They Look Like People

 Ben (MacLeod Andrews) doesn't just suspect that there are monster among us - he's seen through them, even though They Look Like People. They taunt him both while awake and in dreams, and people call him to tell him the end is nigh - in fact, the time where the monsters will attack an unsuspecting, hopelessly infiltrated humanity is extremely fucking nigh. If you'll forgive the reference.

 Before he runs to the hills, though, Ben looks up an old childhood friend, Wyatt (Evan Dumouchel) - the two reconnect and Wyatt, recognizing his estranged buddy seems to be in a tough situation, invites him to crash a few days in his tiny apartment.

 Wyatt has got a lot going on; For one, he's overcompensating for his insecurities by working out and engaging in some performative douchebaggery. Sorry, 'dominating'. He's not shown reading Jordan Peterson, but he's got one of those self-help tapes with ridiculous, overblown motivational compliments. The 'You are a powerful tree but with diamond-hard penises instead of leaves' kind of thing, read by a breathless female narrator*. He's also trying to ask Mara, his young boss (Margaret Ying Drake), out on a date.

 As Mara and Wyatt tentatively develop a relationship, Ben becomes increasingly erratic, seeing monsters everywhere. They Look Like People's gentle, slow-burning psychological horror often takes a back seat to something that feels more like a hangout movie or a quiet indie dramedy. There's more  than a little bit of tension as to whether Ben is going to snap and kill someone thinking they're inhuman, but I was actually more worried about whether his visions are real or not, because the film shores up one of the two possibilities so much I started dreading that it would try to reverse that and spring a final surprise.

 I won't say whether it does or not, but while the script writes itself into a bit of bind by the end, it still manages a strong, satisfying resolution.

 Writer/director/editor/producer/cinematographer/sound and production designer Perry Blackshear has crafted a lovely, heartfelt film that manages to feel authentic while still throwing you off with some unorthodox choices. There are some clunky interactions, but for the most part it's all handled with real warmth, subtlety and grace. The acting is great, especially Dumouchel, who does a great job imbuing a very flawed character with humanity, vulnerability and uniqueness. Both central couples (Ben and Wyatt, Wyatt and Mara) have great chemistry.

 There are a couple special effects - all of them simple and very lo-fi, since the budget here is only a smidgen above the 'a couple of friends and a camera' level, but some scenes manage to be fairly creepy. The rest... not so much. The shooting style is close, intimate handheld shots for most of the film, growing a little more wobbly as Ben's mental state deteriorates; There's not a lot to distinguish it from any number of indie movies, but it's effective.

 Most of all, though, it's the well-developed, very likeable characters that stand out, which is good because this is a deeply character-driven film. By the end I wanted all of these goofballs to avoid their presumable genre-mandated fate; I can think of no end of films where the opposite was true, so this one is definitely doing something right.

*: This actually gets an origin story of sorts in one of the film's clunkier (but still cute) touches.

A Ghost Waits

  Shot over a number of years with a rotating film crew, Adam Stovall’s A Ghost Waits is a fun, cute, black and white microbudget horror/romantic comedy mashup.

 Jack (MacLeod Andrews) is a handyman who earns his living by surveying vacant properties before they’re put on the market again. Because his own flat is being fumigated, he ends up having to stay at the latest place he’s surveying, a house where the previous tenants mysteriously left all their stuff behind.

 We know from a cold open that the reason for that is that the house is haunted. And when Jack spends a night there, he becomes a target for the resident ghost.
 At first the supernatural stuff is subtle; opening and closing doors, strange noises, that sort of thing, played mostly for comedy as Jack remains oblivious to it (this movie is only nominally horror; there are no scares.) There’s a cute bit where the ghost provides backup singing when Jack’s fooling around with a guitar.

 Jack’s a likeable character, a slacker type who nonetheless takes pride in his work and tries to be professional about it. This actually factors into the plot in a couple of ways: mainly, that when the haunting begins in earnest, his reluctance to leave his work half-done wins over his fear. So he decides to come back and confront the ghost.

 And here the film splits out in several interesting directions. For one, the ghost, Muriel (Natalie Walker,) is taken aback that someone would try to establish a dialog with her, and she goes back to a sort of underworld office (which looks exactly like a normal office) to ask her own boss for advice; Turns out Muriel is also a kind of blue collar worker, and the film’s nebulous metaphysics provide some really interesting parallels between her and Jack.
 This was my favourite aspect of the movie – once Jack and Muriel get to talking, they establish an easy rapport – Jack’s easy-going and talkative, Muriel is more reserved and old-fashioned, but both start questioning their… maybe not values, but what they’re doing and how they’re going about it. At one point Muriel accuses Jack of being The Enemy, because he’s the one who brings people into the house while she’s in charge of keeping them out… and the movie kind of supports that, with its wonky, low-key metaphysics. It’s great.

 Some complications are introduced when a junior, more gung-ho ghost is sent by Muriel’s supervisor to help her get rid of Jack. This is the second bit where Jack’s professionalism comes into play, because we’re shown that Muriel takes as much pride in her work as jack does.

 The script does an admirable job of setting up interesting tangents like that. It isn’t very good at being naturalistic, with a lot of lines that feel a bit too forcedly twee, and people talking at each other rather than having anything resembling a dialog. The love story, in particular, feels a bit too compressed, even though both actors sell it well and the story supports it well. The film had to be retooled and it shows (the fact that it’s black and white is just as practical as an aesthetic decision – it helped make the original footage mesh with the reshoots.)
 There are no special effects beyond some very simple makeup effects (which must have been hell to do at this budget level,) and the acting is... a little on the stilted side, with some slight over-emoting, but nothing that should take you out of the story. At eighty minutes, none of the film's problems are major enough to get in its own way.

 It’s not going to set anyone’s world on fire, and its quirky indie-style dialog can get to be a little exhausting, but it’s brisk, brings some cool/funny concepts to the table, and a shitload of charm. Not bad.