 | MOVIE DETAILS • Name: LandLocked • Year: 2021 • Country: USA • Director: Paul Owens • Main cast: Jeffrey Owens, Mason Owens, Paul Owens, Seth Owens • Runtime: 75 minutes • TRAILER
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I have to admit I was skeptical when it came to LandLocked (2021). Even before the screening, I wondered if this twist between found footage and horror documentary would be enough to sustain more than a short film. The plot as well as its metafilmic character reminded me of well-praised Mark Z. Danielewski’s novel House of Leaves, which for me ended up being, personally, a pretentious pain in the ass. Yet, Paul Owen’s debut lives not only off the mere intersection of reality and horror but rather off an exceptionally suggestive aesthetic that manages to grasp the most profound and haunting nostalgia.
The movie starts upon the death of Mason’s father, Jeff, who has ordered to tear their country house down after he passes away. During his last visit to rescue his last memories of the house, Mason finds some home recordings that will act as the core of the whole movie. Paul Owen’s own home recordings as well as his family casted as fictionalized versions of themselves intertwine with the fictional space to inhabit the edge between memory and imagination. And that’s what the whole thing is about.
There are no shocking twists and no unnecessary added tensions. Any of that would have been too artificial in a story that ultimately revolves around dwell and the needs and dangers of sinking into the deepest side of memory. Instead, we just follow and testify to the experience of his main character, his emotions, and reactions, well measured, to an environment that constantly moves between life and death. Indeed what makes LandLocked (2021) special is its very suggestive aesthetic. Images of the countryside, children swimming in the lake oppose insects and dead nature. Also, the sound deserves some praise. Featuring the lo-fi track Half Moon by Diners the music, intertwined with nature’s silence and electric sounds sets a melancholic tone. This way Owen creates an experience where death and loss become material for all the senses.
It could have been a bore, it could have been pretentious. It was not. It’s also not a conventional horror film. Rather than that, LandLocked is a surprisingly emotional and careful trip to the darkest sides of memory, an unfussy and haunting experience that comes to trap you in melancholia, even if it’s just for a moment.
RATE: 7/10
IMDB URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4078934
