The King Tide mines is intriguing premise for maximum tension.
Listen at the podcast providers of your choice.
I think it's fair to say that a lot of modern horror is light on subtlety. Either we're diving face first into supernatural grief metaphors or we're tossing a parade of children into a wood chipper for the latest Terrifier or Terrifier-inspired flick. And there's a 50/50 chance we're going to include a synth score to potentially trigger nostalgia somewhere in that lizard brain. And to be clear, I love the horror genre and where it's at right now. It's more popular and profitable than ever and the fan base has never been bigger. What I am saying is that sometimes I dig a slow burn that dives into some different ideas about humanity. Like this little indie gem from Canada called The King Tide.
The Setup
Taking place on an isolated island colony off the coast of Canada, the film opens with a miracle. After his wife loses a pregnancy, the mayor of the town discovers an abandoned baby girl washed up upon the shores. But once he takes her in, he and the town quickly realize that the young girl, Isla possesses incredible gifts. Gifts that ten years later...threaten to tear the town apart...
There's a lot to like in this movie. Most of which centers around its central idea, which I'll get to. But to start I want to highlight what makes this movie so effective, despite being made on the cheaper side.
Get Talented Actors
I think there's an unfortunate tendency to lean on certain kinds of actors for movies like this. Either you get nothing but young hungry actors who will work for very little, you make locals in your community part of the deal. The King Tide, however, brings in a nice blend of semi-familiar faces for our leads along with a slew of quality character actors. All of whom look and feel like a real small town collection of people. This is also essential becuse the movie is very light on expositional dialogue, and often conveys character's feelings via things like eye movement or body language. And they all do an excellent job. Speaking of which.
Excellent Exposition Weaving
Movies like this have a tendency to exposition dump. Often through something like voice over narration. It's a rip the bandaid off approach that means your audience can dive right in. But that also defuses a lot of the uncertainty and tension around what's going on here. Which is likely why The King Tide goes for option two, weave in that exposition via the plot. The first scene after the time jump is a great example.
After the time skip we transition to the young girl Isla now a school aged girl going through her normal routine. Which is...meeting time with the townspeople who come bearing gifts. Playing with a friend. And so on and so on. It's a move that both sets a standard that can be upended once Isla's abilities are not working as expected, and also gives the audience pretty obvious visual hints for what's going on around here.
From there, director Christian Sparkes just lets the audience stew in the discomfort as grievances come to a head and the town's situation becomes more unpredictable.
And now, we get to the premise...aka the reason this movie really stands out.
A Fascinating Deconstruction of Faith
So minor spoiler ahead here. Not one that would take much time to find out in the movie, but it's kinda essential to know considering what the movie is all about.
The hook for The King Tide is that Isla literally has magical healing powers. She has others but that's the big one. If you're in proximity to Isla your wounds will heal instantly like a cut on your hand or even more debilitating illnesses.
Which is magical. But it's also clear that the town has built its faith around said abilities. That are possessed by a prebusent girl. Who also doesn't seem to understand how her abilities work. And now said abilities the town have relied on aren't reliable anymore.
It's basically a, what if Christ-like baby actually did appear to a town in need? Would it actually save them? Or would it actually weaken them? Make them more vulnerable to collapse?
That's the baseline that the movie no so subtley expands from as it dissects how this "miracle," may actually be a curse. Especially as Isla becomes less of a human and more of a savior....at a time that she really needs to be seen as human.
The movie also ratches up the tension with this idea by making our town an isolated from civilization situation where the options to leave or have disparates points of view are very slim.
There's a lot more I'd love to say about what I love about this idea and how the movie finds so many interesting avenues to explore, but that's getting into true spoiler territory.
The Verdict: Great Stuff
While it would be easy to highlight this film's ideas and filmmaking prowess, my real sell for this movie is that I came in completely blind and am still bouncing it around in my head two weeks later. It's a creepy affair with a lot going on. Highly recommend 8/10
No comments:
Post a Comment