This 2012 indie production is elegant in execution. The producers had access to a half-built cabin in a canyon, so they wrote a script using it and some easy to get 30 year old media players. They kept the cast to two main, and about three supporting characters. This simplicity yielded an honest experience in “Weird”.
In fiction, “Weird” is used to define just H.P. Lovecraft and stories that made mankind insignificant in a boundless universe. The best examples of this in movies would be “In The Mouth Of Madness” or “Dark City.” Key elements to Weird are the questioning of reality (not just identity or space/time), or questioning how humanity has defined reality’s major players. “Resolution” is billed as a horror movie in ITunes and Amazon. It is not, but it is Weird.
The movie begins with a twist on the bro-buddy movie: old school friends get together to reminisce before an impending wedding. However, instead of a week of babes and beers, one friend turns the tables to get the other friend clean from his meth habit. As the duo engage and banter over a week, someone leaves clues that their canyon is the site of unusual activity, and that the two are being watched.
So begins a slow descent into a recursion and reframing of reality. In other movies, this would have been hack and cliché, but “Resolution” has two leads who are engaging and believable. What kept “Rosencranz and Gildenstern” from being horrific? That those two were witty, slender, and familiar characters whose menace was a light mental exercise. “Resolution” has fully-fleshed, worried people trying to make sense of increasingly surreal circumstances.
As an aspiring writer and film-maker, this movie provides so much inspiration. “Real” is a construct no matter your location or budget. The characters were not obvious copies of the writer’s friends like with Kevin Smith. The actors were given a range of emotions and had the skills to convey them. The editing had no cheap shock scares or audio tricks.
This is a solid, innovative movie. The creeps are there. They are not lasting, but they are surprising.
Here’s one of its trailers: