Gergo Elekes | Through the Shattered Lens

A woman named Kate (Fruzsina Nagy) drives down a road. We don’t know where she is driving to but we can tell that she’s driving quickly and she’s not in the mood for any delays. It’s the way that someone drives when they’re trying to escape but they’re not sure where they want to go. It’s way you drive when you just want to convince yourself that you can somehow leave everything behind.

We hear what sounds like an accident and suddenly, Kate is waking up in a forest. Her car is nowhere to be seen and Kate has no idea how she came to be in the forest. In fact, she’s not even sure who she was before she woke up. She has no memories of her past life, beyond fleeting visions that don’t always seem to fit together. Eventually, she meets another apparent amnesiac, Bubba (Edward Apeagyei). Bubba wears a locket around his neck and there’s a picture of a woman in the locket but he doesn’t seem to be quite sure who she was.

Bubba and Kate are not alone in the forest. There are other wanderers and then there’s a group of men who appear to be soldiers, wearing crude uniforms and gas masks and carrying machine guns. (The sight of the soldiers, with their crude uniforms, bring to mind the horrific militias that often spring up in the aftermath of a war and attempt to seize power out of the chaos.) Receiving cryptic orders from their leader (Eric Roberts), the soldiers patrol the forest and execute anyone that they come across. Their leader repeatedly tells them that they have to track down and execute everyone because the future of the world depends upon it. Failure is not an option.

Aftermath deals with a very real fear. The idea of suddenly waking up and discovering that you have not only lost your identity but also control over your own fate is at the heart of many horror stories and it’s also a reflection of the way many people feel about living in today’s world. One wrong word, thought, or move and you can find yourself exiled into both a real and metaphorical wilderness. When Kate wakes up with little memory of what the world was like before she ended up in that forest, she’s feeling what a lot of people have felt when they try to remember the world and their lives before the lockdowns of 2020 and all of the political and societal events that followed. We live in a world that seems to change from day to day and, as result, everyone has had that moment when, like Kate, they’ve struggled to understand what’s happening. From the minute that Kate wakes up with the feeling that she has no control over what’s happening to her, she becomes an instantly relatable character. The audience not only wants to know what’s happening to her but they also want her to regain control of her fate. If Kate can regain control, then those watching in the audience can also regain control.

The film’s cinematography emphasizes both the grandeur and the ominous atmosphere of the forest, making it a place that manages to be beautiful and threatening at the same time and the deliberate pace builds up suspense as Kate tries to discover why she is in the forest. Fruzsina Nagy and Edward Apeagyei both give sympathetic and relatable performances as Kate and Bubba and the audience does care what happens to them. Aftermath is both an intriguing thriller and a meditation on life and love.

Aftermath will be released on digital and blu-ray by Bayview Entertainment on January 30th.

An abandoned building is just inherently creepy.

I mean, think about it. Unlike a forest or a mountain or a canyon, a building is not something that forms naturally. People actually have to build buildings. Plans have to be drawn up. Materials have to purchased. Hours of backbreaking labor are required. Creating a building requires work, resources, and time. It’s not something that you do on a whim. It’s something that’s done as a part of a larger plan. With all of the effort that goes into creating the building, it’s always strange to come across one that has subsequently been abandoned. You find yourself wondering what could have happened that made the inhabitants or the owners say, “We’d rather have all that hard work be for nothing than remain in this location?”

Walking through an abandoned building, it’s difficult not to think about the fact that, once upon a time, strangers that you’ll probably never meet moved through these now deserted hallways. People worked in those empty rooms. For a period of time, the building was probably the center of someone’s life. Where are those people now? Do they ever think about the past? Do they still have memories of things that were said or thought while walking through those now-empty hallways?

Finally, there’s the constant reminders that even an abandoned building isn’t never truly abandoned. There’s the animals that move in after the people leave. There’s the plants the continue to grow around and, in some cases, consume the empty structure. And, of course, there’s the reminders that you might not be the first person to have explored this empty building. There’s the broken windows or the empty bottles or the crumpled cigarette pack, all of which remind you that others may even consider this building to be their home. And, of course, there’s the graffiti. Graffiti and abandoned buildings tend to go hand-in-hand. For whatever reason, it’s often the graffiti that makes an abandoned building feel especially ominous. Are those words on the wall a sign of ownership, an act of rebellion, or a warning?

Of course, the only thing more creepy than one abandoned building is when you come across an entire town of abandoned buildings….

And yet, as creepy as an empty building can be, it’s also hard not to be fascinated by them. You look at them and you wonder why? Why did everyone leave and how long will the building stand there deserted before it’s either torn down or destroyed by nature? That’s one reason why ghost towns remains such a popular tourist destination. They’re a reminder of just how short and fragile life can be. You can build a home or an office but, once your time is up, it’s just going to be another abandoned building.

That’s something that Gil Spencer, the protagonist of Spirits in the Dark, understands. Gil (played by the film’s director, Jozsef Gallai) used to love exploring abandoned buildings with his wife. Ever since his wife’s death, Gil has struggled with being lonely and depressed. But then, one day, something mysteriously appears on his laptop. It appears to be a video shot by someone exploring an abandoned military complex. The person shooting the video comes across a white pendant, one that looks exactly like the one that Gil’s wife used to wear. While the person holds the pendant, we catch a glimpse of a ghostly figure standing a few feet away, watching.

Intrigued, Gil searches for and manages to track down the deserted complex. As creepy as the abandoned and graffiti-covered buildings may be, Gil — who films his exploration — informs us that it’s nothing he hasn’t seen before. Even when he spots blood on the wall, he figures that it was probably just someone shooting “an indie horror film.” But then, he comes across a mask hanging in a corner. And then his car’s horn starts honking for no reason. And then, things start to get really creepy!

Spirits in the Dark is a haunting and moody exercise in atmosphere and genuine creepiness. Wisely, instead of going for easy jump scares, the film takes its time to set up both the location and the situation. We get to know Gil and, as he makes his way through them, we also get to know the abandoned building and the surrounding wilderness. Like Gil, we find ourselves looking at every shadow, searching for some sort of explanation. Just like Gil, we can feel the menacing atmosphere closing in on us and we become aware of every strange noise and every possible movement in the darkness. When the scares do come, they’re all the more effective because the film has earned the right to frighten us. It’s a wonderfully effective and creepy movie, one that has an intriguing plot and which is distinguished by the moody cinematography and the ominous score, both of which are credited to Gergo Elekes.

Wild Eye Releasing is going to be releasing Spirits in the Dark via DVD and VOD early in 2020 so keep an eye out for it!