THE CANAL (2014)

Studio:       The Orchard
Director:    Ivan Kavanagh
Writer:       Ivan Kavanagh
Producer:  Annemarie Naughton
Stars:     Rupert Evans, Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Hannah Hoekstra, Kelly Byrne, Steve Oram

Review Score:

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Summary:

In the wake of his wife’s unexplained disappearance, a film archivist uncovers a supernatural link between his house and a 100-year-old murder.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

David Williams works as an archivist at the National Film Archives alongside Claire McManus. David and his wife Alice move into a new home situated near a canal to start a family.

Five Years Later – David and Alice now raise their young son Billy. Billy is left with his nanny Sophie while David attends a cocktail party with Alice. There, David observes his wife acting furtively with a man named Alex, furthering David’s suspicions that Alice is having an affair.

At work, Claire gives David some old crime scene film to process for the police. David watches the footage and learns of a man who murdered his wife in 1902 inside the same house on Black Street where David now lives with Alice.

David secretly trails his wife one evening and follows her to Alex’s house. David sneaks inside and observes the couple having sex. David grabs a hammer, but leaves without taking any action and without being seen. On his walk home, David throws the hammer into the canal. Feeling nauseous over what he just witnessed, David stumbles into the public toilet next to the waterway and vomits. He then sees an image of a mysterious man outside the stall door. David stumbles back outside in a haze and collapses. Before passing out, David appears to see the strange man assaulting Alice alongside the canal.

David reports Alice’s disappearance to the police when she doesn’t come home. Detective McNamara immediately suspects that David killed her. Alice’s body is eventually found in the canal, but the coroner finds no signs of foul play and rules her death an accidental drowning. The coroner also reveals that Alice was pregnant at the time of her death.

David tells Claire about the dark man he saw on the night of Alice’s disappearance. He begins researching the 1902 murders as well as other crimes connected to his house. David also starts filming with the camera from the early 1900s when he realizes that it can seemingly capture ghosts on film.

Gradually, David becomes increasingly consumed by his house’s haunted history. After hearing what sounds like someone praying from behind a wall in his bedroom, David tears down the wall and uncovers a secret crawlspace. While examining the manhole cover in his backyard, David sees a man’s shadow in the window and hears a scream. He rushes back inside the house to discover that Billy and Sophie are okay, but he sends them to a hotel for their own safety.

David shows his film footage to Claire. He also tells her about a previous owner who tried burning down the house with her children inside, but blamed the act on a shadowy figure she claimed was a demon that lived behind the walls and tried to rape her.

While Skyping with Billy, David sees the dark man take shape in the boy’s hotel room. David rushes on foot to the hotel, but finds Billy and Sophie completely unharmed. David brings them both back home, but Sophie insists on leaving after being attacked seemingly by an unseen presence.

David and Billy take a walk along the canal. David spots the shadow of a woman in the grass. He retrieves the camera and films the shape while he closes his eyes and Billy hides. David then drops off the film with Claire for processing.

McNamara informs David that the police found a hammer in the canal with David’s fingerprints on it. David tells McNamara about the 1902 murders and the ghost he believes is haunting the home. McNamara reports David’s mental state to the authorities and Children’s Services threatens to take away Billy.

The police start trailing David regularly. David finds old photographs hidden behind his bedroom wall depicting an occult ritual taking place inside the house. He then investigates the manhole in his backyard and follows a tunnel connecting to the canal. There, David discovers a small corpse and realizes that the dark man was sacrificing children and dumping their bodies in the canal.

Claire brings over the processed film and David insists that she watch it with him. While David prepares the projector, Claire mentions how David called her in hysterics the night before, although he claims that it was not he on the phone. Together, they view the footage David shot at the canal and they watch as the shadowy woman rises from the grass and approaches the camera. Simultaneously, the woman emerges from the hole in David’s bedroom wall and pulls Claire into the crawlspace.

The cops stationed outside hear Claire’s scream and break into the house. David grabs Billy and flees into the canal through the manhole.

In the canal, David suddenly remembers that it was actually he who just strangled Claire to death. He also recalls confronting Alice after she left Alex’s house and drowning her in the canal. David then has a vision of Alice’s corpse giving birth to a grotesque child.

David dives into the water with Billy. A masked cultist grabs David and pulls him underwater to drown. David releases Billy and McNamara rescues the boy.

In the aftermath, the real estate agent prepares to see Billy off with his grandmother. Before leaving, Billy asks to go back inside the house to retrieve a dinosaur book. While inside, David speaks to Billy through a crack in the wall. David tells Billy that he is behind the wall with Billy’s mother, and Billy can join them forever if the boy wishes. While grandma drives the car afterward, Billy releases his seatbelt and opens the car door, killing himself by hitting the road from the moving vehicle. Back at the house, the estate agent briefly glimpses Billy closing the bedroom door.

