THINGS WILL BE DIFFERENT
***
Directed by Michael Felker.
Starring Adam David Thompson, Riley Dandy, Sarah Bolger.
Science-Fiction, US, 102 minutes, Certificate 15.
Released in cinemas in the UK on 4th October by Lightbulb Film Distribution
Reviewed as part of Pigeon Shrine FrightFest 2024
Time travel and low budget filmmakers. It is a pairing that over the past few years has gone together to produce engrossing results. The main ingredients seem to be a limited location, usually an empty house, as is the case here, and a small cast, as is also the case here. These sparse elements however need to be backed up with that most important ingredient: an engrossing story populated with compelling characters. Shane Carruth’s PRIMER and James Ward Byrkit’s COHERENCE both being cases in point along with Benson and Moorhead’s debut film RESOLUTION. These films traded in small casts of unwitting characters finding themselves trying to escape inflexible time loops whilst dealing with personal issues that come to bear on their current (or whenever) predicament.
After editing for Benson and Moorhead themselves since their second feature SPRING, Michael Felker moves into the directors chair with this debut feature that deals in themes we are more than familiar with by now. This time we are stuck with Joseph and Sidney, an estranged brother and sister on the run from the law after an armed robbery. Their safe house looks like any other large country property but once the clock hands are turned a certain way and a specific Latin phrase is uttered into an old rotary phone they are sent to another time within the house where they can remain hidden away for two weeks. As the fortnight passes the siblings aim to reconnect after their own troubled pasts, with Sidney desperate to get back to her young daughter.
The couple find themselves stranded however, unable to return to their own time. Leaving the house results in a near certain death and they soon learn to communicate with a mysterious contact through an old tape recorder. A stranger is coming, at some unspecified point in time, and Sidney and Joseph must exterminate them if they are to return to their own time, no matter how long it takes.
This is smart, clever and sometimes confusing stuff. Do not be surprised to see a detailed diagram consisting of curved lines and graphs to explain the overlapping timelines of the film's events in the near future. Part of the fun of films like these is figuring out the when and how of it all. The “why” of events here is given a more intriguing doom laden edge as our protagonists try to figure out the history of their metaphysical surroundings and just who could be behind it all. As days stretch out into seasons Felker, along with his main performers Adam David Thompson and Riley Dandy, delivering fully on the promise she showed previously in Joe Begos’s CHRISTMAS BLOODY CHRISTMAS, expertly convey the hopelessness of their stranded situation.
There is a sense of deja-vu when coming to these films, especially now. The one hundred minute running time feels slightly stretched out, especially in the films lengthy mid-section, but things soon come together in a rewarding fashion with its downbeat yet touching conclusion. The lack of budget is not an issue here, as the ideas on display here are so heady and involving. Felker certainly proves his worth as a director, showing he could have what it takes to follow in the footsteps of his contemporaries, one of whom makes a cameo here. It will be interesting to see how different he will make things for himself in the future.
Iain MacLeod
