Review: Blight

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2022
Images from the Interne

Blight
Directed by Jeff Van Gerwen
Strange Door Films
75 minutes, 2022
www.facebook.com/BlightFilm

When starting out as a filmmaker, as this is Van Gerwen’s debut feature after a music video for Joystick and a few shorts, the style he employs makes total sense. Blight is essentially broken into three intermingled parts.

To start, there is the found footage type of style where a gaggle of seven twenty-something friends get together to go camping on the subtext of hopefully seeing aliens because there is to be a solar eclipse. The second, in spurts, is that same scary night and whatever happened then to members of the group. Then the third, and main body of the story, is a coming home party for Logan (Ashley van Kirk), who had mysteriously disappeared during the camping trip for a while, spent a year in an asylum, and has now come back as a shell of her former outward self. This section is not found footage per se, but it is obviously done on a hand-held camera.

Our initial grouping is: Logan and her boyfriend and the person doing the found footage filming, Luke (Joel Crumbley). The obnoxious self-leader of the group is Mark (Tripp Karrh), whose girlfriend is Tara (Kalee Griffin). Then there is Harrison (Kristin Calhoun), whose musician boyfriend is Tien (Han-Sam Jung). The seventh-wheel to start is Harper (Erika Ramirez).

Ashley van Kirk

This group is loud, obnoxious, and full of themselves, but they are also curious about what happened to Logan, who is reticent to disclose both the events of that night, and what has been going on since. And when she gets upset, things begin to happen, like lights flickering and the house shaking, for a start. I was amused when Mark asks “Was there a launch?” This wasn’t really explained, but I knew what he meant because, according to IMDB, it was filmed at Cocoa Beach, FL (does Jeannie and Major Nelson live nearby?).

To be honest, at first, I was a bit dismayed by the whole found footage part, and even the welcome home party dragged through a game called “Mafia,” but then it started to pick up nicely into the second act, until being really taut and suspenseful for the third act. So, despite the slow start, it really revved up by the half-way point. Being a relatively short film, that isn’t too long a wait.

Most of the cast are relatively new to film, but they all do a good job, especially considering that most of the dialogue is ad libbed. The range of emotions is wide, and they all certainly hold their own. That helps the film enormously.

Joel Crumbley

I have always wondered why on found footage releases, the camera keeps cutting out with digital noise. Mine has never done that. Is it supposed to be an indicator of its own style? As the director has stated, the film was shot over a 4-night and single afternoon period, with only 20 minutes of dialogue pre-determined. It was finished as the 2020 COVID lockdown began. Being locked in your house is a good way to get through post-production (every cloud…).

This is part social construct between these friends, part mystery, part horror. There are a couple of really nice red herrings leading to a thrilling tie-up that may not be what one is expecting; I saw it coming, though, but it did not hamper my enjoyment of the second half.

The film is available for free on TubiTV.

IMBD Listing HERE