I STILL SEE YOU (2018)

Studio:      Lionsgate
Director:    Scott Speer
Writer:      Jason Fuchs
Producer:  Paul Brooks, Scott Niemeyer, Leon Clarance
Stars:     Bella Thorne, Richard Harmon, Amy Price-Francis, Hugh Dillon, Shaun Benson, Dave Brown, Thomas Elms, Louis Herthum, Dermot Mulroney

Review Score:

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Summary:

In a world haunted by ghosts of a major catastrophe’s victims, a teenage girl struggles to solve a murder mystery.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

An explosion at Dr. Martin Steiner’s Ashburn Laboratories in Chicago kills countless people with a catastrophic shockwave. Indistinguishable from humans, ghostly specters of the event’s victims begin haunting the world as non-sentient “remnants” that briefly repeat certain actions at daily intervals.

10 Years Later – High school student Veronica ‘Ronnie’ Calder confronts her mother Anna about how they don’t acknowledge her dead father Robert’s daily presence at their breakfast table. At school, Ronnie takes an interest in new classmate Kirk Lane while attending a class on remnants taught by August Bittner.

After showering at home, Ronnie becomes frightened by a remnant of a young man whose name she intuitively knows is Brian. Brian writes the word “run” on a steamed mirror before vanishing.

During Mr. Bittner’s class the next day, Ronnie spontaneously bleeds from her ear. Fearful that Brian wants to harm her, Ronnie visits Mr. Bittner at his home to tell him about her encounter. Mr. Bittner dismisses Ronnie’s suggestion that a remnant attempted to communicate with her.

Knowing of his obsessive fascination with remnants, Ronnie follows Kirk, who shows Ronnie a tunnel where remnants of fish briefly swim each day. With some coaxing, Ronnie convinces Kirk to help her figure out who Brian is.

Ronnie enlists Chandler Deckert, a classmate with a crush on her, to help construct a spectralgraphic camera so she can photograph Brian for identification. Ronnie and Kirk then wait in Ronnie’s bathroom for Brian to reappear. When he does, Brian morphs into a frightening form that dissipates after lunging at the two teenagers.

Kirk’s image research reveals that Brian was suspected of having abducted and murdered Pastor Greer’s daughter Mary. Ronnie and Kirk visit Pastor Greer, who adds that Brian killed himself the day after Mary disappeared. Ronnie additionally discovers that she and Mary share the same birthday.

After receiving a phone call from Pastor Greer, school principal William Pescatelli summons Kirk to his office to ask about his investigation into Mary Greer’s death.

Ronnie attends a school basketball game with her best friend Janine McNulty. Visions of Brian lead Ronnie onto the court, resulting in a stoppage of play. Principal Pescatelli’s body suddenly crashes through the ceiling, falling dead in the center of the auditorium floor. Kirk tells Ronnie that he believes Pescatelli died because Kirk told him about their investigation.

Ronnie confides in Kirk that she blames herself for her father’s death. Kirk tells Ronnie that he studies remnants because he wants to know why he never sees his own father’s specter.

Ronnie has a nightmare about drowning. Ronnie’s mother tells Ronnie that she was repeating the words “Darkness Falls.”

When Robert Calder’s remnant manifests at Ronnie’s breakfast table, Kirk notices the old newspaper he is reading. From a front-page story, Kirk and Ronnie connect Brian to the deaths of two more young women: Emma Shaw and Claire White.

Claire White’s sister Kerry tells Ronnie and Kirk that Brian was her sister’s boyfriend. Kerry adds that they can watch Claire’s death firsthand, although they have to go to Chicago’s ‘No-Go Zone’ to do so.

Ronnie and Kirk brave intense remnants and a street gang to make their way to where Claire died, which turns out to be Ashburn Laboratories in Darkness Falls. By observing her strangulation death, Ronnie realizes that Claire knew her attacker.

Kirk sees Dr. Martin Steiner, now a disheveled man, among the spectators at Claire’s death scene. Kirk and Ronnie chase and confront the former scientist.

Steiner explains that he was working on a project that would use living beings as vessels to resurrect the deceased, but the transference required both people to share a birthday. Brian was Steiner’s research assistant, and Steiner believed Brian was trying to bring back his victims to make amends for their murders. Kirk steals a photo of Steiner’s research team. Relieved of his burden of knowledge, Steiner kills himself.

School administrators take Kirk into custody after finding a gun in his locker. Mr. Bittner confides in Ronnie that Kirk was expelled from his previous school for possessing a firearm. Kirk tries explaining that the new gun was planted, but Ronnie continues home with Mr. Bittner.

Ronnie tells Mr. Bittner about her encounter with Dr. Steiner. Bittner vows to help keep Ronnie safe for the 48 hours until her birthday, which is when they believe Brian will try to kill her to resurrect one of the dead women. With Ronnie’s mother lured away for a meeting, Bittner helps Ronnie fortify her house’s panic room under the pretense of protecting her.

Kirk’s research reveals that Bittner was actually Dr. Steiner’s research partner. Unable to call Ronnie because of Bittner’s lead lining in her panic room, Kirk goes to Bittner’s house. Kirk learns that Bittner has been trying to resurrect his dead daughter Ava when he discovers Ava is a remnant. Bittner knocks Kirk unconscious and buries him alive.

