One of the cardinal sins of supernatural horror is overexplaining disturbing phenomena. Fear of the unknown is a powerful thing. Part of what makes The Exorcist so iconic is its lack of explanation for why a demon would possess an innocent little girl. The Conjuring provides more origin backstory than is necessary for its malevolent entity, but the James Wan film makes up for it through its aesthetic, atmosphere and strong acting performances, none of which can be said about The Unseen.
The product of fledgling Chicago-based production company Lakefront Pictures, and the directorial debut of Vincent Shade, The Unseen tries to combine supernatural horror with a mystery thriller, and it fails spectacularly at both. Written by Jennifer A. Goodman, who also produces and plays a supporting role, the film’s stilted script and contrived plot points are only worsened by poor acting performances, even if there’s at least one familiar face among the cast of this woeful straight-to-streaming cheapie.
A decade after he last played the son of a father who broke bad, RJ Mitte stars here as graduating law student Tommy, a son whose father is simply all bad. Whereas his turn as Walter Jr. in Vince Gilligan’s masterful AMC series Breaking Bad involved a nuanced contempt doled out by a father who at least superficially loved his family, Mitte’s Tommy does not experience any such complexity of character. As flat as Tommy may himself be, his father (William Mark McCullough) is wildly more one-dimensional, seething as he does with pure malice that fuels emotional and physical abuse to an almost mustache-twirlingly villainous degree. A powerful attorney, he hostilely belittles Tommy at every turn as the young man—somewhat paradoxically, as a prospective employer points out—tries to both chart his own path while also following in his father’s lawyerly footsteps.
Then Tommy begins losing long stretches of time. He blacks out for entire evenings, unable to recall leaving the house, and often wakes up back at home disheveled and roughed up. What’s more, a string of murders begins in the area, the victims often having some tenuous connection to Tommy and his family. Could the two be connected? It’s no spoiler to reveal that they obviously are, given the way the film is laden with exposition and telegraphed plot. The murders also might just have something to do with Tommy’s eyes going milky white during the witching hour.
The info dumps in this film are incessant, with each line of dialogue explaining the exact parameters and context of each relationship and interaction. And even nonverbal moments in the film are guilty of this, with one laughable scene where Tommy reads a “Top Story” online about how his psychiatrist (Christian Stolte) was admitted to the hospital following a suicide attempt, as if such things typically receive journalistic coverage. Naturally, Tommy had visited the man for a hypnotherapy session that went awry earlier in the day.
By the time Tommy’s new work buddy Olivia (Kimberly Michelle Vaughn) starts experiencing chronological gaps as well, it’s difficult to care about the outcome of this ineffective mystery. Yet, The Unseen continues to insist on telling and not showing, belaboring the specifics of what is causing these supernatural disturbances when it should’ve left much more unsaid.
Photo courtesy of Lakefront Pictures
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