Brendan Jesus
Panic Fest has knocked it out of the park this year with its selections. Even the films I haven’t been too keen on still found a way to stick out to me in a specific way. I don’t think I’ve seen a bad feature film yet this fest. That being said, every fest is going to have a film/some films that boldly stand out among the rest. It also just so happens that my three favorite movies from the lineup this year have all been bottle films.
Now, I’m going to say something that is probably a hot take. Maybe this will hurt some of my credibility, but I feel like it’s essential to get it out and over with. I’m…not a huge fan of Alfred Hitchcock. That’s not to say I can’t, or don’t, appreciate his oeuvre and what he was able to create for our genre. Hitchcock was the master of suspense, hell, he created film techniques that are paid homage to in children’s cartoons! When you hear Bernard Herrmann’s iconic Psycho score you can picture the shower scene from the film. His vertigo shot, from Vertigo, was referenced in Gravity Falls! So why don’t I particularly care for him?
To answer my question I think it would be best to take a step back and look at the film I’m trying to talk about Laced. This marks the second time during Panic Fest that I was familiar with a writer/director without even realizing it. I remember seeing writer/director Kyle Butenhoff’s co-written, and starring, slightly horror-adjacent comedy Quarantine – The Musical. It was pretty funny and well-written, a great parodical slice of life. Seeing Butenhoff, as Charlie, in Laced caused me to do a double-take. I knew I had seen his face before, and after a quick search on the interwebs, I realized where it was from. Butenhoff’s goofy overdramatic acting in Quarantine was fitting for that role, and I was curious if he’d be able to pull off, what seemed like, a very serious role. Add to all of this is on top of the fact Butenhoff wrote and directed Laced. A film like Laced is a huge undertaking for a directorial feature debut.
Molly (Dana Mackin) has decided enough is enough. Hatching a plan with a new friend, Molly decides she is going to kill her abusive boyfriend Charlie (Kyle Butenhoff). What they weren’t ready for was the snowstorm of a century, meddling relatives, and enough backstabbing to spawn a new type of salad dressing. Characters pop in and out at varying intervals, making us wonder what possibly insidious antics they were up to off-screen. Sometimes Butenhoff decides to show you what’s happening, and other times he lets you find out why someone exited the scene at the same time as the other characters. It almost feels like Butenhoff is playing cat and mouse with us, picking and choosing what to tell us and what not to; this creates an overall level of anxiety and giddiness.
So what’s up with all this Hitchcock discourse from earlier? Laced feels more Hitchcockian than some Hitchcock films do. Hitchcock weaves his ideas of fear, dread, and existentialism through shrouds of suspense, but at a cost that loses me as a viewer. There is a disconnect I find between his words and his visuals, I don’t feel the weight of his words portrayed properly through his unique visuals. On the other hand, Laced is one of the most Hitchcockian films I have ever seen, while still feeling original.
Let’s break down those two aspects—words and visuals—within Laced. Script wise Butenhoff wrote a very tight and refined story, with well-rounded characters. At first, I was feeling Victoria (Hermione Lynch) was flatly written with an uninspired performance, but as the film went on and Butenhoff’s maze of a story unfolds I found the depths of the character hidden under the surface. This was due in part to the writing and Lynch’s fully realized performance. On the other hand, Austin (Zach Tinker) was a blast from his entrance to his exit. While I feel that there was little to no improv to this film, as each action and line of dialogue is necessary, Tinker’s performance was an absolute delight and feels very heat of the moment. When it comes to a Hitchcockian film/story there isn’t usually a level of humor to it. Tinker brings a himbo level of levity, but is serious when needed, to this very somber (and semi) good-for-her story.
Saying each line of dialogue is necessary doesn’t mean if you miss a line you’re going to miss an important plot element, but it might alter your interpretation of the constant character arcs amalgamating before our eyes.
We’ve taken a look at the story and script, and how there is importance on the words and the actions accompanying them. But we all know that’s only part of a film, if the visuals aren’t there then it doesn’t matter what the story is. The weight of Butenhoff’s script is there and it meshes perfectly with the visuals from his direction and Sam Robinson’s cinematography.
From the opening vertigo shot to a perfectly placed wooden pillar separating a shot in half, the look of Laced is almost neo-noir; it feels very old-school horror with dashes of elevation and lacking the pretension that comes with it. Being a bottle film, Butenhoff and Robinson takes this wide-open indoor space and still find ways to make it feel closed off and claustrophobic. Each shot has relevance, and nothing feels like a filler shot. Even the B-roll feels visually important. And I think that’s what I appreciate about Laced so much. At no point did I feel as if there was a shot, line of dialogue, or character moment that felt out of place included to pad out the runtime.
There has been a lot of talk throughout this review about Hitchcock and I want to take another step back on this idea. This isn’t just a film that takes Hitchcockian tropes and throws them on script and screen to make a hodgepodge porridge of Hitchcock. Laced takes the ideas and soul of Hitchcockian ideals and made them their own. We’ve all seen the vertigo shot before, but why? More often than not there’s no need for that shot, but it was in that one film that made genre history so let’s use it. Laced runs with these ideas and gives them a new purpose. This film is more than just Hitchcockian. I have no doubt Laced will be taught in film schools across the globe as to how you can take overused ideas and make them feel fresh and relevant.
Laced is a horror-adjacent emotionally thrilling rollercoaster ride. You will feel an overwhelming sense of dread and anxiety through the character interactions, Butenhoff’s words and directing, and Robinson’s cinematography. It was not until the final shot of the film that I felt a twisted sense of relief. I would love to see Laced as a stage play, I think it would be interesting to see how the words can feel on their own without assistance from the intriguing visuals. Keep your eye on this film and the careers of the people involved…they’re just getting started.
