Wozzek (Graham Skipper) is the last man on Earth. As the survivor of a global catastrophe, he ekes out his days in a remote cabin, as we all would but might not care to admit – shitting into a bucket, masturbating miserably, and experiencing visions of his dead wife (Christina Bennett Lind). He even does some of those things simultaneously. When his dead wife isn’t around, Wozzek is kept company by the mysterious voice of The Deletarian (Paul Guyet), who leaves Earth’s sole survivor questioning both his sanity and his purpose.
Written and directed by its star, The Lonely Man With the Ghost Machine is a raw and personal work of low-budget sci-fi. Skipper has become a recognisable face in recent years, appearing in indie horror films The Leech, Christmas Bloody Christmas, and Scare Package II. With this, his fourth film as director, he bravely puts himself front and centre, delivering a meaty performance as the last man alive. Unlike the FOX TV show, there’s no cop-out hiding behind Wozzek’s desolation, and the film does a good job of highlighting both his loneliness and his unravelling mental state. It’s I Am Legend with a side of H.P. Lovecraft; Passengers in a distant shack; it’s all that, and a Christmas film, too.
The film’s extremely low budget makes its intimacy a necessity; the end of the world is only glimpsed during a cosmic light show that neither stretches the VFX department nor spoils the vibe. This may not appeal to those who prefer their apocalypses to be bigger and more calamitous, but as a portrait of a regular Joe just trying to see out the last days of a solitary existence, it nails the sense of loneliness. That, and the tragicomic misery of screaming while shitting into a bucket as your possibly imaginary friend watches from the graveyard of a cold, dead world. Truly haunting.
THE LONELY MAN WITH THE GHOST MACHINE premiered at Pigeon Shrine FrightFest on August 23rd, 2024.
