Black Wake
“Black Wake” is completely bonkers. Don’t get me wrong- it’s bonkers in very, very good ways, but the structure of the film, the ideas in the film, are something we don’t really see often in this type of story, and that makes it quite fresh and original, and extremely entertaining. This is genre done right, and I can’t help but be excited about what the larger discussion around it will be when audiences start to see it.
This film is co-written and directed by Jeremiah Kipp, a filmmaker whose sent a couple of films in my direction over the years, and I’ve been hot-and-cold on him, from those films. When he gets into genre, however, his talents really seem to shine through, and “Black Wake” is genre madness that pulls from a lot of different influences, but arrives at a place that feels wholly of its own design, and I love where the script he, Jerry Janda and Carlos Keyes goes, and it’s surreal and kind of awesome.
The best way to sum up this film would be to bring up “found footage,” which is the sub-genre this film is, invariably, in. That is the structure of the film, but it deviates from what we think of it by almost starting at the moment where the government is putting together the confiscated footage. Framing the footage is in-camera commentary by Dr. Luiza Moreira (Nana Gouvea), who has been brought in by the government to see what she can make of a bizarre killing spree that has engulfed the Atlantic coast. Some of the footage they find leads to clues, as well as a mysterious book kept by a homeless man closely linked to one of the attacks.
Kipp and his collaborators have put together an interesting cast for this film (with brief appearances by Tom Sizemore and Eric Roberts, among them), but it’s not surprising that Gouvea is the standout, because her role is the deepest in the film in ways that I will not get into here. When I say this film is completely bonkers, it’s out of respect for where it heads, and how it gets there. This is low-budget filmmaking done with confidence and executed simply and beautifully. Don’t let me use of the words “found footage” turn you off to this film just because most films in that genre go boring before they even make it halfway through. This has a terrific hook, and the way it fleshes it out is a big part of why it’s so terrific. We genuinely feel engaged with what we’re witnessing unfold, and Kipp keeps us on our toes every step of the way. This is an early leader for the best horror film of 2018, and I can see it ending that way in December, with how good it is.
