Brightwood review – enterprising sci-fi horror sees jogging couple caught in a loop
A plucky microbudget indie, Brightwood is a masterclass in what is achievable with hardly any money whatsoever: just a premise, a couple of actors, and a writer-director (Dane Elcar) who doubles as cameraperson. It’s also an illustration of the limits of the form, because it would be starryeyed and untrue to claim that money makes no difference to what can be achieved.
We open on a couple, jogging in the woods and fighting as they go. Jen (Dana Berger) and Dan (Max Woertendyke) have evidently been married for long enough to really get to know and dislike each other. She’s listening to a podcast about how to divorce, he’s irritated she won’t take her earbuds out long enough for them to have a conversation, she’s furious about his drinking and flirting and, on top of everything else, he’s wickedly hungover. Their interactions have a painful, circular feeling to them, each loop of their protracted argument landing a staccato rap on an existing bruise. You want to pull them out of it, but can’t. They’re so wrapped up in their own toxic dynamic that it takes them a while to realise they are caught in a loop in more ways than one.
Here’s where the film enters into more surreal territory: Jen and Dan find that there is seemingly no way out of the circular path around a pond in the woods which they’ve been navigating. They keep finding themselves back where they started, quite literally. These kinds of time loops or impossible spaces may be a fairly standard feature of sci-fi, but the dovetailing of the glitch with the psychological landscape of the characters is what lends it a little bit of the heft of something like Luis Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel.
Unfortunately the characterisation is also trapped with the limitations of microbudget film-making, which requires that the script and two actors carry the entire weight of the film. There’s nothing especially wrong, per se, with either the writing or the performances, but a film with more resources has more options; you can support the actors and dialogue with other elements, say, a juicy turn from a favourite character actor, or add some knockout set pieces or production design. Here, we’re essentially locked in with no change of scene, just like the characters; and there are moments where that becomes an endurance test in the wrong way. Nevertheless, this is intelligent, scrappy film-making that should lead to bigger things for both cast and crew.
• Brightwood is on digital platforms from 21 March
is also processing a personal trauma dating back to childhood (but what lead character in a 2020s horror movie is not?). Naturally, the disappearances and trauma will intersect.
Georgina Campbell is well cast in the lead role: a compelling, likable heroine in the excellent Barbarian from 2022, here she achieves a balance between vulnerability and strength that means you’re rooting for her to survive, but she’s not an invincible badass. Victory is not a foregone conclusion; she is resourceful, but she’s up against something vast and terrifying.
However, the forces of darkness in
Lovely, Dark, and Deep are less than clearcut. Up to a point, this looseness is intriguing, though there comes a time where the bit of your brain that hungers for a satisfyingly neat resolution may start to grumble. Counterbalancing this is the fact that the vibesbased horror is beautifully staged, with plenty of creepy dream-logic tableaux playing out with gnarly charm and a well-judged sense of atmosphere. Perhaps in this instance, a sense of place trumps plot; props then, to cinematographer Rui Poças who conjures an entirely plausible and creepy vision of the moonlit American wilds out of what is in fact the landscapes of his native Portugal, where the film was principally shot. Like the film itself, it’s a bit of sleight of hand, but one that’s rather effective.
• Lovely, Dark, and Deep is on digital platforms from 25 March.