One Star Classics : Absentia

Absentia

Mar 23, 2019 / Undead

I never intended to watch Mike Flanagan's entire oeuvre, but here we are, and as I'm four movies in, the completionist in me won’t let me stop now. His recent films and TV shows have, after all, been uniformly good. Absentia, one of the director’s earlier works, is also worth a watch, despite being filmed a budget that never could prop up its ambitions.

Produced on a shoestring $70,000—a third or so of which was Kickstarted —Absentia follows a fairly standard plot on the surface: Tricia is forced to declare her husband dead in absentia after he has been missing for seven years. Soon after, she starts having nightmares and seeing apparitions. Her sister has similarly strange experiences in a nearby tunnel, a place that is… Well, it is something, including the center of the movie.

In the grander scheme of Flanagan's works, Absentia isn't among his best. The foundation is there, but the story doesn’t live up to what the plot sets up. Overall, the production is high on the indie-on-a-budget spectrum, which is just fine, but the execution isn’t as polished as what Flanagan achieved with Oculus and Hush. (I also assume those had a slightly larger budget; The Haunting of Hill House obviously had a bottomless pit type of budget.)

Yet, Flanagan and crew make it work. The lo-fi æsthetics give Absentia a gritty feel, and as the story unfolds, the mythology it sets up is intriguing, even though it doesn’t entirely pay off. Had they filmed it today, the movie would likely have been more Haunting… than Oculus.

Overall, though, Absentia is a must-watch for anyone who enjoys Flanagan’s recent work, and thanks to Netflix, that’s many. The path from then to now is interesting, plus Absentia is a good watch on its own merits.

Bonus! Our deep-dive into other Flanagan movies:

By Remi, Mar 23, 2019

Letterboxd summary: Tricia's husband Daniel has been missing for seven years. Her younger sister Callie comes to live with her as the pressure mounts to finally declare him 'dead in absentia.' As Tricia sifts through the wreckage and tries to move on with her life, Callie finds herself drawn to an ominous tunnel near the house. As she begins to link it to other mysterious disappearances, it becomes clear that Daniel's presumed death might be anything but 'natural.' The ancient force at work in the tunnel might have set its sights on Callie and Tricia—and Daniel might be suffering a fate far worse than death in its grasp.