LANDLOCKED Is Disturbingly Different

Writer/director Paul Owens’ first feature, Landlocked, fearlessly leaps into the deep with this fresh take on the familiar found footage theme. It’s billed as sci-fi horror, but goes further. You soon discover it’s not a ‘found footage’ setup; more interwoven past and present progressing, one unsettling element being the cast are the actual people in the clips interspersing the here and now, playing fictionalised versions of themselves. Same people, different eras. Confused yet? Then dig your nails in; we’re only just begun.

Beginning as it means to go on, the opening scenes are a grainy home movie montage; amateur camerawork, echoing, disembodied voices. Dad Jeff (Jeffrey Owens) is explaining how the family home’s to be demolished a year after his death. It’s arranged, paid for; and his kids should grab whatever they want before the demolition. It seems he has three sons; Seth (Seth Owens), Paul (Paul Owens), and the youngest, Mason (Mason Owens), all of whom seem close in the old films. Apparently.

Soon after arriving, Mason finds an old video camera and wanders to the pond in the garden, lost in memories of past family play. Raising the camera, he’s shocked to be viewing footage of one of those times through the lens. He looks again; no, he’s not imagining it. Entranced, he begins recording as many memories as he can, knowing the clock ticks ever closer to the end. But are his memories those of the youngest child, often seen through a rose-tinted lens? Is this a miraculous opportunity to capture his golden childhood moments, or is he in for some darker truths?

I’d be lying if I said I totally understood Landlocked. Much is unspoken; frustrating for critics of the non-linear. While I love a film that invites unpicking, too much of that can seem like artsy cop-out. For some reason I didn’t feel that here. There’s too much to ponder on to bother about everything making sense. A second viewing cleared a few things up, but eventually nothing really mattered except how it made me feel, which deep down is what we’re all after from any story.

Foremost, I felt an aching nostalgia. Whatever stands out for each of us; the shiny stuff from our lives we secretly yearn to have just once more and never will again, is overpowering in this unusual film. If this is sounding too cutesy for those clamouring for horror, then I’m not ashamed to say that thanks to the emotional contrast with the minimal dialogue and cleverly crafted music and camerawork, the resulting heavy atmosphere creeped me out supremely, and it was there from the off, not just when things turned weird following Mason’s discovery.

Many slammed The Blair Witch Project as unscary, but I know it also freaked the crap out of plenty, and I’m prepared to say this one kicks the Blair Witch’s arse. Paranormal Activity 2 hit me in what I imagine was that same way; both work in the same way as Landlocked. They give the term ‘slow burn’ new meaning entirely, that’s where their strength lies. When the strange turns sinister it’s even more shocking after such a quietly thoughtful buildup; a scream in a house abandoned for years. Which in this one fits well indeed. Insidiously, intriguingly hair-raising.