TOTEM (2017)

Studio:       Cinemax
Director:    Marcel Sarmiento
Writer:       Evan Dickson
Producer:  Adam Hendricks, John Lang, Greg Gilreath, William Day Frank
Stars:     Kerris Dorsey, James Tupper, Ahna O’Reilly, Lawrence Pressman, Lia McHugh, Braeden Lemasters

Review Score:

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Summary:

A supernatural presence threatens to tear apart a teen’s family as they adjust to life with her widower father’s girlfriend.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

17-year-old Kellie Caldwell has difficulty adjusting to her widower father James’ girlfriend Robin moving in with their family, which includes Kellie’s younger sister Abby. Abby begins speaking to an invisible presence in the house that she claims is her deceased mother Lexy.

The girls’ asthmatic grandfather Bernard stops by as the family holds a garage sale. Kellie ends up taking possession of a turquoise necklace that belonged to her mother.

James confides in Robin that his wife was mentally unwell at the time of her death. James mentions that Lexy’s body was found without her wedding ring, leading to suspicions that she may have been having an affair.

Kellie continues feeling marginalized by Robin’s increased role as the new female head of the household. Instances of paranormal activity also begin plaguing the home, causing concern over whether the apparent entity is really Lexy’s ghost or a malevolent spirit. Kellie additionally notes that interacting with her mother’s necklace seemingly promotes some of the activity. James openly wonders if Kellie is staging the haunting as a rebellious act against Robin moving in.

Robin pulls strange hairs out of her throat. At track practice, Kellie has a vision of her mother’s bloody body wrapped in plastic. When Kellie burns the necklace at home to provoke the spirit, a bookcase falls on Abby’s cat.

Kellie tells her father that she believes the entity isn’t Lexy, but an evil spirit trying to pull Abby away from them. James reminds his daughter that she no longer has to assume so much responsibility for protecting their family.

Kellie falls asleep at school and dreams of Robin finding Lexy’s wedding ring in the garage before killing James. Kellie’s boyfriend Todd theorizes that the necklace may be a totem, and destroying it could sever the connection that the dead person has to the object.

Paranormal activity plagues the house once again. Kellie discovers that Abby was compelled by the entity to hide the necklace from her. Kellie takes back the necklace, prompting the entity to try grabbing Abby. James rescues his daughters.

Bernard arrives at the house to take everyone back to his place for safety. Todd also arrives and Kellie hides him in a closet.

While James, Bernard, Robin, and Kellie discuss whether or not the entity is Lexy, they realize Abby is missing. James searches for Lexy outside. Everyone else returns inside.

Kellie accuses Robin of intentionally manipulating her father. Bernard voices his suspicion that Kellie appears unreasonably jealous of Robin’s influence on their family.

Bernard realizes that his granddaughter had been orchestrating events all along when Kellie takes his inhaler from him during an asthma attack. Kellie allows Bernard to die.

Meanwhile, Robin finds Lexy’s missing wedding ring hidden underneath one of Kellie’s trophies, confirming Kellie’s secret manipulation of their family. Robin confronts Kellie with the ring. Kellie pushes Robin into a full bathtub and she dies.

Kellie gets Todd from the closet where he was hiding and claims that the entity killed Robin. When Todd grows suspicious, Kellie beats him to death with one of her trophies.

Kellie gets Abby out of her hiding spot, revealing that she convinced her sister to stay out of sight as part of her plan. James returns. Kellie claims the entity killed everyone, but Abby lets it slip that she was hiding because Kellie told her to. As it dawns on James that his daughter is a manipulative murderer, Kellie knocks him unconscious.

James recovers to find himself restrained to a chair. James realizes that the entity in the house really is his dead wife. However, Lexy’s ghost had actually been trying to protect the family from Kellie. Kellie smashes her mother’s necklace thinking it will destroy the spirit’s power. Kellie confesses to having killed Lexy, claiming she believed their family would be happier with just her, James, and Abby.

The necklace supernaturally reforms. Lexy’s spirit touches Robin’s body, bringing Robin back to life.

While Abby frees her father, Robin fights Kellie. Kellie stabs herself several times to create defensive wounds in preparation of framing Robin for the murders. James interrupts the confrontation between the two women. Lexy’s ghost suddenly frightens Kellie, causing her to fall on one of Robin’s metalwork sculptures, which impales her head on a sharp spike.

