Reflect is a bizarre comedic horror film that melds in layers of psychedelia into its low budget but ambitious story, while leaving the horror out in the fringes. Written and directed by Dana Kippel (in her writing and directorial debut), this is full of ideas, some of which worked a lot better than others.
Five female friends, including among them Summer (Kippel), Katie (Grace Patterson), Liz (Jadelyn Breier), Annie (Marissa Patterson, who also edited the film), and Nia (Ariana Brown), have headed out to a desert retreat for the weekend. While some have gone there to try and 'find themselves', others have headed there out of a sense of obligation, and for the chance to win a cash prize for participating. It initially appears to be a bit of a swindle, with the setting and supplies basic and amateur. As the weekend passes however, they begin to all experience strange events that force each of them to confront their pasts, with those that fail the test taken by shadowy figures.
This is undoubtably a comedic horror, with many characters seeming to exist only for comedic purposes. Some of this works, actually, many of the side characters are just the right amount of kooky to really shine in their 'out there' roles. Zero (Dash Katz), Hermés (Joe Flippone) and Inanna (Campbell Crates) all stole the scenes that they appeared in, making for delightfully strange characters. Other parts just didn't work though. There was a whole subplot that seemed to involve the events of the film being broadcast as some type of alien TV show, with Beale (Ryan Jack Connell) frequently appearing on screen as if he was presenting a show, but done so in a purposely awkward way that wasn't enjoyable to watch. I'm not sure what the point of that part of the movie was, but I feel it could have easily been removed and not had the film lose anything at all.
At around the halfway point is when the trippy feeling comes in, with the characters appearing to have been drugged with some type of mind altering substance. This leads to plenty of slow-mo, double vision, distorted voices, and characters behaving strangely. I loved this part of the film, that coupled with the beautiful location of the desert setting gave the film a cool vibe to it. Outside of maybe Annie, I didn't think much of the protagonists, it's only really their own personal flashback sequences that you come to know much of them. There was artificially inserted conflict for the five friends, revelations for instance that one of the friends had been cheating with Summer's boyfriend felt unnatural and just there to cause tensions.
The horror is barely here, and when it does appear it is dealt with rapidly, perfectly fine as that isn't the main point of this film. The shadow people are a kind of antagonist force here, but the scene always cuts away to a different one the moment of their attacks. This was maybe as a result of the obvious low budget, with many of the scenes taking place out in the desert there wasn't too much need for sets. It gave some parts of this a rough and unready D.I.Y feel.
Reflect had some unique elements to it, I liked how trippy this became, even if I didn't feel some of the more arthouse sections worked that effectively. There were some great side characters here, for me, it was just a shame the protagonists were not as interesting as they should have been. Reflect came to Cable VOD and Digital HD on January 9th.
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