There is a charmingly DIY nature to the production values in Slash/Back, a very low-budget thriller about a group of teenagers who face down a threat that, far from being extraterrestrial, is almost too terrestrial to be understood truly. This menace likes to take over the corpses of already-dead people or other mammals, such as a haunting moment involving a polar bear that suddenly spawns bodily features it should not have – a thin, snakelike protuberance from its mouth and eyes, for instance, and a black, tarry substance in the place of blood. The climax of co-writer/director Nyla Innuksuk’s movie features people taken over by this alien being that emerged from the ice on the edge of the Arctic Circle.
Written by the director and Ryan Cavan, the film is noteworthy for featuring an exclusively Indigenous cast, and for that matter, it takes place and was the first feature to be filmed partially in Pangnirtung, a hamlet (known as “Pang” to those who live there) located in the Qikiqtaaluk region of Nunavut, located on Baffin Island in Canada. Innuksuk, making her feature debut here, certainly imbues every inch of what happens with a sense of place and region, as well as an affection for the cultural landmarks that define everything about this setting. That sense certainly bolsters what becomes a fairly imbalanced action-adventure, embroiling us in some preteen melodrama in between scenes of running and hiding and fighting back.
At least the performances from the young actors at the center of the movie possess a certain sincerity that cannot be faked. The most important pair of kids in this group are the rebellious and street-smart Maika (Tasiana Shirley) and the still-learning Uki (Nalajoss Ellsworth), who (following a prologue in which an American man, played by Kristian Bruun, is rather brutally killed by the tentacled monster) find themselves in direct danger. The creature nearly kills a little girl while in the form of that polar bear, and from there, it moves through Pang, exclusively affecting the adults when it transfers from animals to humans, with a sense of routine that eventually overtakes the movie in which it finds itself.
Elsewhere, these kids – who also include the likes of Leena (Chelsea Prusky) and Jesse (Alexis Wolfe) – deal with regular kid stuff, like crushes and punishments and parties and everything that a group of juvenile protagonists might have to deal with. This assuredly gives much of the film a low-wattage, low-stakes “vibes only” feel – which would be fine, if not for the occasional intrusion of a zombified body coming to feed on their viscera or appendages. As a result, the action scenes feel like a distraction from the interpersonal drama, which in turn seems like the movie spinning its wheels until a new threat arises.
There is much to celebrate about Slash/Back – not only its upfront representation of a culture and a people whose films almost assuredly don’t receive the fairly significant release that this one has, but also its loyalty to use what must have been a miniscule budget on an affair that is almost entirely devoted to set pieces built from practical effects work. One only wishes the priorities of the story being told were as carefully thought out as the film’s aesthetic accomplishments.
Photo courtesy of RLJE Films
The post Slash/Back appeared first on Spectrum Culture.