Headspace

I first became aware of the film Headspace back in early 2006 after reading a featured article in Fangoria, one of my favorite horror mags. The article was interesting, as they usually are, but what enticed me most about this little, independent gem was the insanely original storyline, which we'll get to shortly. I was also attracted to the filmmakers themselves and the producers, writer and director all seemed very self motivated, intelligent and determined to make an awesome film. So, you could say I was expecting a little more than usual going into Headspace.

Let me fill you in on the plot. We see a young, troubled guy known to the world as Alex Borden, played by Christopher Denham. By troubled, I mean a pretty rough childhood which, at one point, involves him and his brother viewing their dad blow their mom's face to smithereens with a shotgun. Serves her right for getting too far away from the kitchen… Alex has been a smart guy all his life but, at the age of twenty-five, his intelligence begins increasing by the minute. This dude reads books in minutes, learns how to master chess in a day's time and can even understand women. Actually, I'm kidding… Nobody's that smart. Eventually, Alex learns that he can see events that have taken place in the past and, towards the end of the film, can even see into other dimensions, which is where the crap really hits the fan.

This Good Will Hunting Gone Wild tale could have easily been a disaster if it were not for the TLC given by the people involved. The look of the film really enhanced the quality for me. Headspace looks like it cost five to ten million to make and I would bet my dead rabbit Penny's water bottle that the budget was nowhere near that amount. Headpsace recently took home the Best Cinematography Award at the New York Horror Film Festival and with good reason. The film is colorful, shot well and looks magnificent over all.

Another element that boosted the quality of the film for me was the casting. It seemed like every five minutes, some blast from the past was popping up. We have Olivia Hussey from Black Christmas, William Atherton from Ghostbusters, Sean Young from Bladerunner and Dee Wallace-Stone from The Hills Have Eyes. I could keep going but I think you get the idea. These seasoned vets not only make the film more fun because of that, "Oh I remember them!" factor but, they also bring some serious acting chops to the table. Newcomer Christopher Denham definitely holds his own as well and he's interesting to watch as he manages to find a balance between the nice guy next-door and the freak with the expanding brain. I mean, I liked the guy throughout the entire movie but I wasn't sure if someone should spend time scouring the Earth for the best doctor available or just drag him in the back yard behind the shed and put him down Ol' Yeller style! It was a nice dynamic.

With all this being said, the bottom line is that I really respect the filmmakers of Headspace for truly caring about the material. They set out to make one of those B rated monster movies that we all remember as kids and they nailed it. It was like watching USA's Creature Double Feature night with the only difference being that it was Tuesday and there was only one featured Creature Feature as apposed to two featured Double Creature Features. Huh? Anyway, those films were never this well done. Bravo!

Overall, I really enjoyed Headspace and feel very comfortable recommending it to everyone, even the casual fans of the genre. One thing to the gore lovers though; these characters spend a lot more time talking than chopping so, if you're looking for a blood bath, try something else. I highly suggest watching the film in the dark on a Saturday night with a big fat bowl of popped corn floating in butter. It's that kind of film!

Headspace Independent film has changed so radically in the last fifteen years that it's almost impossible in most cases these days to get a feel for the raw power that independent cinema once provided. HEADSPACE has got that rawness, but with the sense of professional productions values that usually only a large studio can provide. And in a decade of useless sequels and remakes of the classics of horror, this movie is a welcome breath of fresh air to the ailing genre.

From the very beginning, in a menace-laced prologue of a seemingly insane mother (played by Sean Young) going on a rampage against her husband (played by actor/director Larry Fessendan) and two sons, it taps into the sense of unease associated with familial secrets. Admittedly, the prologue is a bit of a red herring, but does add to the overall tone of the film, so its obvious misdirection can be forgiven.

After a nastily sodden matriarchal death, we flash ahead to contemporary NYC as a young man sits for a chess game with a sardonic older man in the park. This is our first clue that there might be a connection between Alex (played by stage actor Christopher Denham) and Harry (played by a brilliant talent, Erick Kastel) about which we know nothing.

Later Alex seeks help from doctors (played by Dee Wallace Stone and William Atherton) about his agonizing headaches and his sudden ability to speed read and know secrets about people he's never met before.

The mystery deepens when we find out that Alex sees demons in his nightmares…and they're soon coming through to the real world.

Enough said, or else we might spoil the experience of viewing this excellent film.

The strengths of HEADSPACE far outweigh the weaknesses, but while I'm discussing them…let me say it does suffer a bit from the MTV sickness. You know what I mean, right? You know…those video montage flash-cut editing tricks. I've always found them annoying. It does nothing for the narrative in most cases, and tends only to call attention to the director, not the story. It's when HEADSPACE loses these childish pretensions of mock style that it becomes a truly good horror movie.

The musical score keeps a surprising balance and unity to the narrative, blending seamlessly into the background, despite the jarring rock music thrown in as an afterthought. Without the rock music montages this might have been one of the most perfectly constructed musical scores for a horror film since THE SIXTH SENSE. It was subtle and winding, like a Harold Budd/Brian Eno album for film.