Alone with Bittner in her panic room, a clue triggers Ronnie’s sudden realization that Bittner was murdering young women who shared his daughter’s birthday in hopes of finding a vessel for Ava. Bittner made Brian and Principal Pescatelli’s deaths look like suicides when they discovered the truth.

A physical fight ensues. Bittner chases Ronnie outside. When Bittner captures her, Ronnie breaks the thin ice underneath their feet, submerging both of them in freezing water.

Brian’s ghost appears underwater to pull Ronnie away from Bittner. Mary Greer’s ghost pulls Bittner down further. Claire White’s ghost watches Ronnie survive while Bittner drowns.

Ronnie resurfaces. Ronnie collapses after a vision of her father tells Ronnie it is okay to let him go. Kirk arrives in time to pull Ronnie from the water. Kirk explains that his father’s ghost dug him out of the ground.

Ronnie visits her father’s grave with Kirk. Ronnie and Kirk resolve to do something now that they are the only two people who know the truth behind the Chicago event. Bittner’s remnant briefly observes the duo before vanishing.

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Review:

Ten years ago, a catastrophic explosion at a Chicago laboratory released a devastating shockwave that took countless lives. The dead became non-sentient specters who now harmlessly haunt the planet. Essentially indistinguishable from humans, the phantoms manifest briefly each day to repeat mostly mundane actions from their previous lives, like visual memories stuck in a broken record hiccup. “I Still See You” dubs these spirits “remnants” because, like a zombie flick/series insistent on inventing an alternate word for zombie, it wouldn’t be fashionable to simply refer to them as ghosts.

As supernatural sci-fi backdrops with provocative potential go, that’s an undeniably ripe one. Director Scott Speer’s movie doesn’t dig deep enough into this setup to pique interest in picking up “Break My Heart 1,000 Times,” which is the Daniel Waters novel upon which Jason Fuchs bases his script. But “I Still See You” does establish an icily intriguing world that would be interesting to visit again in the form of further films exploring this fiction.

For the time being, viewers have to settle for a mild mystery narrowed on a pouty teen protagonist. At home, Ronnie (Bella Thorne) glowers at her mother for avoiding acknowledgment of her dead father’s daily appearance at their breakfast table. At school, Ronnie eyes new student Kirk (Richard Harmon), a dreamy drifter stereotype stuffed into a troubled teen boy shell.

Ronnie and Kirk take a class on remnants taught by Mr. Bittner (Dermot Mulroney), an impossibly handsome high school teacher who lives in an impossibly impressive home where no one thinks it odd for him to hold off-campus office hours. What Ronnie learns about the ethereal beings in no way prepares her for an encounter with Brian, a remnant either warning or threatening the young woman by writing the word “run” on Ronnie’s steamy bathroom mirror. Bittner assures Ronnie that remnants are incapable of communicating. Only Kirk believes Ronnie’s claim of being in danger. Their investigation into Brian’s identity puts Kirk and Ronnie on a path toward discovering the secret truth behind the disaster that reshaped the globe.

One of these days, Bella Thorne might have something to do in one of her tame thrillers aside from prettily puffing through the motions, lest she be condemned to serve a perpetual penance in DTV Hell for the crime of too often exhibiting a hollow personality onscreen. That day is not today. “I Still See You” continues in the tradition of movies like “Keep Watching” (review here) by employing Thorne to largely skate by on allure alone.

The film also cheaply cashes in on Thorne’s eye-catching appeal by undressing her for two separate shower scenes and needlessly stripping Thorne to her underwear for another sequence. She may even be wearing the same panties and tank top from when “Amityville: The Awakening” (review here) previously pulled the same exploitive trick. Are these really still reasons people put money into these movies?

“I Still See You” doesn’t do anything to chum the plot’s water with red herrings. This means if you want to have any invested involvement whatsoever in the whodunit angle, pay absolutely no attention to the one and only obvious suspect. Just put that person out of your mind and ignorantly play along.

In fact, the more pauses made to ponder copious questions, the more the fluctuating mythology falls apart like a Kleenex in hot water. Exactly how selective was the shockwave when it stretched worldwide while somehow zigzagging like a Lee Harvey Oswald bullet? Why on Earth would Kirk go to a particular location in the last act when Ronnie’s house makes infinitely more sense? Don’t forget that shockwave victims exclusively became remnants, are not self-aware, and only repeat certain actions daily, er, except for the ones who aren’t shockwave victims, most certainly exhibit complex thought, and inexplicably interact with the physical world when narratively convenient. Poke softly enough and holes become so big, it’s impossible to locate their circular edges.

“I Still See You” would work better as a made-for-Syfy midweek movie. It certainly takes itself more seriously than its Saturday matinee silliness deserves. And it somewhat sleepily operates at a ‘5’ in terms of intensity while out-of-control music hilariously hits closer to an ‘8’ or a ‘9.’

Even with its mood meter pinging far further toward ‘darkly dour’ than ‘popcorn fun,’ enjoyment can still be mined from the movie. Granted, the ending becomes particularly dim and the overall experience might evaporate entirely when you let out a yawn during end credits.

But the film is produced well for what it is and performances are fine for the most part. For the smoothest possible ride, shut the blinds on the story’s shortcomings, brace yourself for low voltage energy, and get on board with acceptably average entertainment. “I Still See You” may not be above mediocrity, though it is better than more middling movies in similar cinematic categories.

Review Score: 50

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