Panic Fest Film Festival Coverage
Spookt review.
A paranormal investigator joins forces with a skeptic to uncover the secrets of a local legend. That makes it sounds more exciting than it is.
Festival reviews will not contain spoilers.
Spookt
Directed by Tony Reames
Written by Torey Haas
Starring Christen Sharice, Haley Leary, Eric Roberts, Erin Brown, Keith Brooks, Davi Crimmins and Crystal Cleveland
Spookt Review
The dynamic between the believer and the skeptic is well tread territory. Chris Carter made a lucrative career out of presenting the travels of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully in The X-Files. Sure, the show doled out all manner of weirdness and unexplainable phenomena…but the chemistry between the two lead characters is what fueled the show’s success. Spookt also builds its narrative around the believer/skeptic dynamic. It is, again, the highlight of the piece. Unfortunately, the piece itself isn’t as strong.
Claire (Haley Leary) investigates the disappearance of a young girl within an allegedly haunted house. She teams with Rachel (Christen Sharice), a skeptic with no time for Claire’s beliefs. When spooky things start to befall them…they set out to uncover the truth about the house, the girl…and their own beliefs.
Spookt deals heavily in doling out lore. The small town has no shortage of local legends. It’s these legends that intrigue Claire…and make Rachel roll her eyes. Their partnership doesn’t come together overnight. It’s a deeply antagonistic relationship to start…mostly from Rachel’s direction. There is a case to work, however…and the two become closer and their characters more likable as the story progresses. It’s this arc that gives Spookt its best moments.
The lore itself works well too. The truth about what’s going on is, ultimately, interesting. The debates that Claire and Rachel have along the way hold your interest just enough to get you there. The biggest problem in Spookt is that it rarely engages you with its supposedly scarier moments. What’s disappointing is that the movie does have some fresh ideas to throw at you. It makes the amount of time we spend watching basic and well-worn moves frustrating.
Spookt spends a lot of time talking. That’s not a criticism. The dynamic between Claire and Rachel is better than the early attempts at horror it attempts. What they talk about is often more entertaining than what the movie shows. This isn’t idea, of course…but in this case it’s the lesser of two evils. The story revolves around a missing girl named Flora. We meet her mother and (eventually) learn all about the Gibson house in which she disappeared. Things take a long time to develop in Spookt. Too long given the lack of effective scenes.
A stronger climax would have helped. It would have, at least, left a better taste in your mouth when the credits rolled. The ending Spookt presents is a predictable one that seems to believe it isn’t. The worst kind of ending. It manages to be both unearned and feel rushed…despite the often-languorous journey towards it. Thankfully, Leary and Sharice manage to keep things watchable enough. They are fighting an uphill battle.
Spookt starts off using some tired horror tropes. A pale lady. A creepy doll. It doesn’t get more derivative or basic than this. There are better ideas later…but it’s difficult to engage when you’ve already started to check out. Simply put…there isn’t enough going on in Spookt to fill its 80-minute run time. Eric Roberts pops up (via video) to expand the more interesting aspects of the story. It happens so late in the story you’ll be forgiven for forgetting he’s the top billed actor in this movie. Outside of the relationship arc between the leads…Spookt rarely rises above passable fare in its first two acts.
Despite an ending that leaves you feeling disappointed…things do pick up in act 3. Spookt has an interesting enough spine to the story…it just constantly fails to add any meat to the bones. Revelations about the true nature of the house are intriguing. They’re worthy of more discussion than Spookt affords them. Its leads deserved it too.
Scare Value
Spookt is a lot of one step forward, two steps back. For every good conversation between its believer and skeptic…we get two scenes of tepid horror. By the time the movie gets down to more interesting business…it’s probably too late. Throw in an unsatisfying finale and you get the idea. For everything good…there’s too much that doesn’t work.
2/5
