How many jump scares does it take before we become immune? The moment Brian De Palma had Sissy Spacek jab her arm out from her own grave at the climax to 1976’s Carrie was the high watermark, and therefore the start of a long decline in our capacity to be blindsided by these fiendish jolts. Nothing has ever equalled that moment’s shock value, but the constant anticipation of the next attempt to do so remains the oxygen modern horror breathes.
Tyler Savage’s debut feature is slow-burning ghost story that uses elements of family drama and psychological horror to construct an atmosphere thick with creeping dread that assuredly doesn’t spring cheap shocks. The story is simple and familiar; Ryan Bowman (Chase Joliet, a dead ringer for Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul) mysteriously inherits a beautiful seaside property from his long-lost biological father, who he assumed had popped his clogs years before. Not one to look a gift-horse in the mouth, he and his pregnant fiancé (Sara Montez) decamp from their cramped LA pad to this spacious new house with hearts full of hope for a bright new future. No sooner have they arrived, however, and a real-estate agent (does that means the ones we have in the UK are ‘un-real’…?) pounces to try and sell the place on for them without delay. What does she know that they don’t?
So far so Amityville Horror, or any number of Resident Evil-style scarers. But Savage takes things in a different direction, unleashing demons, yes, but not throwing them in our faces. The horror is largely internalised into lead actor Chase Joliet, whose nervy naturalism slowly winds to a pitch of outright insanity; it’s a great performance.
Savage uses his limited locations to disquieting effect and isn’t shy about his influences; the old wooden house itself, the deserted streets around it and the eerily pervasive rumbling of the ocean all combine to evoke that uniquely seaward claustrophobia of Hitchcock’s The Birds and there’s more than a dash of The Shining in the concept and the stately, Kubrickian camerawork. Low budget movies have an uphill battle looking studio productions in the eye, but Inheritance has an ace up its sleeve in cinematographer Drew Daniels, who makes the whole thing look at least a million dollars more expensive that it is. And when the scares come, they are slow reveals that drip down your spine, not jump scares.
As good as his conviction, Savage offer no easy answers, letting his story reach a point of semi-conclusion with the door ajar for us to decide what happens next. This, and the pacing of the film, means Inheritance won’t satisfy all tastes, but if you like your horror enigmatic and your scares truly earned, it’s a refreshing take on the haunted house genre.
INHERITANCE / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: TYLER SAVAGE / STARRING: CHASE JOLIET, SARA MONTEZ, DALE DICKEY, DREW POWELL / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW (US VOD)
