers is sometimes true. This is no schlocky, teen horror.

A quiet, considered opening sets the tone for the rest of the film. A very pregnant Tricia (Courtney Bell) wanders from tree to lamppost in a quiet neighbourhood, replacing tattered posters of her missing husband with new ones. Several things struck me quite early on in the viewing. The director (and writer) Mike Flanagan is willing to credit his audience with some form of intelligence, not something that happens a lot. No character follows up this first scene with a grossly unsubtle “…so, your husband is missing, yeah?”. The score also sets the film apart from the type of throwaway horror that seems to be ubiquitous at the moment – a lilting, modern set of phrases that veer quite far from the horror music 101 of screechy violins etc – it is something of a treat.

We discover that Tricia’s husband Danny has been missing for the required seven years and can now be legally declared dead in absentia. The arrival of her younger sister, Callie (Katie Parker), coincides with a spate of strange events, oddest of all being the sudden return of a traumatised Danny. We also find that the neighbourhood in which Tricia lives is known for a long history of disappearances, which Callie becomes convinced are connected to a dark concrete tunnel near their house.

Absentia is just as much a study of grief and two very different, troubled sisters coming to terms with loss as it is a horror film. Scenes that would be pure ghostly horror in another film, with characters leaping to various ridiculous conclusions, are discussed and debunked in terms of the psychological impacts of bereavement. This is not to say there are no supernatural forces at work, but the intelligent layering of the real with the paranormal makes for interesting watching. The reluctance and disbelief with which most of the characters greet the suggestion of an otherworldly explanation for the creepy occurrences is also quite satisfying – realistic in fact.

The scares aren’t always totally effective, with the director lacking a bit of the snappiness and slickness that we have come to expect from the genre. The slightly awkward relationship between the sisters also grated at first; however I did come to see this as a result of tensions that are later explored. The overarching idea is a tad silly, as is the writer’s choice of ‘big bad’, but maybe that is a personal thing and I do have to admit that the chitinous clicking that heralds the arrival of Absentia’s creature, is very effective.

As different from big budget horror as you can get, this is a slow, measured film where the horror aspects are almost incidental, yet still effective. Excellent natural performances from the cast really make for a gripping film.