10 Slots for the Best Horror I've Seen in the Past Year
[7 of 10]
THEY REMAIN
(January 2018)
"History is so full of shadow.”
Opening with a quote from H.P. Lovecraft’s “Hypnos” (“Wise
men have interpreted dreams, and the gods have laughed.”), Philip Gelatt’s They Remain deploys two elements from
the horror arsenal--isolation and inexplicability--to excellent and unnerving
effect.
Following a two-person, three month research mission to find a “… previously uncharacterized element--genetic, environmental or otherwise--one that might change the way we view our relationship to the natural world,” the film (based on the novella “—30—” by Laird Barron) is a slow burn descent that relies more on mood and atmosphere than narrative cause and effect, a refreshing change from Hollywood horror’s tendency to over-explicate, as if horror were made up of mere plot points in dire need of tedious exposition.
Following a two-person, three month research mission to find a “… previously uncharacterized element--genetic, environmental or otherwise--one that might change the way we view our relationship to the natural world,” the film (based on the novella “—30—” by Laird Barron) is a slow burn descent that relies more on mood and atmosphere than narrative cause and effect, a refreshing change from Hollywood horror’s tendency to over-explicate, as if horror were made up of mere plot points in dire need of tedious exposition.
Gelatt made it onto the Candidates list for ¡Qué horror! 2012, for his feature
directorial debut, The Bleeding House.
And now he's cracked into the main rundown.
Well-deserved applause all around...
Well-deserved applause all around...
“The world is large and unknowable.
“No one ever really knows anything.”
(They Remain OS
courtesy of impawards.com.)
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