Animosity
Brendan Steere (“Velocipastor”) has some very interesting ideas in his 2013 film, “Animosity.” Whether he can bring those ideas together in an interesting way is another story. I feel like the movie begins as one type of movie, and ends as another, and I’m not sure if they mesh as well as Steere wants them to. “Animosity” is a compelling thriller, though.
Mike (Marcin Paluch) and Carrie (Tracy Willet) Bonner are newlyweds whom buy a home just outside of a beautiful piece of forest. That’s not the first thing we see, however; that’s Nicole (Alyssa Kempinski), who sells the house to them, chasing a young woman who calls her “mommy” with a power saw, begging Nicole not to do this. Immediately, something’s off about this for the audience, but it’ll soon be difficult for Carrie, in particular, when some nearby neighbors visit her, and we start to get pieces of a puzzle put together. We will meet Nicole later in the film, but by that point, we will have a better idea of what she was going through.
Tom (Stephan Goldbach) might be one of the most unsettling characters I’ve seen in a movie, and he’s not even the villain of the film. In his first seen, he seems to be looking for his dog; Mike goes to talk to him after and Carrie seems to notice a bit of familiarity between the two. The next time we see him, he is outside their house, shooting at something, and when Carrie confronts him, he turns the gun on her, threatening her. When she tells Mike, he tries to convince her to not call the police? The first half of this film is infinitely more compelling, and Mike’s seeming gaslighting of Carrie when weird stuff seems to happen is more fascinating than anything that happens in the second half.
The way that Steere using the woods in this film is one of my favorite things about it. Not every horror film can just be set in the woods, or near the woods, and make that work for them. “Animosity” does, and that some of its most terrifying scenes are during the day make it all the more successful.
Once the twist in the story is revealed, everything shifts into focus. Unfortunately, I think the build up to the revelation is far more compelling than anything we see in the aftermath of it- it feels like a very standard horror thriller after that. Thankfully, Willett is a strong presence all the way through, and she carries the film to its conclusion.
