We Are Still Here

Is there any better scream queen than Barbara Crampton? I don't think so. She has two things the other -- from big names like Jamie Lee Curtis to B-movie queens like Linnea Quigley and Brinke Stevens -- don't have: a love of the genre, combined with the acting ability to pull off being more than a scream queen. She automatically adds some gravitas to the proceedings, and her love of the genre shows in her performance. She never phones it in. Case in point, this movie, where she plays Ann, a mother grieving the death of her college age son (and only child). She and her husband move out to the country to try and process their grief. Crampton is fragile and hollow and broken. There are moments where she's pushing through -- cleaning out boxes, going out to dinner -- but there's always something in her eyes or in her expression that shows she is not handling this, and she may never be able to. It is her performance that provides the axis on which the first 2/3's of this movie turns. Her emotional journey as her and her husband move to this town where things are kind of weird, and supernatural stuff keeps happening at the house, is the backbone. Until it gets to that last 15-20 minutes, when all hell breaks loose, and this movie changes gears from creepy to carnage. It's a bit jarring, but the carnage is so bombastic, I didn't mind it. The movie has been building atmosphere all throughout its abbreviated runtime (83 minutes with credits!), an atmosphere that feels somewhat Lovecraftian, so when it finally pays off, even if it doesn't feel quite like what you expected it to be, it works. I wish I could say the whole cast is great. Most of them are just fine enough to keep the movie going. The characters aren't very deep, but this also isn't that kind of movie, especially with the runtime. Speaking of that, that's both a blessing and a curse. This is a lean, fast-moving movie, but there's still somehow filler? There are so many establishing shots of the outdoors, and the camera will linger on these shots for longer than necessary. 10 seconds on the house ... then 10 seconds on a tree ... then 10 seconds on the snow-covered car in the driveway. There has to be 15 of these establishing shots sprinkled throughout the movie, all used as transitions, all lasting 30 seconds or so combined, and in a movie that's already cutting it to the bone on length, this is not necessary. It feels like fluff to get it to a minimum threshold. Also, the buffet of ideas is a bit much. The grief of losing the son, him possibly haunting them (nicely), a story about the house they bought having a dark past, evil spirits, AND something sinister going on with the townsfolk, the mysterious hole in the basement foundation and the unnatural heat coming from it ... this movie is stuffed to the brim with plot. I can't say any of it is unnecessary, as it all plays a role, but at that short a runtime, it also feels like nothing gets a chance to breathe. They wanted an all-killer-no-filler movie with a lot of plot elements. Those two things don't work together by design. In the end, it won't wow you with its overall quality, but it was a fun watch. While the movie has some pacing issues and may be too big for its britches, it never falls apart or gets boring. Especially in the last 15 minutes, where it becomes chaos incarnate. That alone is worth the price of admission.