Black Mold review.
It’s been a minute since we talked trauma horror. Black Mold is here to relight the conversation.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Black Mold
Directed by John Pata
Written by John Pata
Starring Agnes Albright, Andrew Bailes, Jeremy Holm, Caito Aase, Maisie Merlock, Jessica Ambuehl and Shannon McInnis
Black Mold Review
The initial concept of Black Mold is an incredibly strong one. Two artists inspect abandoned buildings…photographing what they find inside. The door is thrown wide open for some good old-fashioned frights. When they reach their ultimate destination, a large complex abandoned for a decade, the setup couldn’t be any better. Wait for night to fall, turn the volume up on creaking floorboards and knocking sounds, throw some shadowed figures in the background…horror movie magic. The only problem is that none of that happens.
Black Mold begins with the purpose of featuring a spooky atmosphere and its lead characters. Later, it leans heavily into the latter to the detriment of the former. It becomes clear very quickly that atmosphere is the film’s strong suit. The chatter between photographers Brooke (Agnes Albright) and Tanner (Andrew Bailes) isn’t very good. While I can’t be certain what two artists talking to each other while a bit frightened should sound like…I suspect it wouldn’t be as forced and stilted as we see here. It improves somewhat over the course of the story…but it never becomes a highlight.
Which makes the story’s pivot to character over atmosphere even more disappointing. Brooke has a traumatic background. One that Black Mold explores through flashbacks, nightmares and conversations. The trouble with trauma horror is that it creates a box. Black Mold contorts itself to fit everything inside of that box. The simple, yet effective, premise of photographing creepy stuff in possibly haunted locations provides almost limitless freedom. The trauma box somewhat closes that off.
Brooke and Tanner visit the abandoned Franklin Hill to find a squatter living upstairs (Jeremy Holm). He knocks them out and destroys their film. He repeatedly raves about how “they” are looking for him. Brooke and Tanner are miles from civilization and are stuck there until their ride CJ (Caito Aase) returns. When Brooke sees CJ pull in, they run to the car to find…nothing. This is the start of Black Mold trying to have its cake and eat it too. It still wants to deliver the scary atmosphere…but now everything has to be through the trauma lens…or feel unimportant.
For example, the vagrant upstairs calls Brooke by the same nickname that her father did. Her trauma is connected to her father’s suicide. Black Mold goes one step further and has Holm play both the man upstairs and Brooke’s father in flashbacks and nightmares. It’s a neat trick. The man upstairs has a wild beard while the father is clean shaven. The performance is completely different too. But you can see the same eyes. It’s a very clever move…and it’s not the only one Black Mold has to offer. As long as it is inside the trauma box.
Tanner has his own set of misadventures while stuck at Franklin Hill. Fun diversions…but ultimately, they feel detached from the purpose of the story. Because…they are. His fears of scarecrows and werewolves come back in exciting ways. We even get an unexpected transformation scene…something that is always appreciated even if it is just Tanner’s mind playing tricks on him. Tanner never feels like he belongs inside the story of Black Mold. He exists to give Brooke someone to talk to…and that dialog isn’t worth his presence.
This is Brooke’s story. The further anything exists from her narrative the less effective it is. A lot of things work here…the conversations Brooke has with the man upstairs are far more interesting than with Tanner. The second half of Black Mold features a lot of their dynamic while Tanner is off having some fun adventures. Trauma horror can work, as this movie eventually proves. Is it better than wandering around abandoned buildings photographing creepy things? That’s in the eye of the beholder. If you can forgive a slow first half and a few extraneous parts…Black Mold is worth beholding.
Scare Value
Black Mold begins with a great horror premise. Photographers walking around abandoned buildings is a top-notch set-up for horror shenanigans. A bleak building promises continued creaky floors and dark corners. And then…we don’t get that at all. It turns towards the trauma of its lead character and never fully recovers. Strong scenes late in the story can’t quite recapture the early promise. Interesting…but never fully engaging.
3/5
Black Mold Link
Streaming on Tubi
