The Presence (2010)
Directed by: Tom Provost
Written by: Tom Provost
Starring: Justin Kirk, Mira Sorvino, Shane West, Tony Curran
HCF may be one of the newest voices on the web for all things Horror and Cult, and while our aim is to bring you our best opinion of all the new and strange that hits the market, we still cannot forget about our old loves, the films that made us want to create the website to spread the word. So, now and again our official critics at the HCF headquarters have an urge to throw aside their new required copies of the week and dust down their old collection and bring them to the fore…. our aim, to make sure that you may have not missed the films that should be stood proud in your collection.
HCF REWIND NO.76. THE PRESENCE [2010]
AVAILABLE ON DVD AND BLU RAY
RUNNING TIME: 87 mins
REVIEWED BY: Dr Lenera, Official HCF Critic
Taking a break from her workaday life so she can focus on writing, a young woman goes to stay at a cabin in the middle of nowhere, a place that belonged to her grandparents and a place she spent some of her childhood at. As she gets into the slow, relaxing rhythm of life in this place, she is continually watched. The ghost of a man appears to observe her every move. He doesn’t harass her and remains unseen, but the woman begins to gradually be aware of his presence. Then her boyfriend turns up unexpectedly, something which the ghost doesn’t seem to happy about, while something else might also be in the house….
I can’t speak for my colleagues on this here website, but I’m ashamed to say I had never heard of The Presence, despite it boasting Daniel Myrick as ‘executive producer’ [which often just seems to mean someone put their name on it]. I suppose I pride myself on having seen more films and having heard of more films than some other folk, but this particular movie has totally passed me by. Actually it seems to have passed most people by, considering that not only did it bypass cinemas in most countries but at the time of me writing this review only has 29 member reviews on the IMD, something very surprising for a film from 2010 about a continually popular subject and starring a fairly well known actress. I actually picked this film up my local ‘Pound’ shop for, of course, just one pound, so one would expect it to be a pretty awful affair considering there were loads of copies on the shelf. Well, the film is certainly not a neglected masterpiece, but it is a rather interesting twist on the typical ghost story that certainly kept me intrigued all the way through even if in the end it was a little bit frustrating. It’s also rather mysterious in that there appears to be hardly any material available on the production of the film outside of the DVD extras, which I can’t wait to view hoping they will shed some light on this flawed but rather compelling chiller.
To enjoy a film like this you have to get into its rhythm and enjoy pictures which move at a very slow pace, because for a long time nothing really happens in this film. It’s possible that if I had watched this at another time, I would have lost patience with it somewhat, but I was in the mood for something leisurely and trance-like, especially as it was very late at night, perhaps the best time to watch a movie of this nature. For about 16 minutes there is no dialogue whatsoever and we just follow our unnamed heroine around as she settles into her solitary existence at the cabin. We are immediately aware that she is being watched, and constant shots of the ghost in the same frame as her are rather unnerving. In fact, the film does have a rather creepy atmosphere, especially in the early scenes, and manages it without the obligatory jump scares. As we see the presence appear more and more and the woman seems to become aware of it, the film’s pace remains calm, with the camera lingering on shots of the lake just outside the cabin, or of the cabin, or of the woman lit up by her lamp in a totally dark room, and constantly keeping a distance, so that at times we feel we could be the spirit, gazing somewhat impotently at this woman.
It soon becomes apparent that there is a forlorn sadness about this ghost. Who is he? There is a clue right at the beginning of the film, though I missed it and I’m not going to say that other interpretations are automatically wrong. The haunting spell is broken by the arrival of the boyfriend [also unnamed] and, while the ghost seems to get more and more angry, we learn more about the woman as she and her boyfriend reveal their fractured relationship. She was abused by her father as a child, and, possibly, by others in her family too, and understandably has a problem committing. There is a sense of gathering momentum as the ghost seems to begin to do things to the boyfriend, but only for a very short time, because the film than changes tact, and for a while becomes very strange indeed.
We sometimes seem to adopt the point of view of the ghost, and it’s most intriguing especially as he doesn’t seem to be entirely aware of his state of existence. He appears to be able to feed thoughts into people, and whispered sounds of human voices are heard on the soundtrack which are very unsettling indeed. He sees another presence in the house; there is a shot of this other ghost behind the woman which is very unnerving [the atmosphere and even the look of this film reminded me a great deal of The Others]. Who is this presence? Well, most folk will probably gradually work it out and I won’t reveal more except to say that the ghosts are not all necessarily actually ghosts [trust me, it’ll make sense….kind of] and the tale incorporates aspects which the limited budget cannot totally sell. It also becomes, and this is probably the heart of the tale, a story of a woman trying to deal with her past, to the point where I wondered if the ghosts were actually real or not. We see lots of things from the point of view of the main ghost, but is this all just going on in someone’s head?
There are some fascinating ideas in this film, such as ghosts being able to influence people’s actions. There are certain strands of the story which are left dangling, so that on one level this is a simple tale and on another level it’s extremely complex, but I didn’t mind that. Despite the solid emotional centre of the piece, I did find it unsatisfying, as if it needed a final act, or a section inserted around the middle of the film. The film doesn’t really give us the obligatory thrilling climax, and that’s rather refreshing, but it does also seem to have forgotten to be a horror film by then and overall feels incomplete. A far more serious problem is the performance by Justin Kirk as the boyfriend. While Mira Sorvino, never an actress I’ve rated very highly, is rather convincing as the female lead, Justin Kirk is so wooden as her bloke that for a while I wondered if he was a ghost himself, so inanimate was his performance. Shane West though has considerable….presence as the ghost, even when saying and doing virtually nothing.
This is a film that I think will bore many, and yet I enjoyed the dreamy spell it cast. There’s not even much dialogue, with cinematographer Collin Brick and composer Conrad Pope often seemingly being left almost alone to keep the film going. It basically starts out great and then gradually down hill, but this project does show evidence of care and even love in its crafting and I await writer/director Tom Provost’s next film [which at the moment is called Mr Clark and is apparently ‘ a dark version of It’s A Wonderful Life’, something which sounds very exciting indeed] with great interest. The Presence certainly did not deserve to slide into partial obscurity over two years. Now you might be surprised at me saying this, but I wonder if this film would benefit from being remade by Provost in a few years when he hits the big time?
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