Absentia
(2011) 87 Min.
Rated: R (gore)
Country: USA
Director: Mike Flanagan
Starring: Catherine Parker, Courtney Bell, Dave Levine
Links: IMDB | Wikipedia
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Tricia’s husband has been missing for seven years and the neighborhood foot tunnel seems to be related.
Synopsis:
After the disappearance of her husband seven years prior, Tricia (Bell), is about to pull down the “Missing” posters. She is pregnant and living alone. She is trying to come to terms with the disappearance of her husband Daniel. Her sister Callie (Parker) is a former drug addict and is moving in as Tricia is preparing to declare her husband dead in absentia.
They work together to find a new apartment for Tricia and to get a death certificate for Daniel. One day while Callie is jogging she enters a tunnel near Tricia’s home and she finds a thin man who is surprised Callie can see him. He asks for Callie to find his son, but Callie is frightened and runs off. Later she leaves food at the tunnel but the man is gone.
Callie discovers a pile of small metal objects on their doorstop, she assumes they were left there by the man in the tunnel, and she places them at the tunnel entrance. A man leaving a trash bag at the tunnel by advises her not to leave items there. Later Callie finds the metal objects on her bed when the house was empty. Callie and Tricia call the cops.
Detective Mallory, who has been investigating Daniel’s case, responds to the call and chastises the women for leaving their door unlocked in a dangerous neighborhood. He and Tricia have been seeing each other for some time.
Callie secretly relapses into drug use, and Tricia signs her husband’s death certificate. As Tricia steps out on a date with Mallory, a bloody and barefoot Daniel suddenly appears in front of their apartment.
Daniel is diagnosed as severely malnourished and abused. He’s released back into Tricia’s care, but he’s severely afraid of the tunnel and unirnates on himself at the sight of it. He won’t really talk about what happened to him or why he was missing. Tricia finds this extremely difficult to deal with.
Daniel later explains to Callie that she made a trade with an insectoid creature at the tunnel. Callie sees something move in the walls and it knocks her out. Later she sees it take Daniel. The police come and doubt her story after they find her stash of drugs. They believe she hallucinated everything.
Callie does extensive research on the internet regarding the area she lives in and missing people. She finds out theories about creatures that have lived in tunnels and underground that have preyed on humans for years. She finds out that Walter Lambert went missing in the area earlier and it was his son that she saw earlier with the bag near the tunnel. In her research she learned he claimed monsters took his father.
Suddenly Walter Lambert’s body appears but it’s mangled and twisted. Jamie Lambert, his son, is questioned and it’s found that he left pets as a sacrifice to the monsters to trade for his father.
Later the monster again enters the walls of Tricia’s house and attacks both women, capturing Tricia. She’s taken away and Callie is alone.
Callie files a missing persons report. She then decides to go to the tunnel and offer a trade. She offers herself in exchange for Tricia, but instead a bloody chuck of flesh is thrown down. It’s presumably Tricia’s fetus. Callie tries to run, but is caught and taken. Callie left behind an envelope of her investigations for police in case she disappeared.
Mallory investigates but is distraught. He decides instead to imagine that Tricia is somewhere living happily as he staples missing person posters up. Mallory thinks he sees Callie by the tunnel but on closer inspection she’s not there. Callie, meanwhile, is waiting by the tunnel. She watches Mallory as a large insect arm is placed around her shoulders.
Review:
Absentia isn’t exactly scary, but it definitely has some interesting concepts and is more of a horror melodrama. It’s slow pace and small budget means that most of the time the audience is left listening to the daily drama of Tricia and Callie’s lives.
Again, there’s nothing terribly new in concept here and honestly it reminded me a bit of the Burrowers. The monster itself is never really seen except for a few spindly bug-like appendages and that works for the film in some regards, but I don’t recall seeing the monster’s head and that would’ve been nice. I was also left wondering how exactly the people kept captive lived. And the idea that they were invisible sometimes but could appear other times was also a little underdeveloped.
Still, for a first time effort and low budget, this film is worth checking out for die hard fans of horror who want to see a decent low budget film. Despite the lack of scares there was a good build up of drama which could please some fans. Unfortunately I didn’t feel quite as entertained, but I still look forward to more thought provoking fare from this director within the genre.