(IMAGE: Nervion Media)
Nervion Media, 2022. 73 minutes. Horror.
Grade: 1 out of 4
The first 30 minutes, approximately, of the 73-minute horror movie Unboxed, will make you appreciate how good the original Halloween is. John Carpenter’s 1978 original, for all its iconic status in pop culture, really does still get underrated by many, just because it feels so effortless. It’s just a simple stalking story, very well told.
David Becerra and Eddie del Carmen’s riff on it tries many of the same things – the teen banter, the seasonal trappings, the subjective point of view of someone breathing heavily while hiding, and the glimpse of the creepy guy in the background who has disappeared utterly when the camera turns back. It’s the same sort of thing, done by people who simply aren’t as good at it. The actors are less convincing, and the editing-necessitated-by-budget sometimes shows the wrong things. Think of Psycho‘s shower scene, in which the viewer never actually sees a knife penetrate flesh, but emotionally feels it, and believes the Hershey syrup is blood. Then look, if you dare, at the shot this one actually shows of an obvious prop knife covered in what appears to be actual ketchup.
A viewer might be tempted to write it off there. But for the sake of lead actress Katherine Diaz, here’s hoping most don’t. Because the middle stretch of the movie is where it excels. As Laura, a.k.a. “Lala,” she’s a live-streamer about to be acquired in a sweet corporate deal. But her Halloween livestream, in which she’ll give away makeup products out of mystery boxes, needs to succeed. The tension ratchets up when one particular online commenter seems to know way too much; it crescendos when she’s sent a video of her boyfriend Blake (Nicolas Candela), captured and tortured. To keep him safe, she must indulge an ever-escalating series of dares, live on camera, without ever letting on that they’re dares.
This stretch plays particularly well when you realize that Diaz is doing a lot of heavy lifting here as an actress. She’s mostly playing opposite nothing – text messages and onscreen comments added in post-production. And she has to layer the performance, playing to the camera as if nothing’s wrong while showing us that inside, she knows she’s screwed. It’s one hell of a showcase for the relative newcomer, who has mostly appeared in shorts thus far. Did I mention she does most of it with goofy cat whiskers drawn on her face?
Those are clearly ironic, since in the game of cat and mouse which ensues, she is definitely not the feline. The co-directors return to aping Halloween for the finale, in a session of deadly hide and seek around the house. That there are two folks at the helm is enough to make me wonder if one of them directed the middle part, and the other its bookends. Because if so, let that middle guy do the whole thing next time. There’s a swerve towards the end that makes absolutely no sense with what’s gone on right before it, except that other movies have done similar things better. Copying the plot beat without earning it doesn’t work, and stops the momentum Diaz has nearly single-handedly built.
Becerra write the script, and probably could have made it even better if the villain’s motives were clearer. Cyber harrassment of women, especially those with any sort of platform, is a real-life horror show, and Unboxed could have had something to say about it, with a couple more passes. Instead, it feels like an interesting short movie got sandwiched into the middle of an otherwise generic copycat. Or perhaps a short needed to be padded out to secure funding.
Either way, Katherine Diaz is someone who merits discovery. If this leads to something bigger for her, it was worth it.