Backtrack: Les Revenants

"Backtrack" is well executed. The acting and cinematography are competent and professional. Special effects are more than adequate. It economically manages to convey a sense of desolation, solitude and creepiness.

Horror films generally adhere to a simple basic formula. A sinful act unleashes a supernatural power that wreaks vengeance on the guilty, but spares the innocent and those who repent. Occasionally films like "The Sixth Sense" and "Ghost Town" effectively embellish the basic formula in novel, interesting and dramatically gratifying ways.

"Backtrack" deviates from the basic horror conventions, but does not provide anything superior and is inconsistent. Arguably innocent people are caused to suffer. The supernatural forces torment the protagonist who is not the sole or even the most guilty party. They seem to want his help or he wants their help, but they seem equally capable of interacting with the most guilty party without him. It's not clear whether they need the protagonist's help or they want to involve him in order to help him expiate his guilt. The supernatural forces do not have a consistent understanding of their status.

The supernatural forces do not behave randomly, but even though they operate in concert, it's not clear that they understand their purpose or the master plan. Their motives for particular actions aren't always clear. They don't always seem to be on the same page.

Some of the early scenes are ambiguous. It's not clear whether the protagonist is alive, dead, dreaming, deluded, hallucinating or what. We have dreary, foreboding scenes of abandoned buildings and streets and empty trains. Everybody who visits the protagonist seems unusual. He never interacts with anybody who seems entirely normal. Then suddenly, his world is populated, but the reason for the transition is unclear.

The movie would have been stronger with a clearer concept of who and what the supernatural elements were, why they did what they did and what they know or believe about the events in question. If they need the protagonist's assistance to discover who was the guiltiest, that could have been clearer. If they have several suspects, why torment only the protagonist? One of the supernatural entities knows the whole story. Why they don't go after the guiltiest party directly is unclear, except that a negligent act gave him some special insights, but that resulted in the death of an innocent, so the story is less satisfying.

Brody is excellent in this. The plot / storyline could have been better but the ambience was good.

After losing his daughter hit by a truck, the troubled psychologist Peter Bower (Adrien Brody) moves to Sidney with his wife Carol (Jenni Baird) and his colleague and friend Dr. Duncan Stewart (Sam Neill) gets strange patients for him. When Dr. Bower discovers a secret about Dr. Stewart and his patients, he travels alone to his hometown False Creek to the house of his estranged father William Bower (George Shevtsov). Haunted by his past, Peter digs his recollections and uncovers a hideous secret from his past.

"Backtrack" is an above average ghost story, with a good screenplay. The cast has great performance and the plot is intriguing, entwining family drama with horror and the conclusion is well resolved. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Visões do Passado" ("Visions from the Past")

The movie does play with expectations, but not in a "wink wink" way, we know you know or anything like that. It does feed into fears and it is very atmospheric to say the least. The main actors help elevate this into territory it might not have gone with lesser talent (no pun intended of course).

The story might be simple (if you look back at it), but it's the way they achieved what they set out to do. A thriller/horror/suspense hybrid, that takes you on a ride, without knowing where it will end and how we got there. There are the occasional jump scares and some might feel cheated by them, but it works all in favor of the movie. I'm not going to talk about the story, because you should dive in and find out, what is going on along with the character, peeling away layer after layer ...

Backtrack starts off setting the mood. From the opening credits and first few minutes you know that Peter Bower (played by Adrien Brody) and his wife, Carol (Jenni Baird) are regaining their footing in life after some terrible incident.

Peter works in some psychiatric capacity, seeing patients. The weather is drab, the routine - taking it's toll, home life is yet in shambles. First cracks start to appear as odd occurrences, then things get progressively more inexplicable and Peter comes to shocking realizations, explanations to which must be sought in his past, back at his home town...

It is rather commendable that Backtrack manages to start off disguising itself as a psychology mystery, but slowly progresses into a cool detective.

I was not a fan of the cheap jump-scares, I would have liked Peter's confusion and anxiety communicated differently. I did, however, thoroughly enjoy the ghost story symbolisms of doors that just won't stay shut, pages that just won't burn etc.

Cinematography in Backtrack is very well done - colors and lighting always play well with the tone of scenes, especially the dark and shadowy beginning portraying hopelessness and brightness in the end signifying new vitality.

The classical score is also to be praised - it works well to accent the continually growing suspense of the story.

The unkempt Brody works extremely well as the morally crushed Peter Bower, definitely matured since the 2005s The Jacket, shining in key scenes like "saying her name" and "after confession". Honorable mention to Robin McLeavy's senior constable Barbara Henning, portraying sensible competence and also managing to be the damsel in distress when necessary.

Backtrack is not perfect. "Some characters were not developed enough" is a legitimate complaint. "That scene did not make sense/was unnecessary" is also an understandable criticism. Nevertheless, the movie does not bore, nor does it get tripped up by it's own flaws on the way of delivering a convincing mystery that always hangs by the last thread to make sense of it all.

8/10, would backtrack again.