JP Nunez
When you watch a slasher movie, you know you’re pretty much going to get a guy going around killing people. When you watch a zombie film, you can be pretty sure you’re going to get some sort of apocalyptic scenario where the undead are taking over the world (or at least the town). But when you sit down for a ghost movie, you never know what it’s going to be until you actually watch it. Ghost films can be anything from haunted house chillers to supernatural slashers to cheap love stories, and that’s why I was intrigued by Double Walker. It didn’t look like anything I had ever seen before so I really wanted to find out what spooky new delights this movie had to offer.
Double Walker was directed by Colin West, and it stars Sylvie Mix, Maika Carter, Quinn Armstrong, Justin Rose, Tina Matthews, and Jacob Rice. It’s about a young ghost who was given two choices upon her death: either spend one last day as a human and then be gone from this world, or remain a ghost forever. She chose the latter, and as she walks the earth, she stalks and kills the men she thinks were responsible for her death. However, one day she meets a kind young man named Jack, and he shows her how nice a normal life can be.
From that brief synopsis, you might suspect that Double Walker is a sappy, almost Hallmark-esque love story, but it’s nothing of the sort. While the plot does lean slightly in that direction at times, the movie always knows when to pull away. It just gives you bits and pieces of the love story angle and it quickly goes back to the good stuff every time.
I’d even go so far as to say that it’s much closer to a slasher film than a sappy love story. While the body count isn’t huge, it’s respectable enough, and the ghost attacks her victims with ruthless efficiency. There are even a few kills that are shot quite beautifully, so if you like seeing beauty juxtaposed with brutality, you’re going to enjoy this movie.
In fact, the cinematography is a strength of the film throughout its entire runtime, even when the ghost isn’t killing people. Double Walker is just beautiful to look at, and that beauty helps create a dreamy, dare I say even ghost-like atmosphere from beginning to end. It’s pretty captivating, so even when the story took some dips in quality, I was always able to enjoy the sheer act of watching this movie.
On top of that, the performances are all pretty good too, and I have to give special mention to Sylvie Mix. She plays the ghost and she’s excellent. When the film begins, she seems to just float through her scenes with a detached air that feels appropriate for a ghost, but soon enough, she does a complete 180 and goes full-on supernatural killer. Then, after she meets Jack, she starts to display a more human side and begins to act more like a living person than a vengeful spirit. From there, Mix goes back and forth between those different states over and over again, and she absolutely nails it every time. She gives a wonderful performance from beginning to end, so it’s super easy to buy into her character and the journey she takes.
Last but not least, I want to commend something I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned in a review before. For the first 20 or 30 minutes of Double Walker, there’s almost no exposition, so you’re not entirely sure what the film is actually about. You have to pay close attention and piece it together on your own, and it takes a little while to figure everything out.
Now, in a lesser movie, that could very easily be a weakness, but in this one, it’s actually a strength. I don’t mind exposition nearly as much as a lot of other people do, but even I really appreciated the way this story lets us think for ourselves rather than just spoon-feeding us what we need to know. It makes for a fun, almost interactive experience that we don’t often get in modern horror cinema, and everything comes together quickly enough that the effort never becomes exhausting.
All that being said, I do have to admit that Double Walker also has its fair share of flaws. In particular, there are two that really stood out to me and kept it from cracking my top 10 horror films of the year. For starters, the movie doesn’t always follow the rules it sets up. To take just one example, the ghost is supposed to be invisible to everyone except believers and sinners, but there are a few times when it seems like some pretty bad people are unable to see her.
More importantly, the ending is very unclear. To be honest, I’m not even sure what happens in the last few scenes. The story takes some unexpected twists that seem to cancel each other out, so I would need to watch it again to understand what’s really going on. And since the plot is unclear at the end, the film’s message is pretty muddled as well. It seems to have something to do with the beauty of humanity and the importance of living your life, but since I’m not entirely sure what happens, I’m not sure what it’s supposed to mean either.
But in the grand scheme of things, those two flaws are far outweighed by everything Double Walker gets right. While the movie isn’t quite as good as it could’ve been, it’s still a beautiful drama-horror that excels in both genres, so if you’re a fan of unorthodox ghost stories that take their specters in new and exciting directions, I definitely recommend checking this one out.
Double Walker hits VOD and select theaters on November 12.
