Archons

No filmmaker sets out to create “content;” by any standard it’s an insulting term.  But streaming services are a black hole needing to be filled and, at the very least, it gives artists an opportunity to fine tune their craft and exposure on a scale beyond the festival circuit.  So how writer/director Nick Szostakiwskyj slipped between the cracks is a bit of a mystery.  His first film, Black Mountain Side (2014), was an ambitious low-budget take on the H.P. Lovecraft mythos that’s still available at the click of a button.  But his follow-up, Archons (2018), was held up from any sort of release for years.  How long?  Well, someone takes a selfie with a flip phone.

Tired and uninspired after a worldwide tour, members of the one-hit wonder band Sled Dog take a canoe trip through the Canadian wilderness to get their mojo back.  Tensions within the group are already running high, but things get even worse when their plan to drop acid at each of the four checkpoints inspires paranoid delusions that native American demons are tracking their journey.  Real or imagined, people start to die and the survivors have just as much to fear from each other as whatever is lurking in the woods.

 

As The Blair Witch Project proved, you can get miles of production value out of a few tents and creepy sound effects.  But Szostakiwskyj’s camera work is beautifully controlled, taking advantage of the landscape – what we see and don’t see – with the expertise of a far more experienced director.  Even his handling of the actors turns what should have been expendable 20-something characters into something much more interesting.

 

Unfortunately, it’s at about the one-hour mark when everything falls apart.  The “monsters” are revealed, characters react out of character and all of the film’s carefully orchestrated paranoia goes out the window.  Toss in a vague-at-best finale and Archons (the title referring to creatures that prevent souls from leaving the material realm…at least according to Wikipedia) is the architect of its own creative destruction.  

 

But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth seeking out for horror fans looking for something more than “content.”  Archonswas obviously made by someone with an affinity for the genre and ambition to do more than just add more jump scares.  And it’s finally available on to own courtesy of MVD, albeit with on a barebones DVD with nothing more than a trailer.  Still, after this long a wait it’s a creepy treat.

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