Deadrise (2011) - 3/4

Horror films have long been associated with nightmares, so much so that some critics analyze them as one would a dream. The ease with which horror films depart from normality and what we perceive to be our reality lends them a generally oneiric quality. Some horror films, playing off this tradition, deliberately introduce ambiguity between dream and reality. From Europe, Bergman's Hour of the Wolf and Valerie and Her Week of Wonders are prime examples. From America we have Carnival of Souls, which we discover is ultimately a nearly feature-length death dream, Mulholland Dr., and Slumber Party Massacre II.

Deadrise is a languid, almost hypnotic, horror-drama, starring Xena's Renee O'Connor as Paula and According to Jim's Larry Joe Campbell as Vigs, firmly planted in the tradition of Ambiguous Reality horrors. What there is of a plot is quickly summarized: Paula is looking into an old ship for the historical society when a piano is dropped on her car and she's forced to stay on the ship, with its caretaker Vigs, having one surreal nightmare after another. As in Slumber Party Massacre II and Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, the films Deadrise most resembles, we're rarely certain whether she's still dreaming or awake.

The film begins with Paula taking a celebratory lunch, alone, in a hotel restaurant. She gets some spicy salmon, shows the waiter a picture of her daughter, checks out his ass, then falls asleep following a report on blood-sucking eels. We never see her wake up. The film simply cuts to Paula's drive toward the ship. Perhaps all that follows the blood-sucking eels is a dream. Moreover, when the piano falls on her car, the long shot reveals no-one standing beside the car. Cut to a medium shot and suddenly Paula is there. Perhaps the continuity girl was hit by a bus or, more likely, Brauer is giving us a taste of Carnival of Horrors, by which I mean Paula could have died there and all that follows is a death dream. After meeting Vigs and being given a room, she goes to sleep and we're then treated to an arabesque of dreams-succeeding-dreams until the end of the film. Perhaps, too, everything up to this point is reality and what follows are the dreams.

Defining where reality ends and dream begins is important in such films for determining just what information, if any, we have about a character outside of what the dream reveals. If gestalt theory tells us everything in a dream is a depiction of oneself, then one needs the paten to decode the dream; and that paten is some significant knowledge of the dreamer's conscious life. All we know of Mary Henry in Carnival of Souls is that she's an organist and dies in a car crash. Of Courtney, in Slumber Party Massacre II, however, we know that she lost her sister and witnessed the murders in the first Slumber Party Massacre. And of Valerie we know that she's hitting puberty, is an orphan, and lives with her religious grandmother. In the cases of Courtney and Valerie, we can analyze the events of the films according to what we know of their consciousness: Courtney is working through the trauma of what she endured in the driller-killer murders and Valerie is working through her sexual awakening. With Mary Henry, all that we see, if it tells us anything about her soul, can only be very generalized, as we know so little about her.

All we know of Paula for sure is that she's had some success for the historical society, has a daughter who wants a puppy, ate the spicy salmon, and was disturbed by the blood-sucking eels. We could add her driving up to the ship. We could add further her meeting with Vigs and all he tells and shows her. Granted we have more information about Paula than we do about Mary Henry, the information we do have about Paula is yet not particularly salient as the cause of a psychosexual phantasmagoria. Unlike Courtney and Valerie, what we know of Paula's life does not seem sufficient to cause what we witness in the film, nor, by that token, sufficient to explain a lot of what we see.

At any rate, it's the viewer's pleasure, or not, to read the subconscious of the character of Paula on the screen. The momentum is a therapeutic one towards a sort of self-realization, the first important step of which, whether in dream or reality, occurs with the destruction of her car by a piano. The next is the loss of her cellphone in the water. Because we have so little relevant information on Paula and only minimal motivation to analyze Paula's subconscious journey to psychological or spiritual health, this aspect of the film can be mystifying, tedious, or simply uninteresting.

I made no effort at trying to understand Paula's issues, traumas, or crises, and chose to simply enjoy Paula's dreams for the quirky and amusing set pieces that they are: Paula attempts to dispose of some disgusting sausages, but finds her plate infinitely stocked; blood-sucking eels pour out of a shower; Vigs has several conspiracies going on involving the eels, poison, and sausages. These sequences are enjoyable, well-written, well-filmed, and creative within budget.

It is strongly to Brauer's credit that his style can be characterized by patience. While there are a few awkward edits and shots, particularly one in the restaurant, the shots never seem cut before their time; they're held as long as is needed for the performance to take place and sometimes held beyond what the subject requires. The camera's position is rarely obtrusive, its movements fluid and congenial to the physical surroundings. This generosity with time allows the viewer to get a feel for the space in which the characters inhabit, for the environment acting upon them. We also get a sense of depth to the characters, a feeling that they're really thinking before they speak. There's a reality and genuineness to the film that gives one a real feeling of being there.

Nevertheless, the pacing will be boring to many viewers. What keeps the film from becoming boring is a strong sense of wit in the writing, a wit expertly handled by Campbell and O'Connor, both veterans in television comedy. They have interesting screen chemistry, reacting to one another's thoughts and ideas in a very amusing way. Campbell, as the highly eccentric Vigs, is particularly funny. The character is just so odd and yet oblivious of his oddness; Campbell seems to be channeling a bit of Chris Farley here.

If one enters this film with the right temperament and expectations, ready for more mood and character than thrills, more surrealism and oddness--sometimes funny, sometimes grotesque--than horror, one should have an good time. Though certainly not as sophisticated as Valerie and Her Week of Wonders or Hour of the Wolf, Deadrise is an enjoyable hour and a half spent aboard a derelict with two interesting people--or maybe it's just one person--and, of course, their dreams.