TEST SCREENING
****
Directed by Clark Baker.
Starring Chloe Kerwin, Drew Scheid, Johnny Berchtold, Rain Spencer.
Horror, US, 92 minutes.
Reviewed as part of Pigeon Shrine FrightFest 2024
While the likes of STRANGER THINGS and 80’s pop culture seemingly refuse to relinquish their foothold on popular culture, Clark Baker’s 1982 set debut, receiving its world premiere on the opening night of FrightFest’s 25th anniversary year, should no doubt find its own appreciative audience who will tune into its nicely realised vintage setting. Stephen Susco’s affecting script manages to nail the insecurities of small town adolescence while contending with an otherworldly threat, while the gloriously gloopy practical effects also evoke the works of Brian Yuzna and John Carpenter.
The quiet and remote small town of New Hope is home to Reels, a young movie nerd working part time at the local cinema and excited to discover that his run-down theatre has been seemingly chosen by Hollywood to test screen an upcoming blockbuster. Convinced that it’s a certain sci-fi trilogy closer, amusingly referred to by its original title, Reels convinces his friends Simon, struggling to keep a brave face while his mother fights a terminal illness, and Penny, who has her own struggles trying to reconcile her strict religious upbringing with her feelings for rebellious best friend Mia. After the mysterious screening, which comes with stricter than usual security measures involving shades wearing and stern-faced authority figures wielding their own cameras, the friends, and by extension the whole town, find themselves undergoing strange changes in behaviour that lead onto something more shocking and bizarre that will transform them forever.
The film takes something of a slow burn approach, setting up its core characters deftly in the early stages and with impressive performances. Decade defining identifiers and the small town setting are never over-used while the films central romance between Penny and Mia is dealt with in a surprising fashion, particularly when it comes to Penny’s father, the local preacher played by Sean Bridgers whose discovery of his daughters feelings is dealt with in a far different way than the usual cliched response of tyranny and terror that is so often the way in this genre.
Taking the time to set its elements in place pays off in rewarding fashion once the results of the screening makes its effects known. Blending body horror and conspiracy thriller, with hints of something more cosmic at the edges, to excellent effect, Baker delivers a very impressive debut here that should serve as a calling card for more genre work. Even before the horrifying reveal(s) that recall the likes of THE THING and SOCIETY, he manages to evoke an atmosphere of unease and creepiness before the effects work floods onto the screen in its horrifying fashion.
Much more than a simple homage to its period setting, TEST SCREENING manages to provide just as much thrills on a thematic level as well as a visceral one. The ideas of conformity and community and other Reagan-era values are taken to a horrifying extreme, while the notions of individuality, sexuality and rebellion are pitted against them in a time-honoured and entertainingly horrific fashion.
Iain MacLeod
