Are You There? is a supernatural horror film that was directed by Kim Noonan, which felt like a relic from a decade or so back. It has some unexpected twists along its initially slow paced story, and I think I liked the actor who played the protagonist, but there wasn't much real substance here.
Rosa (Laura Sollet - Apocalypse Rising: A Zombie Saga) is a paranormal psychologist student who believes that experiences of the paranormal comes from the mind, rather than be an actual thing. With her housemate, Natalie (Eva Meyerson - Boneyard), she makes online videos where she explores different ways to contact the dead. After her beloved grandma dies (someone who had classed themselves as a white witch), she leaves Rosa a box of her belongings. Included in the box is a special candle and candle holder, with instructions that tell her niece how to use the candle to contact her from beyond the grave. Rosa is very surprised when she tries it and it actually works, the candle flame blowing left or right in answer to her yes or no questions. At first, Rosa is overjoyed that she has finally gotten proof of the supernatural, but as more and more sinister things happen around her, she comes to believe she hasn't contacted her grandma through the candle, but an evil spirit who wishes her harm.
For the first 40 minutes of this roughly 90 minute horror I was pretty bored. There was not much of note happening at all, outside of the candle flame blowing left or right. I thought Rosa was fine as a protagonist, if a little dull, but the story itself was almost mind numbingly dull. Then a change happens, and the rest of the movie plays out as one long nightmare sequence of Rosa trapped in her house, experiencing all sorts of unnatural terror. These take the form of sequences where she has travelled through time or space to earlier places and people in her life, encounters that she in unable to tell if they are real or not, and all sorts of paranormal activity, such as things moving on their own, and a stubborn candle whose flame refuses to go out even if submerged in water! The transition from slow burn snore fest to wild madness was sudden, it almost felt like they were two different films clumsily taped together. The second half is a lot better, and action packed. The midpoint scene where Rosa encounters an intruder in her home was the highlight of Are You There?, a stark and brutal excursion into real life horror, before it settles back into mad paranoid craziness. The eventual reveal of what has actually been going on was unexpected, but also not original, I have seen the same plot device used in countless horrors over the years, specifically earlier this century when that idea seemed to be all the rage. It also makes the first 40 minutes not really make a lot of sense in hindsight, hence it feeling like two films in one.
The horror, when it eventually arrives isn't bad, aside from one terrible looking CG effect of a flame blowing up into a perpetual fireball, it was fine. You have the familiar nightmare things, such as rooms opening onto impossible locations, or a character abruptly being yanked to a different location. It all looks good, especially with the previously mentioned mid-film break into home invasion terror.
The story looks into sensitive topics, I had no problem with that. Everything revolving around the candle was a bit silly. I especially liked when Rosa looks on the internet for help with her situation and finds comically dark results. For a way to contact the dead that has such harsh consequences be so easy to do was humorous, I will admit, the crazed live streaming she does where she tries to warn her followers was excellently done, Sollet always did a fine job of appearing near insane with fear at some of the supernatural events she encounters, with the obligatory 'madness dancing in the eyes' look that never gets old.
The story looks into sensitive topics, I had no problem with that. Everything revolving around the candle was a bit silly. I especially liked when Rosa looks on the internet for help with her situation and finds comically dark results. For a way to contact the dead that has such harsh consequences be so easy to do was humorous, I will admit, the crazed live streaming she does where she tries to warn her followers was excellently done, Sollet always did a fine job of appearing near insane with fear at some of the supernatural events she encounters, with the obligatory 'madness dancing in the eyes' look that never gets old.
Are You There? was an average horror that was let down by some strange editing techniques. I'm still not even sure if the wild prologue sequence was actually a part of the film or some sort of trailer before the screener I watched - wild disparate images that made little sense. Not the worst film out there, but there didn't seem like much originality with the story being told, and that first half was a real slog to get through. Are You There? releases second quarter this year via High Fliers Films.
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