Brooklyn Horror FF 2018: THE CLOVEHITCH KILLER Review – Domestic Horrors Lie Behind White Picket Fences
Anya Stanley
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Starring Charlie Plummer, Dylan McDermott, Samantha Mathis
Written by Christopher Ford
Directed by Duncan Skiles
Tyler (Charlie Plummer) is a teenage Boy Scout and a good Christian lad who stops to help turtles cross the road. He enjoys a good relationship with his perfect Scoutmaster dad Don (Dylan McDermott) in his perfect white bread house in his perfect white bread Kentucky suburb. Despite the warm father-son relationship, Tyler is a teenager and goes through the mini-rebellions that kids his age are wont to do. One night he swipes the keys to dad’s truck and takes a nice young girl out on a date. All hanky-panky is cut short when she discovers a disturbing bondage-heavy pornographic photo in the truck. The rumor mill starts up and before Tyler knows it, he’s a social pariah, the town “perv.” The photo isn’t his, though, and so he investigates its origin which leads him to discover that the “perv” is his old man. What’s worse, his sleuthing leads to the shocking revelation that his father may be connected to a slew of local cold case killings by a BTK-esque serial murderer known as The Clovehitch Killer.
It’s a lot for a boy to take in.
Director Duncan Skiles crafts a harrowing deconstruction of suburbian utopia in this 2018 gem, with the immediacy of I Am Not A Serial Killer (sans tar creatures) and the tone of My Friend Dahmer. The deceptive presence of All-American domesticity is a running theme throughout the film, with clever motifs embroidered throughout: an answering machine plays a loving wife’s message while the camera slowly pans back to reveal a full layout of items for a killing; a predator sneaks into a bedroom and pounces on his prey as commercials mindlessly ramble on in the background; a woman is tortured, screaming, but all that can be heard outside her picturesque house is the mindless drone of a nearby lawnmower. Suburban white noise is as heavy in the score as composer Matt Veligdan’s foreboding twilight charms.
Clovehitch is a film comfortable in the vast expanse of silence, and comfortable with making the audience uncomfortable with every utensil clink on a fine china plate during a family dinner. Cinematographer Luke McCoubrey’s talent for hiding danger in plain sight works beautifully in tandem with the theme of deceptive American serenity. Shots of domestic spaces are tightly framed with molasses-slow pushes lending a claustrophobic air to the already constricting tone of the film. Don is often staged silhouetted with his back to the light source, a community leader casting an ominous shadow. Every shot in the film has intent; the technical prowess on display cannot be overstated.
This is a film that leans heavily on both narrative and cast. Christopher Ford’s screenplay revels in disquieting subtext; with every disturbing discovery that Tyler makes in his inquiries, Skiles gives layers to routine cringe-worthy rites of passage like the awkward-sex-talk-with-Dad (“It’s okay to have thoughts…it’s just monkey stuff, right?”). Two powerhouse performances tag team the tangible-but-flawed characters. Dylan McDermott is as methodical in his performance as his character is in his secrecy, equally matched by Charlie Plummer’s pure-hearted naivete in Tyler. Skiles has high confidence in the ability of both actors to hold the frame and, as a result, rewards the audience with long, sustained takes for maximum emotional impact. An unsung hero in the cast is Samantha Mathis as family matriarch Cindy, the domestic anchor just trying to hold the family together. Mathis’ heartfelt delivery gives the film’s denouement its grounding tether, and as such Cindy deserves as much recognition as the two principal characters.
With Duncan Skiles’ craft for rendering the abstract into the crystal clear, The Clovehitch Killer is one of the most technically flawless horror films of 2018. It is a film of layers, each one peeled away to more inconvenient truths about the misleading comfort of domestic happily-ever-afters and about reconciling the head with the heart. Watch it in the false comfort of your own home when available, for maximum effect. Spoiler alert: you’re not as safe as you think you are.
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THE CLOVEHITCH KILLER
Summary
The Clovehitch Killer is a slow-burn masterpiece of craft and tension, easily the most technically flawless horror film of 2018.
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