Thought your upbringing was rough? Down on his luck depressed dad Glenn lives in a tent in the Virginian woods, with young daughter Sophia and the wider community of homeless woodsmen around them. What their lives lack in glamour they recoup in the tenderness of their close relationship, not distracted by things like modern life, family or having a house, or any money whatsoever. The spirits that reside within the swamp, however, tormenting little Sophia… they are a pretty big distraction.
We’ve had the haunted child movie in the likes of Insidious and Poltergeist, and we’ve had The Spooky Woods movie in The Blair Witch Project and its ilk. The Ballerina gives us the haunted child movie in the spooky woods. Surprisingly, it doesn’t rely on a single jump scare.
Director Steve Pullen is more concerned with atmosphere and emotion than the usual screaming, shouting and scenes of people being dragged away into the darkness by unseen forces, to the extent where The Ballerina’s ghost story almost feels like an afterthought. That’s fine though, as the soft, sad tale it does tell is far more interesting than the ones we’ve seen so many times before elsewhere. The real mystery isn’t the one with the ghost, it’s the unfolding question of what our useless dad did to destroy their lives so.
The slow-burn story, obvious lack of budget and grubby visuals may highlight Pullen’s relative lack of experience, but this is an impressive debut; even more so when one realises that he wrote, directed and starred in the thing himself, with real-life daughter Isabella playing Sophia. The relationship lends itself to a tender, often raw chemistry, sidestepping the usual wooden acting that tends to plague genre cinema of this level. It skews a little too close to the melodramatic side for comfort, but the pair do astonishingly well. If only all low-budget horror movies were so well-acted and thoughtful.
With The Ballerina, Pullen (the one with the beard) has marked himself as one to watch, juggling multiple duties with a confidence that’d put even famed cinematic multitasker Robert Rodriguez to shame. It may sometimes lack poise and grace, but it pirouettes around the pitfalls of budget filmmaking on the strength of its emotional resonance alone.
THE BALLERINA / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: STEVE PULLEN / STARRING: DEENA DILL, THOMAS MIKAL FORD, ADELLA GAUTIER, MORGAN CRYER / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
