
The setting of the movie is very easily in the desert, which is precisely what happened to Joshua Erkman’s First Love. There’s far too little of what the protagonists touch upon as they come inextricably close to some sordid, dark, sordid affairs, still this declarative “neo-noir horror” begins drawing some very vague and aimless quite banal conclusions. The film tries to create an aesthetic that resembles Lynch’s ‘Lost Highway’ with supernatural elements but unfortunately does not have the tension and atmosphere to successfully execute such a daring tactic. Even so, those who are in favor of artsy Backroads-Thriller should continue to be helpful as it is the prime experience in the Midnight section for Tribeca Fest.
There’s the clue offered in segment one, but never as well developed again as to take finite shape in the progressive movement of the film, that what we are watching is some sort of film loop depicting purgatory that turns the unwary into a statue for eternity. Yet, we first meet Alex Clark (Kai Lennox) as he’s exploring a dark and dusty cinema depot in the expanse of Mojave. Two decades after his first photo novel “Death of the New West” was released, Clark went back to remote cinema locations in search of an audience not for his images but rather for the dead places. It is a solo journey with limited communication as he calls his wife Samantha (Sarah Lind) once every day for updates.
However, staying at a Budget Inn near Yucca Valley, it is hard for him not to notice the loud fights in the neighboring room at night. Confronting the receptionist of a motel (an astute and reptilian role played by Bill Bookston) as well as awkwardly confronting the tenants of a room next door: aggressive, wife-beater Renny (Zachary Ray Sherman) and scantily clad Susie Q (Ashley B. Smith). Convinced these two were siblings, it seems more like the relationship of a madam and a whore.
Somewhat paradoxically, Alex allows them to intimidate him into inviting them into his room and forcing him to drink an unnamed alcoholic beverage.
He gets up the next day, hanging in thick and even excruciating pain, and unable to recollect what utterly foolish actions he was a part of. But he fails to see the consequences of allowing Renny to take him to certain places “where no camera clicks”.
One week has passed and Sam gets worried about not receiving any notification from her husband except for a single message that was simply a train of words. The police are not much assistance, so in desperation, she contacts private investigator Harold Palladino (David Yow) to track down Alex’s whereabouts. Before too long, he is in a different motel room, meeting almost similar shady persons and roaming around almost the same alien localities, which includes a relatively old abandoned military base rumored to have some dubious practices. Finally, as she has spent enough time here, Sam too succumbs to the invite, and bad decisions are taken.
First-time feature filmmaker Erkman overlays the Benjamin pattern combining long and short to create a fantastic eye catch with deep storylines behind it, so that the audience does not get bored with repetitiveness. It is also constantly interesting to watch Jay Keitel’s camera work, which strategically matches the depiction style of Alex in the photos, while Tom Green’s Freedom Band supported with the modestly set score composed by Ty Segall also assisted Irish indie rock singer and musician “Ty Segall” perfectly.
However, the slow-burn strategy, so effective at the start, becomes disjointed in the end, when the action begins to rush and all the past waiting goes wasted.
There isn’t really much in the way of excitement or suspense, even after one’s curiosity regarding the bunker-like studio used for dubious transmissions is eventually, if somewhat illuminatingly, satisfied. Strikingly more unfortunate strokes of coincidence appear later in the narrative as well. There is, surely, some sort of threatening but vague malaise that the filmmakers intended to convey. They, however, were not directed well enough to pull it off. The storyline, in the end, gets lost into a rabbit hole which, instead of a trap, is more like a frustration a frustrating dry end that is muddled.
However, viewers are probably supposed to come out with the impression that there is a dark, overcomplicated, and possibly even criminal conspiracy in the film. The fading out of the picture definitely isn’t it for explaining what’s to be imagined. “A Desert” has its own weird moments, especially the unsurprising one a horror fragment, schlocky fire casting of James Landis in the 1963 cult classic, The Sadist, who is a creepy adolescent psychopath that terrorizes South California’s byways.
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