"A cerebral slow-burn that packs a punch."
Isabel takes her daughter to a reading group, and steps into the bathroom for a quick minute, only to find everyone gone when she comes out. She frantically searches for her daughter, but she's vanished.
 |
| SCREAM ALL YOU WANT, SHE'S GONE. |
Years later,
Isabel is still distraught over the loss of her child, even having tried to commit suicide to escape the pain. Her husband
Josh is a guy who researches radio waves, and when he moves them to a remote country home to research an otherworldly signal that he's been studying for years, she's not exactly thrilled, but she tries to play the supportive wife.
 |
| OH, HE'S GONNA PAY FOR THIS... |
As he and his partner gets closer to discovering the origin of the mysterious signal that they've been trying to decipher, dark things begin to happen to
Isabel, and it soon becomes apparent that she's somehow connected to the signal, and it may have to do with the disappearance of her daughter.
 |
| IT'S ALL CONNECTED. IN A WAY. |
Trippy, emotional, and fairly creepy,
Shortwave is definitely a highbrow
Horror flick that calls to mind such movies as
Ex-Machina (style-wise), or even
From Beyond (with its otherworldly implications), and yet manages to be an emotionally deep movie about a couple in distress at the same time.
I absolutely loved where the movie went with the signal plot, as the whole "leaving well enough alone" thing and the way that it terrifyingly made it clear that maybe there are some things that we're not meant to know or understand. The twist at the end was a bit lame, but the bloody resolution of everything else paid off well.
The remarkable thing bout
Shortwave is that for a movie with a small budget, it's gorgeous to behold. This is a visually lush movie to the point that the camerawork makes the movie come alive on a higher level.
 |
| SORRY MAN, SHE'S GONE. |
For a movie that focuses mainly on loss and the grief that follows, this one gets all kinds of bloody and nasty towards the end. Like crazy bloody.
 |
| OH IT GETS WAY WORSE THAN THIS... |
Juanita Ringeling plays with the little man in the pink canoe, but she's fully clothed.
 |
| WHEN YOU TOUCH YOURSELF, SOMETHING IS ALWAYS WATCHING. |
With a prequel and a sequel already in development (the latter of which is promised to contain answers as to the origin of the creatures),
Shortwave is an impressive movie that left us wanting more. It's a low-burnt hat changes gears in the third act and becomes a bloodbath, and all of it was engaging and well done.
Check it out if you're a fan of cerebral
Horror.
Shortwave is available now on
DVD and
VOD.
The gorgeous gals of
Shortwave.
I to thought the movie looked much better than it's budget would indicate and the first appearance of the creature while she's in bed was perhaps the best jump scare of the year, but I couldn't figure out the plot and I was confused by what the creatures were. Oh well, maybe a prequel will clear things up.
ReplyDeleteOh, come on. Aside from a cool opening sequence, this movie was atrocious. Amateur acting, nonsensical writing, and directed like a student film.
ReplyDeleteThey used like a super anamorphic lens, even fore the closeup stuff, then processed it at only 2:35 or so.
ReplyDeleteLook at everything, curved on the edges or out of focus. Like a dream.
I think this blows ExMachina away as far as style. IMHO.