Writer and director Mickey Keating’s career thus far has seen him explore different horror sub-genres, never covering the same one twice. This trend continues in his latest offering, Offseason, a film which debuts at this year’s SXSW Festival. For his sixth feature film Keating turns to the Southern Gothic story, transplanting it to an isolated island to generate maximum chills.
Marie (Jocelin Donahue) receives a letter imploring her to tend to her mother’s grave immediately. Setting out to the isolated island of Lone Palm, upon which her mother has been laid to rest, with partner George (Joe Swanberg), she is quickly put on edge by the actions and demeanour of the strange island folks. With the island set to immediately close itself off from tourist’s for the season, Marie happens across its mysterious and dangerous secret, and finds herself sucked into a living nightmare.
Broken into seven separate chapters, Offseason presents a compelling and enigmatic tale, peppered with horror elements. Much more of a psychological horror than an all-out gore or jump-scare affair, its mature approach allows the film to encroach into the viewer’s psyche. The film may shirk the textbook scare moments, but it replaces them with sinister imagery and ideas that wrap themselves around the viewer, making them harder to shake. Offseason plays into some expected plot tropes whilst at the same time veering into new territory, ensuring that the mystery component remains until the final moments.
The enigmatic feeling of the story is carried through perfectly into the visuals. Through little more than a bit of smoke and darkness, Keating creates a wondrous dread-filled and oppressive atmosphere. The island is a dark and eerie foggy monster, it’s murky mistiness concealing all kinds of horror. With the island shrouded in the thick veil of haze, everything becomes obscured; even something as simple as walking down the road delivers a heap of surprises. In many ways the visual style feels akin to popular horror video games like Little Hope and the Silent Hill franchise. Keating captures that sense of dread and awe that one experiences when playing one of those games, and manages to sustain the same level of fear factor and immersion.
It isn’t just the overbearing mist that keeps up eerie appearances, Keating extends the sensation with his use of cold blues and ghostly greys in Offseason’s muted colour palette. By sticking almost rigidly to these two tones, the film captures that Gothic essence, with everything feeling ancient and cold. Further reinforced by the sweeping and menacing oceanscapes that surround the island, Offseason generates a goosebump-inducing hellscape. Working with the visual representation of oddity comes a decidedly fifties, almost rockabilly, soundtrack, one that when paired with the dark images and modern lead characters, adds an extra layer of strangeness, whilst signifying the island’s long and torrid history in a rather simple, but very effective, way.
Marie’s journey around Lone Palm facilities further video-game sensations as she wanders from location to location, collecting peculiar encounters with eccentric islanders. As with a video-game, it is through Marie’s wanderings and meetings that the pace and the narrative is driven forward and revealed, and it’s a narrative structure that works to maintain that air of mystique that is vital to the story’s success. Leading us on the journey is a fantastic performance from Jocelin Donahue. Marie is hiding almost as many secrets as the island on which she stands, and Donahue presents these intrigues confidently, drawing the viewer into Marie as well as the overarching mystery. Donahue is joined by several perfectly cast Lone Palm dwellers, with both Jeremy Gardner and Richard Brake being especially excellent.
Despite being its own entirely original idea, Offseason offers a near-perfect example of what horror game adaptations should be. The fictional setting of Lone Palm is fully realised in this eerie and otherworldly waking nightmare.
Offseason was reviewed at SXSW Festival 2021.
Offseason
Summary
An impressively oppressive atmosphere permeates throughout Offseason, ramping the immersion factor to maximum, ensuring Goosebumps and disturbed sleep for days to come.
