Having kicked off the Benson & Moorhead session with Synchronic the other day and then having re-watched The Endless, I figured it was time to get around to completing their "cinematic universe" with Resolution. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, as going backward in time through anyone's cinematic bibliography can sometimes result in some erratic jumps in quality one way or another. But this ended up being very similar to the others; a little funny (but mostly in subtle ways), a little unsettling (also mostly in subtle ways), and strangely compelling in its ability to make me wonder about what was coming.
One thing I have noticed about this film prior to watching it is that people like to refer to it as "genre-bending"; I suspect that what they mean is that it is technically a horror film but they view it as more of a character drama, with the horror as a means to explore the lives and challenges of the two main characters. Personally I don't agree, though - to me it is always a horror movie, and it is simply unusual in horror movies to have well-fleshed-out characters present in them, so it causes confusion as a result. I think the movie in the end is much more about the supernatural horror than it is about learning or resolving anything to do with these characters, as developed as they are. I think perhaps it also causes this feeling of genre-shifting because unlike many horror films, it is actually sincere, and while it plays a lot of moments as humor it is never the kind of poisoned irony that a lot of horror movies contain in their obvious inability (intentional or otherwise) to take themselves seriously.
As I'm sure I've mentioned in past reviews, I am not really a big fan of the horror genre as a whole; I find most of them boring and many of them bad, and not in the "we're intentionally making this bad in a dumb/funny way" sort of bad. Why, then, do I like movies like this? It is a very reasonable question. I think that in some way, the extremely low budget reigns in the natural excesses of a lot of filmmakers and forces them to be more creative to achieve the same things, to the benefit of the film. This one was a shoestring budget, and it creates a local, personal feeling and doesn't let dumb CGI nonsense get in the way of the storytelling. Plus there is something intrinsically impressive about watching a film that is made without money and admiring the achievement of the art form that it represents. I feel the same way about things like One Cut of the Dead (reviewed earlier) or El Mariachi (spectacular film). If only Michael Bay or Zack Snyder could be forced to limit themselves, too.
Score: 6/10
IMDb: Resolution
PS: I really like the way they tie this movie into their subsequent movie(s) in a way that doesn't distract or detract from either one. It's very satisfying.
