Silhouette is a 2019 thriller about a young couple recovering from a great loss who set out into seclusion to begin their lives anew.
There’s a raw moment early on in writer/director Mitch McLeod‘s caustic little indie film Silhouette that serves as a sort of microcosm of the film entire, with two people in bed looking to find some physical connection with each other after what is surely a long absence of such. It’s intimate and patient, lulling us into a greater sense of deeper personal trauma before jarring us out of the passion with a sudden gripping fear and a rush of violence. This is a template for how much will unfold in this small psychological experiment, one not without its excesses, but no less rewarding for what it works hard to deliver.
In the wake of a terrible tragedy, Amanda (April Hartman) and Jack Harms (Tom Zembrod) move to a new home, looking to start again after their daughter has died. Naturally, this is not so easy, with Amanda especially shaken by the loss, not as willing to turn the page as her husband. She is haunted by nightmares and waves of nausea. We soon learn though that even before their daughter’s passing, things were not well, their relationship now tested in the wake of some poor choices. As the days pass, and Amanda’s depression widens, her visions of ghosts and demons in the dark take ever increasing hold on the already brittle young woman. But is it real? And where will end?
Perhaps knowing this isn’t new ground he’s treading on, McLeod doesn’t try to rewrite the standard, instead putting most of his efforts into wringing as much tension as he can from the old stone. He does this by trying to put some humanity in the usual mix where most movies of the like cut straight to the frights, so much so, it’s nearly too bad the film’s even in the horror genre, the story far better as one about a broken marriage than that of apparitions and hauntings.
But then again, maybe that’s exactly what this is. I’ve purposefully left out some crucial details in all this that greatly shape right where Amanda and Jack are and in a lot of ways, McLeod is working on a few tricky metaphorical levels. Maybe. Hope, trust, mistrust … these are just a few of what’s on tap and that leaves the movie with a kind of imbalance as it forces itself into a corner of sorts where the personal bends in this troubled marriage take priority over the horror it promises from the first frame.
So what do I want? Well, that’s part of the smaller problem of Silhouette, it never wholly committed to its frights or family, McLeod allowing himself to go unchecked in over-developing many of his plot points, ones that find some circuitry in the last act before closing circles. It’s hardly a ‘horror’ movie, so those looking for some conventional bump in the nights ought to look elsewhere. It’s instead a kind of meditative treatise on marriage and sex with a tease of terror, culminating in a genuinely disturbing end that absolutely feels earned, if not a little too long in the waiting. It’s scary, upsetting, and all the right kinds of ambiguous making the journey there more than just worth it, it somehow gives it legitimacy. Recommended.