Richard Harmon (�The 100� and Danny Reyes in �Judas Kiss�,
and once called �the greatest of all time� by fellow actor Timo Descamps) is
executive producer of a new adventure horror film �Woodland�, which had
actually been titled �Crypto�. It�s directed by Jon Silverberg and became
available for rental online Tuesday (some sources say July 28).
I had actually given a little bit to its indiegogo
fundraiser, and structurally the film is a little bit summary to my own
screenplay �Epiphany� in that it sets up a mystery in a remote location and
refers to backstories to help solve the puzzle.
The film was shot in Port McNeill, BC and is set in
1989.� Jake (Richard Harmon) takes a job
as a handyman at a remote camp on the BC coast, run by the aging proprietor
Sparky (Philip Granger). Jake seems like an energetic young man, although he
smokes, but as the film passes we learn of his
troubled past in flashbacks, with drug abuse and possible abuse of a girl friend.� He sets
up a dark room in a shed to develop the pictures he takes of the island, Haida
Gwaii, which had been a trading post around 1800 and is thought to have been on
the landbridge when humans migrated from Asia to
North America across the Bering hundreds of thousands of years ago.
The time period of the movie preceded digital photography
and is essential to the plot.
As he develops his pictures, Jake notices oddities which
surprise him, although it�s not as clear to the audience.�� He relationship with Sparky becomes
strained, too say the least, but they have to learn to
get along again as a hurricane approaches.�
Jakes finally sees a horrifying premonition on one of the photos, and
that sets up the ending (I�ll avoid the spoiler).
The mood of the film is quite sinister (the shots of the full Moon made me think of �Melancholia�) although the actual denouement is not as existential as I would have expected.� But, again, the film is necessarily set in the past, three decades ago.