And I don't usually commend an editor because I feel the less conscious we are of the editing the better the editor has done his/her job. But I've got to give some kudos to Elwaldo Baptiste for his condensed style of editing, especially when it comes to trying to fill in all the background we need for the story. It couldn't have been an easy task to get two movies worth of stuff in an hour and half film. But this came off pretty well in the end product.

The special effects are real, folks. No freakin' overused watery CGI crap here. Used sparingly, but to great effect to the end product, I found the only letdown was actually seeing the creatures full on. They suffered a bit from the rubber suit syndrome. But still it does work very well up to that point. Creepy cinematography helps keep them in shadow and just out of focus.

There's a complexity to the story that the packaging belies. Trust me. Don't go by the pathetic synopsis that the packaging provides, or else you're never going to watch this film. And any horror fan should definitely see this. It's not a prefect movie by far--what with the scattered midstream story, the frustrating red herrings tossed in as an attempt to obfuscate an already convoluted narrative, and the useless sex scene thrown in for those who can't seem to find a true demarcation between horror and sexual taboos. But if you can set those minors flaws aside, you'll find a diamond in the rough with HEADSPACE. I'm definitely going to be looking for more from Andrew van den Houten in the future. I think if he can get a few more years of film-making under his belt, he might have something powerful to say in this genre.

--Nickolas Cook

When it comes to grading this movie, there are stark contrasts because it has some very strong points as well as weak ones. As far as overall story and originality is concerned, this could be one of the better horror movies to come out in the past decade. The problem for me was that this movie has some of the weakest dialog I've seen in a film. Conversations between characters is very unnatural and at times you feel as if the actors may have skipped over a few lines. The part in the movie when the Russian psychiatrist explains to Alex what he is and what is happening to him is the only exception to this. I wouldn't say that this ruins the movie seeing as how the story is so intriguing, but having such a strong concept coupled with weak dialog would make this movie average at best.

If you haven't seen it, it's definitely worth checking out, just don't expect anything profound coming from the mouths of the actors.

Imagine thinking this was a deep, intelligent film. What a world these reviewers must live in. OOOOH IT'S ABOUT INTELLIGENCE AND IT HAS A BUNCH OF COMPLETELY NONSENSICAL, UNEXPLAINED SCENES THAT ARE LEFT UP TO YOUR IMAGINATION SO IT MUST BE DEEP AND METAPHORICAL AND I MUST BE CLEVER SINCE I LIKE IT! No, dudes, that's not how it works (and don't think that no one's noticed that no one here talking about how clever this movie is can even slightly explain what exactly they think is clever about this movie or what the actual plot is).

This isn't some clever psychological thriller where all the strange things we see are just in the main character's head. We are directly shown over and over again that the monster literally exists and that unexplained supernatural things are occurring for other characters when the main character isn't around. This is just a cheap monster movie, and not even a good one.

It's just your everyday, generic time-waster of a budget horror film. Awful, annoying characters sit around talking for the majority of the film padding out the run time and every once and a while someone gets killed off camera with just a brief glimpse of a rubber monster hand. Movies like this are a dime a dozen. Just another forgettable 3/10.

Headspace isn't a completely successful film, but if there was an award for 'most ambitious screenplay', this flick would certainly win it. Andrew van den Houten's debut feature demands respect from the audience for its charming originality, and for the way that it manages to pull many different story elements together. The film is definitely hard to categorise, and works from a psychological base, which is backed up nicely by some good old fashioned scenes of gore. I'm guessing the director was hampered by budget or pressures from elsewhere, as several elements of the film don't feel properly fleshed out, and given how much thought has gone into the film; I find it hard to believe that the writers would just neglect some areas. The film focuses on Alex Borden; a young man who meets a chess player one day and suddenly finds his intellect expanding. This, however, leads to nightmares, and Alex soon finds his world crumbling around him when past traumas meet with real threats from 'demons', which Alex has began to see; and which are killing off people he knows.

The great thing about watching this film is that it's never clear where it's going, and director Andrew van den Houten does a good job of building up the mystery without ever giving too much away at once. I'm deliberately focusing more on the good elements of this film simply because the majority of horror movies coming out recently are tired and derivative, so it's nice to see one that tries its best to do something original. I guess the main negative element of the film is that, while the story plays out well, there's no real resolution to the film, and while messages such as 'ignorance is bliss' stand out from the story, no actual messages are played with much. The director has assembled a strong cast of lesser known stars, which help to provide the film with a lot of cult value. Unknown actor Christopher Denham does well in the lead role, and he's backed up by such cult stars of the past as Sean Young, Olivia Hussey, William Atherton, Dee Wallace and, best of all, Udo Kier; who lights up the screen with a cameo performance mid-way through. Overall, Headspace might not be completely successful; but it's a great attempt, and I'll be keeping my eye on what van den Houten's does next.