(image from IMDB.com)
Residue
Directed by Rusty Nixon
Year Released: 2017
Streaming Platforms: Netflix
Residue is a Canadian supernatural horror film centered around a centuries old cursed book and a low budget Private Investigator who was unlucky enough to read it. The overall atmosphere of the movie is much like the appearance of the book, dark, dingy and a bit vague. It a story that crams themes of monsters, demonic possession and daddy issues into one movie.
Though the action in this film is fluent, the actual plot is not. Our main man Luke (James Clayton) is a private investigator hired by a shady wrestling promoter Mr. Fairweather (Matt Frewer) to dig up dirt on a variety of apparently moral people. Luke then has the unfortunate pleasure/pain of obtaining the book from Mr. Fairweather and opens up a severe can of worms after reading the book himself.
There is the mysterious character of Lamont (William B. Davis) who has a strong connection to the book and rivalry with Mr. Fairweather, but his character ends up being too dull to even consider remembering in the beginning.
There are instances of reanimated corpses which are never explained and supernatural events, which again are never explained and. While this may cause confusion for the viewer, it is not a complete red flag for the movie.
It also doesn’t hurt that there is some quick-witted dialogue centering around Luke and other characters in the film. Most particularly the verbal exchanges between 2 of Lamont’s henchman, quirky sociopath Boston (Michael Matic) cold as ice type A personality Jacob (Costa Mandylor).
The amount of gore in this film is moderate but there is a very cool and cringe-worthy scene of a talking head, only more than 75% of the head is missing. As mentioned before, there are a good amount of fight scenes.
Performance wise I would say that though some of the interactions between Luke and Angelina can seem awkward, in some scenes they seem to have decent chemistry.
Themes of redemption, realization and forgiveness are played throughout the film, specifically with Luke hallucinations. The hallucinations paint a picture and provide some insight to Luke’s character and his internal struggles with his feelings toward his father and his own confidence as a father.
Residue is compelling enough to string the viewer along for the ride.
It’s not a solid 10 as far as horror comedies go but it’s worth viewing and trying to analyze films contents and perhaps build your own theories around it.
Rating: 3/5.
