For someone who writes a horror blog, I never often give horror films the optimal condition with which to view them. I'm not really a night person, so typically end up watching films in the light of day. The stars aligned and for various reasons I ended up watching the Teresa Sutherland (staff writer on
Midnight Mass TV series) written and directed
Lovely, Dark, and Deep late at night. I think that really added to the experience of this slow burn isolationist horror.
Ranger Lennon (Georgina Campbell - Bird Box: Barcelona) has gotten the opportunity to become a forest ranger at a remote outpost in the backcountry of a large national park. This is something she has wanted to do her whole life, due to an incident that happened a long time ago. It isn't long into her new position when she is made aware of a missing woman in the area she is stationed. After calling in a rescue team, she is ordered to stay at her ranger station, but ignoring those orders she heads out to try and help, and ends up locating the missing woman, who, in a confused state questions whether Lennon is real or not. Rather than be pleased with her rescue, her superior, Zhang (Wai Ching Ho - Daredevil TV series) confines her to her outpost, informing her she is no longer required at the park. Once again ignoring orders due to her own personal mission, Lennon sets out into the forest, and as a results somehow ends up getting trapped in a kind of nightmare realm where reality and horrors become intermingled.
This was a slow burn horror, but one that got that sometimes hard to balance aspect correct. Often slow burn can be associated with tedium, but with a mysterious protagonist whose motivations are kept shrouded, there was never a feeling of boredom. Lennon spends large parts of the movie completely alone, but the actress is able to carry the weight of the picture well. Lovely, Dark, and Deep creates horror from the feeling of total isolation. In the remote forest, especially at night, every sight and sound buzzes the imagination. This leads to some tense scenes where Lennon comes across as quite scared. These night scenes have some of the most unsettling moments of the film, such as when she is in camera front and centre, while unseen to her a figure in white starts climbing down a huge tree in the background, or when she glimpses the legs of a figure on all fours, crawling behind her tent. Even when Lennon is surrounded by people you can still sense the isolation, she isn't well liked, linked to rumours about her that the film never explicitly addresses, but gives enough hints for you to piece things together yourself.
A core aspect of the story is about the vast numbers of people who go missing in national parks each year. This is something the protagonist has a vested interest in, parts of which are revealed via repeating arthouse style quickly edited sequences of a little girl running through the trees, as well as the creepy podcasts Lennon listens to about the many unexplained disappearances.
The middle of the movie is where this might begin to lose people. From roughly the halfway mark, Lennon is plunged into a prolonged nightmare sequence full of all sorts of terrors. It starts with her inexplicably finding herself in an area of the park many miles away from her ranger station, beginning her descent into twisted time loops, sinister doppelgangers, and ever changing dream logic corridors that lead to various critical moments from her life with a horror twist. This part at times felt a bit like a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode, but also had a feel of the iconic Playstation 4 video game demo P.T, especially with the repeated audio loops coming out of a radio. Over the whole film audio loops are used to great effect, with Lennon's personal radio in particular being an effective piece of horror due to the unreliable and often twisted messages coming out of it. I did find this whole nightmare sequence a bit confusing and frustrating to follow, but the film pulls itself together for a memorable ending. The final sequence was inspired, the final shot heading upwards into the sky above the character, until she becomes a little dot in the vastness of the forest, was a great way to end things. I liked that whatever evil is lurking in the woods is never explained, with the goal being not so much confronting or defeating this evil, but giving Lennon the ability to move on from her past traumas for better or for worse.
Lovely, Dark, and Deep looked fantastic throughout, the camera work, especially when it comes to filming the trees was impressive, such as the opening shot that was upside down, so made it seem like the forest was bursting forth out of the sky. I'm surprised I actually got the gist of the plot, as often when it is left up to the viewer to figure things out I can be left a bit lost. I might have felt the whole nightmare part of this went on a bit long, but the film's conclusion, and the overall high quality kept me feeling good about what I had seen. Lovely, Dark, and Deep has its UK premiere at Frightfest at 14:00 on Saturday 28th October.
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