Returning home to care for her bedridden father, a young woman discovers his connection to the occult.
Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Henry Chaisson
Starring: Sasha Frolova, Xander Berkeley, Toby Poser, Mia Vallet, Kimball Farley, Frankie Seratch
A setup growing increasingly popular in horror movies is that of an adult protagonist being forced to make a reluctant return to their childhood home, often to care for an ailing parent. The wave was kicked off by Natalie Erika James' 2020 thriller Relic and was most recently seen in the A24 hit Undertone. My theory is that this premise taps into the fear many young adults currently harbour of having to move back home thanks to so much instability and uncertainty around employment and housing.
Having broken out as a screenwriter with his script for Scott Cooper's supernatural thriller Antlers, Henry Chaisson makes his directorial debut with Recluse. Yet again we have a protagonist reluctantly returning home, and like the central character of Undertone, the heroine of Recluse spends much of the movie wearing headphones.
Joan (Sasha Frolova) is a film sound recordist who returns to the sprawling mansion in which she grew up when her father, Lawrence (Xander Berkeley), suffers horrific full body burns in mysterious circumstances. In what seems like a nod to the cult classic Messiah of Evil, Lawrence is an artist known for dark and unsettling paintings and sculptures. He has an army of goth fans, some of whom like to sneak into the mansion to get a glimpse at his personal collection. Joan, however, is no fan of her father. She has long believed that he was responsible for her mother's death, and she also suspects his housekeeper, Lydia (Toby Poser of the cult filmmaking family the Adams), may have been an accomplice.
Resembling a mummy, Lawrence is wrapped head to toe in bandages, a spotlight above his bed giving him the appearance of one of his own macabre art pieces. Joan is unsettled in his presence, and she begins to hear voices in the walls, using her equipment to try to make sense of their ramblings. Similarly spooked is Emily (Mia Vallet), the latest in a line of caregivers who have been unable to continue with their roles in the creepy surrounds of this seemingly cursed mansion.
Recluse is a very old-fashioned potboiler. As the mystery unfolds, family secrets are revealed, prompting us to ask if the threat is supernatural or more grounded? With a near absence of bloodshed, Recluse almost resembles an old dark house thriller from Hollywood's golden age, or the '70s TV movies that channelled such earlier films. Cinematographer Bryce Holden paints the mansion setting in a chiaroscuro of shadows and shafts of light from tall windows, adding to the Gothic atmosphere. The production design makes effective use of Lawrence's art, the halls of the mansion adorned with macabre paintings while the silhouettes of sculptures in the dark are confused for human or otherworldly intruders.
Joan's role as a sound recordist is heavily integrated into the horror, with the soundtrack switching to her aural POV when she dons headphones. The sound mix, a cacophony of whispered voices, wind and sundry ambiguous unsettling bumps in the dark, will give your speakers an intense workout. Joan's headphones add an extra layer of vulnerability to the character, who is often so distracted she isn't visually aware of her surroundings. Chaisson creates many tense moments by having figures appear out of the shadows in the background. Commendably, he doesn't telegraph these moments with cheap jump scare sound effects, making them all the more effective when our eyes are caught off guard rather than our ears.
Recluse is perhaps a little too plot heavy, and its atmosphere is more engrossing than its story, but this is a promising debut from a filmmaker who understands how to generate scares from our fear of the dark and the things that might go bump therein.
