He Never Left begins with the story of a town haunted by a killer called Pale Face whose sudden disappearance has left the population on edge. Has Pale Face died or did he merely take a break? It is in the thick of the killer’s sabbatical that the story begins. That is both the blessing and the curse for this creative retro slasher. The movie starts with a new murder. But writers James Morris, Michael Ballif, and Colin Cunningham have too much fun with the “whodunnit” aspects of the story to deliver a satisfying slasher and they don’t offer not character development to deliver a satisfying mystery. Not all is lost, though.

The narrative picks up and we see a lone car careening through winding roads. Crimson and orange blotches of fall trees spatter the horizon and foreground. I would be remiss if I didn’t call out Michael Ballif for his beautiful photography in the title sequence and throughout the film. Eventually the driver of the car, Carly (Jessica Staples), stops at a local hotel to check in for a few days. The strangely congenial Bryce (David E. McMahon) checks her in. Carly pulls her vehicle to the far end of the lot where her room is and Gabriel (Cunningham) springs from her trunk and the two dart into their room. Gabriel is on the run and Carly is his accomplice. Could Gabriel be the feared Pale Face?

We then jump to crime fighting duo Tim (James Morris) and Mike (Sean D. Hunter). They are following the trail left by Gabriel and they too fear the worst. It seems that Gabriel is wanted in a recent hit and run but the fear is that he might possibly be Pale Face. Meanwhile, Gabriel is trapped, hidden in his motel room. Here he listens as strange and possibly lethal things happen in the room next door. The sound of struggle and murder seeps through the walls of the humble motel to torment and haunt Gabriel. With little recourse and a developing criminal record, Gabriel reaches out to Carly to get him out of there.

In probably my favorite scene in the film, Gabriel has tripped over a lamp, causing a sound that alerts his nefarious neighbors of his presence. This results in a truly Hitchcockian cat and mouse between Gabriel, his potentially dangerous neighbor, the manager, and Carly. It is genius.

He Never Left is a patchwork of great elements that don’t fully marry. In what is probably the most fully written plot we have Gabriel, co-writer Cunningham, as a fumbling criminal. His scenes are, predictably the strongest. So much so that they shift the plot on its foundations from slasher to crime-thriller-mystery. We next have detectives Tim and Mike who are faced with a new crime and a town’s trauma. Finally we have Motel manager Bryce (David E. McMahon) and his wife Michelle (Charla Bocchicchio) who are caught in the melee. All of this is, admittedly, a lot of bloody fun, but painfully uneven. If they had just gone through, trimmed the fat, and found the narrative, He Never Left could have been great. Still, we have an ambitious script with a clever plot, and the occasional gory scene. He Never Left is worth the watch.