The empty roads, deserted towns and desolate landscapes of mid-West America have understandably been a draw for so many films and its little wonder that director and co-writer Joshua Erkman has called his film, ‘A Desert’. It’s all of those things that appeal to photographer Alex Clark ( Kai Lennox) who we first find exploring a disused cinema in the middle of nowhere and sets up his old school antique camera that uses photographic plates, a self-operated shutter along with his own stopwatch and light meter to taking pictures. It’s al part of a work trip that he carries out alone updating his wife Samantha (Sarah Lind) on how each day is going from a budget hotel that makes the motel in Psycho seem homely.
It’s the neighbouring room with its warring couple that prevents him from sleeping and with the receptionist reluctant to do anything he diplomatically fronts them out himself. Weak willed or just plain fearful of them the couple, Renny ( Zachary Ray Sherman) and Susie Q ( Ashley B Smith), persuade Alex to let them into his room claiming to be siblings but as the evening progresses it seems more likely that they’re pimp and prostitute.
So far its much as might be expected but then the film unexpectedly swivels its focus to Sam who is now increasingly concerned that she’s not heard from Alex for a week and the police proving disinterested she hires a private detective Harold ( David Yow) to find him where he encounters a series of unsavoury types and a decommissioned military site that hides a secret.
It’s a slow but steady first half that accelerates in the second half that hints at the criminal if not the downright evil that exists in A Desert. The influence of David Lynch is obvious and the visuals of surroundings and buildings can equally be read as both bland and ominous too in a film whose end shot suggests something of a Mobius strip of story.
related feature : ‘David Lynch’ – OBITUARY
related feature : ‘Last Stop in Yuma County’ – actors Jim Cummings & Richard Brake chat about the terrific new thriller
Here’s the trailer for A Desert….
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