Horror Flick I Can See You Opts For Brakhage Over Butchery

Details

I Can See You
Directed by Graham Reznick
Cinema Purgatorio
Opens April 29, KGB Kraine

Ultimately opting for Brakhage over butchery, this surprising horror debut hits us where it hurts by turning vision itself into a mind-frying source of anxiety. The lengthy run-up is tedious and unpromising: A fledgling ad outfit—consisting of a drip, a menacing heel, and a frustrated painter—heads to the woods to brainstorm a pitch for a cleaning product, with a bored girlfriend in tow. Introduced dabbing at a portrait with no face, shy Ben (Ben Dickinson) gets lucky with a free spirit who turns up at a campfire gathering. He becomes the film's portal for fugue states of increasing intensity, amid the usual forest unease; the often grating humor and familiar oddities (a plastic-grin TV spokesman) feed viewer irritation, which turns out to aid the film's agenda. Working under Larry Fessenden's low-budget horror shingle, young director Graham Reznick is adept enough with sound and rhythm to incorporate, say, a borrowing of Lost Highway expressionism into his technique, which is self-enamored but effective. So much about this movie and its characters should be annoying, but the sensory disorientation climaxes in a freakout that wipes all your troubles away, as well as anything else lying around in your head.