On October 19th, 2003, in the town of One Season, Jack (Jack Rawlinson) goes for a swim and disappears beneath the waves. Three weeks later, he returns without an explanation and no knowledge of what has happened to him in the intervening time. Four years on, Jack is eking out a reclusive existence, but the unresolved mystery of a wave of missing teenagers still hangs over the place and the past is about to catch up with Jack, whether he likes it or not…
From the team of Myles McEwen and Ripley Stevens, who provided last year’s Spirit Of Independence opener Nightfall: A Paranormal Investigation, Haunted is another delve into small town, supernatural Australian strangeness and, although its structure is similar to Nightfall’s, with the main action being spread over seven days, this sophomore feature is more avant garde than its predecessor, relying less on a structural template for chills and pushing the expected shocks into the shadows of a story about the devastating effects of loss.
Not only does Haunted skip back and forth between two timelines, but it also blends the potentially ghostly happenings with conspiracy theories from an online source called Channel 333 which focuses on the possibility that, because of all the weird events in One Season, the town is genuinely cursed. It’s an idea that isn’t overdeveloped as the story moves on, but there’s always the suggestion that it’s a place that’s slightly out of time and ripe for various dreadful things to befall its unsuspecting residents.
Much of the action centres on following Jack around on his daily routine and there are lengthy passages where Rawlinson is left to carry the weight of the film but he does so admirably, showing Jack’s heartbreakingly closed-off approach to life with a deal of subtlety. Fate deems that his path crosses with that of Dave (Joseph Baronio), the friend who was with Jack when he vanished and who is now in a job that has him show up at the run down building where Jack has taken up residence, as the surrounding area is soon to be redeveloped. The awkward reunion between Jack and Dave is nicely played and their sporadic meetings thereafter are resonant, with economical but poignant dialogue that demonstrates just how terrible blokes are at dealing with psychological issues.
If the first act of Haunted hints that most of the proceedings will be left to the imagination, a couple of plot swerves drop the viewer into some very gnarly territory indeed as a middle section reveal switches the pace and tone, throwing a different perspective on to the earlier speculation about some of One Season’s chequered history. In other movies, this run of scenes would end the movie but here in Haunted, it’s another ghastly coincidence in Jack’s seemingly endless stretch as a magnet for tragedy.
The jumps between spectral mystery, crime thriller and psychodrama may have some thinking that Haunted is searching for an identity of which it isn’t sure – however, that feeds into Jack’s search for meaning in a world he feels he’s outside of. The obvious reveals about how Jack may have changed following his reappearance don’t materialise and the sudden escalation in various aspects of the tale show that One Season moves on with or without him.
Similar to Nightfall, it’s only when we reach the last act where Haunted moves into slightly more conventional horror territory and, like that movie, there’s an extended showdown as Jack is confronted with a situation that makes him face up to how much he feels his life is actually worth. If anything, the climax is a little too long, but if you’ve seen Nightfall, this follow-up pulls out an ending you may not be expecting, considering what’s gone before. This ushers in another tonal shift which leads to a closing scene that I felt was thoroughly earned, but might pull the rug from under those who were craving something much darker.
Still, Haunted is another fine piece of work from Myles McEwen and Ripley Stevens, all the more so for eschewing that second film syndrome of going bigger, louder and flashier. It’s still unnerving in all of the right places, with its eerie setting and use of silence only contributing to the unsettling ambience. Even the sheep seem to be in on it, the one which Jack notices staring back at him in an alarming way. Anyone thinking this filmmaking team is about to head in a more mainstream direction with their latest could not be more wrong and I was left wondering if they’re planning a third chiller which is even more esoteric than this.
Haunted opens this year’s Spirit of Independence Film Festival in Sheffield. For more details, please click here.