James, Robin, and Abby go traveling in an RV in the aftermath. Abby still speaks to an invisible entity, which concerns Robin.

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Review:

Promoted to leading lady of the house following her mother Lexy’s untimely death, 17-year-old Kellie has done a respectable job keeping together the tight trio that includes her father James and little sister Abby.  For his part, James thinks it’s time to add a new face to their fold, and invites his long-term girlfriend Robin to finally move in so their family can move on.

Kellie isn’t overjoyed at the interloper in their midst.  Neither is the supernatural spirit suddenly haunting their home.  Robin’s arrival strangely coincides with an unseen entity paying regular visits to Abby.  The little girl claims it is her dead mother’s protective ghost.  Kellie fears the spirit isn’t as benevolent as Abby innocently presumes.

After recovering a necklace that belonged to Lexy, Kellie finds it is capable of causing objects in the house to move on their own.  Maybe it’s her mother interacting from beyond the grave.  Maybe it’s something more malevolent.  As the entity seemingly strengthens, it threatens to tear everyone apart through the paranormal power of the mysterious totem now in Kellie’s possession.

For his debut screenplay, writer Evan Dickson wisely follows common advice for a first-time feature, keeping scope contained to a core foursome in one location, which is an attractive prospect for indie horror producers in the market for something inexpensively simple.  Trouble is, “Totem” is straightforward to the point of being largely lethargic and entirely recycled from pedestrian tropes.

A quick prologue drops a body off a cliff without context.  A stuck window with cool wind whipping in and a young girl talking to an invisible entity hint at something ominous in her near future.  Outside of this, “Totem’s” first half hour frames itself with Lifetime-caliber family drama as Kellie harrumphingly adjusts to home life with dad’s new girlfriend.

Actresses Kerris Dorsey and Ahna O’Reilly, and James Tupper as the father too, work up performances of reasonable quality considering clichés constructing their characters.  Everyone appears believably invested in individual relationships as well as overcoming accompanying tribulations.  Yet no amount of charisma can overcome marginal material tasking everyone with struggling unrealistically hard to fulfill narrative functions.  Kellie’s exasperated eye rolls, Robin’s overenthusiastic effort to fit in (by rushing to season steaks with hemp seeds of all things), and dad’s “can’t we all just get along?” attitude regularly reek of overreaching to sell their stereotypes.

Smacking viewers in the face becomes a common tactic for “Totem.”  The camera centers so obviously on grandpa’s asthma inhaler the first time we meet him, or the jagged metal tetanus traps posing as Robin’s avant garde art sculptures, it’s a wonder we have to wait until act three for each of Chekhov’s guns to fire.

Talent attached behind the scenes makes the lack of committed creativity more confounding.  In addition to scripter Evan Dickson’s experience as a genre journalist, director Marcel Sarmiento created the standout segment of “ABCs of Death” and made some waves with his 2008 film “Deadgirl.”  Blumhouse Productions, hiding behind a simple “BH” text credit and a logo uncharacteristically appearing at the end rather than the front, also had a hand in “Totem.”  This competent team should conceivably combine for something cleverer than the anemic effort on display here.

“Totem” instead turns to desperate measures for anything resembling a thrill, resorting to a tired “it was only a dream” moment and actually having a cat leap from nowhere twice in the same scene.  Other feeble jolts include a window slamming and a broken glass cutting someone’s hand, with loud music terribly overcompensating to scrounge up a scare from such low stakes situations.  Just try to contain intense fear when Kellie demonstrates the totem’s awesome power by knocking over magazines and rattling window blinds.  Ooh, spooky.

Brains are encouraged to disengage in solidarity with Kellie’s family as they do dimwitted things like having all four adults regroup outside to discuss how harrowing it was when the ghost attacked Abby in her bedroom just two minutes earlier.  Abby?  Oh wait, we left her inside alone with the ghost!  Culminating in a colossal cheat that constitutes a retroactively ridiculous twist, “Totem” essentially gives up on sensibly motivating onscreen actions, rolling its figurative finger forward as if interested only in wrapping up and going home.

“Totem” can be summed up by saying it’s ironically appropriate for the Amazon Video poster art to simply be white text on a plain black background.  Only a generic label like this could accurately reflect the film’s store brand flavor of disappointing blandness.

Review Score:  35

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