Reply to Topic
Alone, 2020
Jessica (Jules Willcox) is a recently widowed woman who has packed up her life to move away from the city. As she travels through the Northwest, she runs into the same man (Marc Menchaca) over and over again. Her sense that he is up to no good is proven correct, and a game of cat-and-mouse ensues between the two of them in the isolated forest.
There is something really frustrating about movies where the main character(s) repeatedly makes poor choices, and something kind of satisfying and terrifying about movies where the main character(s) make the right choices but things so sideways despite that. While ultimately the film does rely on the main character making some really questionable decisions (namely not telling anyone about the creepy guy who is clearly following and harassing her), I did especially enjoy her evasions of him in the first third of the film. For example, when he pretends his car is broken down she's just like "Sorry! I'll tell a gas station!" and drives right by him. She only ever puts her window down a crack, and when he seems to be following her for a third time, she immediately calls 911. For me, this was actually the most suspenseful and effective section of the film because you know he's going to get her, but you can identify with her more strongly because she's not making dumb horror movie decisions (for the most part). You can see the whole "At what point do I freak out?" thought process in Jessica's head in the first act and it is very easy to sympathize with her.
The rest of the film follows a fairly predictable--though not unpleasantly so--course of events. He kidnaps her, she escapes. They stalk each other through the woods. There's a particularly nice overhead shot of Jessica half-swimming/half-drowning as she escapes by jumping into a river.
Aside from making a few bad choices that are key to moving the plot forward, Jessica is a pretty decent protagonist. Her choices in the majority of the film make sense, and her frustration as she repeatedly seeks help and is rebuffed evokes a lot of sympathy. The character element of trying to deal with her husband's recent death adds some heft to her attempts to survive.
The villain of the story--credited only as "The Man" is a bit less effective. He's basically your garden-variety movie serial killer. He seems to hate women. He's manipulative (using an arm sling to elicit sympathy a la Bundy) and confident. But ultimately there just isn't much to him. He's easy to hate because he is a rapist and a murderer, and Menchaca sells his cold-bloodedness well enough.
This is a perfectly decent--though not exceptional--entry in the "woman in a fight for survival" horror subgenre.
He’s made some of the best DTV action flicks, Universal Soldier: Regeneration and Day of Reckoning (the best US movie) and Dragon Eyes. With all of these projects, his ambition and deft hand with action and aesthetics are undeniable.
With Alone, he reaches so much higher than typical low budget woods films and even tries to stylistically evoke big budget man vs. nature flicks like Deliverance and The Revenant. The climactic fight specifically homages they style of the latter.
It makes some of the flimsier contrivances feel less oppressive because they’re in the hands of a filmmaker that knows how to create tension and make the action not only functional but superior to many big Hollywood contemporaries.
