‘Brightwood’ Review: A Simple Sci-Fi Premise Taken To Disturbing Extremes [Panic Fest 2023]
Mary Beth McAndrews
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Time loop films are mind-bending and terrifying, oftentimes appearing at random and without explanation. They’re deceivingly complex but can easily become contrived. Thankfully, writer and director Dane Elcar’s feature film debut Brightwood avoids the typical trappings of sci-fi time travel films and, while rough around the edges, crafts something surprisingly upsetting.
Jen (Dana Berger) and Dan (Max Woertendyke) are a married couple on the brink of destruction. As they begin their morning run, the vibes are immediately rancid as Jen runs in front of Dan with a sour expression on her face and a relationship advice podcast playing in her headphones. As they make their way to a local trail, Jen and Dan argue about his behavior the previous night and how tired she is of everything about him. Immediately Elcar establishes that these two people may have once been in love, but can no longer stand the sight of each other.
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As they make it to a trail around a pond, they quickly realize something’s wrong. They keep running around the pond, but never find the exit trail. No matter how many times they run or how carefully they look, they’re stuck in a repetitive time loop. But soon they start to see people in hoodies whose erratic behavior spans from silently standing in the woods to attacking them with makeshift weapons. The longer they spend in this loop, the more they realize the nature of their situation and how far they’ll go to survive.
At 84 minutes, it’s already lean but would benefit from an even tighter script or perhaps more gore. The end of the film gets downright disgusting and I wish Elcar had done that for more of the film. There are whispers of it earlier, but perhaps with a larger budget a gorier film could have been achieved. Balancing repetition in a time loop film is difficult because, well, it’s inherently about repetition. Elcar does mostly strike that balance but does briefly fall into those repetitive pitfalls of the subgenre.
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Even without that budget, Elcar’s script works to eschew typical time loop and time paradox horror films as he introduces more and more violence. While the relationship between Jen and Dan does fall into cliche and is perhaps the weakest part of Brightwood, Elcar subverts expectations of what happens with troubled married couples in any genre film. The writing is smart and tense, keeping you drawn into what exactly this couple is experiencing around the pond.
Berger and Woertendyke’s performances are grating, particularly at the film’s beginning, as they argue and make themselves one of those unbearable couples that you almost want to die. While that may be part of the film’s conceit, it’s a bit overacted and takes you out of the initial tension. The performances do improve as the horror grows, which helps build to the gnarly climax.
Brightwood is a shining example of effective low-budget horror with a nasty twist. It’s not perfect, but Elcar directs the hell out of this to deliver an effective sci-fi horror that isn’t afraid to be dark. Budget constraints may be apparent in some moments, yet the simple premise allows Elcar to stretch that budget as far as possible. This is a surprising piece of sci-fi horror that genre lovers need to keep on their radar.
Summary
‘Brightwood’ is a surprising piece of sci-fi horror that genre lovers need to keep on their radar.
