STATIC (2012)

Studio:       New Video Group
Director:    Todd Levin
Writer:       Todd Levin, Gabriel Cowan, Andrew Orci, John Suits
Producer:  Gabriel Cowan, John Suits, Andrew Orci
Stars:     Milo Ventimiglia, Sarah Shahi, William Mapother, Dominic Bogart, Sara Paxton

Review Score: 

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Summary:

While coping through a family tragedy, a husband and wife have their country retreat upturned after a stranger arrives on their doorstep. 

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Two gunshots are heard at a tranquil outdoor location. Jonathan and his wife Addie are seen lying dead on the ground.

In a remote house in the woods, author Jonathan Dade finishes writing his latest novel. Afterwards, he visits the grave of his three-year-old son Thomas. Jonathan notices a “For Sale” sign on the road in front of the property. He then sits outside with his wife Addie as she holds one of Jonathan’s toys.

At dinner, Addie drinks a large amount of wine with her prescription medication. The couple alternately fights and relates to one another regarding the stress of their relationship.

During the night, a young woman in a parka knocks furiously at the front door. Jonathan lets her inside. She tells Jonathan and Addie that her name is Rachel. She claims that she is a neighbor whose car had a flat tire and that she was pursued through the woods by a man in a gas mask. Against his wife’s wishes, Jonathan leaves Addie alone with Rachel while he takes a rifle rendered unable to fire and investigates outside. Jonathan finds Rachel’s car with a spike strip caught in its front tires. Rachel asks Addie about Thomas. Addie discovers that Rachel knows who her husband is.

Rachel cuts her hand when she and Addie struggle over a broken picture of the Dade family. Jonathan returns to the house and tends to Rachel’s injury. Addie overhears him talking to Rachel about the death of their son. Claiming a fear of being home alone after her experience, Rachel asks if she can stay the night. Jonathan agrees. Addie privately argues with her husband about letting a stranger into their home.

Addie and Jonathan follow sounds upstairs and find Thomas’ old baby monitor in the hallway. Suspecting that Rachel is responsible, they confront the girl. The power goes out suddenly. While Jonathan is at the fuse box, masked intruders forcibly carry Rachel away. Jonathan and Addie lock the doors and hide in the bathroom.

Jonathan leaves Addie to retrieve another gun from a safe. Jonathan discovers that his gun is missing. He also finds another baby monitor camera watching him. Addie steps on broken glass. Jonathan returns to the bathroom just as an intruder arrives. He then patches the wound on his wife's foot.

Armed with an aluminum baseball bat, Jonathan asks Addie to stay put while he clears a path to their vehicle. In the basement, Jonathan discovers a worrisome shrine that his wife made from numerous photographs of Thomas.

An intruder finds Addie’s hiding place, but she stabs him in his leg and escapes. Jonathan takes his bat to another stranger and reunites with his wife. They make it to the car, but it will not start. Jonathan looks under the hood and hits another intruder with the bat. He removes the intruder’s mask and discovers that it is Rachel. He also notices that his hand emits a strange glow when viewed through the eyes of the mask.

More masked strangers chase Jonathan and Addie through the woods. The couple comes upon a cabin. Inside, they discover camera monitors, notebooks, and equipment showing that their entire house and their recent lives have been under sophisticated electronic surveillance.

Jonathan and Addie flee to a barn and reconcile over the death of their son. Jonathan leaves to retrieve Rachel’s car, but discovers it is no longer at the accident site. Meanwhile, Addie is abducted.

Seeing the strangers with Addie on a baby monitor that shows the lakeside, Jonathan arms his rifle with real bullets. At the lake, he finds his wife kneeling at the water’s edge while the strangers merely watch. Jonathan learns that he and his wife have been ghosts, but they could not realize it until they fully dealt with their son’s death. Addie reveals that she took the gun from the safe and killed Jonathan and herself following Thomas’ drowning.

It is then revealed that Greg Wagner of New Horizon Realty hired Rachel and the others to exorcise the Dade ghosts from the home. The masks allowed everyone to see the ghosts, but Rachel possessed a special ability to see them without a mask.

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Review:

“Static” is a different kind of home invasion thriller.  With its mask-wearing intruders that rarely utter a word, a comparison to “The Strangers” is unavoidable.  But while “Static” reveals a purpose behind the threatening visit that “The Strangers” did not need, the hard traveled road taken there is equivalent to riding a horse and buggy in an age of supersonic air travel.

Popular novelist Jonathan Dade and his wife Addie are killing two birds with one stone by retreating to a posh cabin in the woods for solitude and for healing.  Jonathan needs the getaway to complete his latest work.  Both of them need the tranquility to continue grieving over the recent death of their three-year-old son.  Perpetually pickled by prescription meds and generous glasses of wine, Addie needs more help coping than Jonathan.

Cue the unexpected arrival of stranded motorist Rachel, who claims to have been chased to the couple’s front door by a man in a mask.  Her presence in the home kickstarts a chain of events that threatens Jonathan and Addie’s minds as well as their lives.

With a largely wordless script even before the mute invaders arrive on the scene, “Static” spends so much time taxiing on the runway before takeoff that is difficult to fully enjoy the flight once the story is finally in the air.  Even at just 75 minutes without credits, that sour taste in the mouth from the drawn out first act makes “Static” feel like a dragging experience in spite of the short running time.

The other passengers onboard add to an oftentimes uncomfortable journey like a coughing neighbor or a child kicking the seat from behind.  Milo Ventimiglia and Sarah Shahi are fine performers, but their roles are unrelatable.  Booze and drug addled wife Addie spends the majority of the film in an annoying daze of everlasting grief.  She makes accusations of infidelity against her husband that the backstory never confirms or denies, which in turn makes it hard to take her side in the marital discord.  Always moody, temperamental, and irrational, being on her side in general is a burdensome chore that keeps her personality beyond arm’s length at all times.

Jonathan at least displays compassion for his wife as well as for the unexpected visitor.  But his quick dismissal of Addie’s valid concerns about being willfully left alone with a stranger causes one to question how seriously he takes his family’s safety.  With his wife already casting doubt on his integrity through her vocal suspicions, his is another personality not overly eager to endear himself to an audience.

For a story based heavily on emotion, leaving the viewer as a distanced outsider is a huge detriment.  It causes the impact of the film’s final revelation to land with a soft thud instead of with a resounding crash.

Although the twist of “Static” has been seen several times in genre films, which shall not be named because their mentions would be spoilers, its fleshed out exploration here is a satisfying and novel idea.  It is the execution of the concept that is too reserved.  “Static” wants you to know what is really happening with an opening scene whose inclusion may have been a mistake.  Even if the intention was purposeful, “Static” plays as a story that leans more towards sweet than it does towards scary.  And the delivery is handled more tenderly than is appropriate for a film trying to thrill with its tale.

“Static” has a sound concept at its core, and it relishes the dark mood created by its tone and color palette.  Absent is a more fearless and engaging approach to the overall design.  If the characters were able to entrance the audience and had the presentation been less gentle, “Static” would have been memorably frightening instead of just serviceably average.

Review Score:  65

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