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Review:

David Williams lives an average, yet idyllic life.  A film archivist by trade, David has a gorgeous wife in Alice, and a happy young son named Billy.  Five years after moving into a curious little house situated near a canal, David’s mind begins a trip down a Jack Torrance-like rabbit hole inspired by suspicions of his wife’s infidelity and the discovery of a horrific slaughter that once took place in his home.

When Alice goes missing under strange circumstances, David dives head first into the sinister history of his house’s past and the demonic presence that he believes is behind the horror.  Digging deeper brings David closer to unraveling the century-old mystery haunting his family, but it also furthers the unraveling of his sanity.

With the possible exception of “puddle,” the film’s title and thus its central setting is perhaps the most benign water body for which a word exists.  “The Canal” doesn’t exactly suggest swift movement in the way “waterfall” or “rapids” might, and it certainly doesn’t scream horror, either.  Add in that the featured protagonist works as a film archivist, a profession one character confuses for a librarian, and the setup is upfront from its outset that “The Canal” is unlikely to be heavy on smash-mouth thrills.

But instead of looking for heat from the first match strike and a fiery flame, those who let the wick wither and light the room with subtle atmosphere will find their patience rewarded.  Combining elements of “The Shining” and “The Ring” for a ghost story built on supernatural suspense, “The Canal” is the very definition of a slow-burn psychological thriller, and an excellent one at that.

While there are “boo!” moments of suddenly shifting shapes and sharp sounds, there aren’t many cheap jump scares.  Once the slowly seeping creeps fully envelop both story and viewer, imagery and mood become the movie’s primary spellcasters.

“The Canal” doesn’t mount momentum through an expanding and contracting accordion of action and pauses.  Rather, the tension is a persistent ratchet that seldom relaxes, yet is always tightening, albeit gradually.  There are the occasional “reset” scenes like “breakfast the next morning” giving brief respite.  Though for the most part, once “The Canal” starts taking on weight, it keeps adding straws until the camel’s legs buckle for a breakneck climax.

As effective as the cinematic experience is, “The Canal” is not without cracks in its foundation.  Although the film works as a supernatural mystery, the script aims for a two-front assault on David by giving him a more earthly police investigation to contend with, too.  The problem is, the angle of David’s possible involvement in his wife’s disappearance doesn’t have the same teeth as a crime drama that it does as a hallucinogenic haunting.

SPOILERS

Upon secretly spying his wife Alice engaged in sexual intercourse with her lover Alex, David grasps a hammer and briefly contemplates brutal vengeance.  A cooler head prevails however, and David makes his unnoticed exit without taking action.  Into the canal he tosses the hammer before shuffling towards home in frustration.

Much later, some time after Alice’s body is discovered, Detective McNamara arrives at David’s house with questions following the police department’s discovery of the hammer in the canal.  I have questions about this, as well.

The coroner clearly states, within the presence of both David and McNamara, that since Alice’s body showed no signs of assault or foul play, he could definitively conclude her death to be the result of an accidental drowning.  Why then, would the police continue dredging the water when they don’t know what they are looking for, and technically don’t have a homicide to investigate?

And since Alice wasn’t bludgeoned, what is the hammer evidence of?  It isn’t a murder weapon.  At best, it proves that David was inside Alex’s house, since Alex reported the hammer as belonging to him.  Except absent of monogrammed initials, in what world can anyone prove that an ordinary household hammer belonged to any unique person in particular?

It’s strange how McNamara immediately takes Alex’s word on everything.  Alex’s “airtight” alibi for the night of Alice’s murder is that he was on the phone with a colleague who can corroborate hearing Alice leave before remaining on the call for another hour.  Yeah, airtight.  No chance at all of Alex’s colleague lying to protect him or anything, right?

END SPOILERS

“The Canal” doesn’t connect all of its plot dots with straight lines, and that includes how needlessly complex it gets with filling in the house’s background.  Once the revelations play out in act three, the final picture is one of blurred logic and faulty arithmetic that doesn’t fully add up.  Yet by the time you realize how unsatisfactory the explanation behind the mystery is, “The Canal” has already glamoured you with stylish eeriness that chills far deeper than conscious context ever could.

As an aside, if you are interested in seeing more of Hannah Hoekstra, who plays David’s wife Alex, look for “App” (review here), an inventive Dutch thriller with an added hook that encourages playing along on your cellphone.  Steve Oram, who plays the bearded detective, also has much more to do with a costarring role in the darkly entertaining Ben Wheatley crime-comedy “Sightseers” (review here).

Review Score:  80

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