The husband and wife, director and
writer duo of Lawrie Brewster and Sarah Daly arrived on the indie
horror scene in fine form with the confident and creepy 2013 debut
Lord of Tears (aka The
Owlman), which almost
immediately became a cult classic on the strength of its Lovecraftian
mythology, brooding atmosphere, and darkly beautiful cinematography.
The tale of a man returning to the creepy country estate where he
grew up to confront his childhood nightmares and long-buried family
secrets, and instead finding his dreams and reality haunted by a
slender demonic figure with the face of an owl, it was exactly the
sort of strong debut feature which was bound to set the trajectory of
Brewster and Daly's careers, in more ways than one. They followed
that film with an even stronger second feature, The Unkindness of
Ravens, which once again used bird-inspired horror imagery and
rural isolation, this time in service of a haunting psychological
portrait of a PTSD-suffering Afghanistan vet facing down his personal
demons. But the power of the Owlman proved impossible to stay away
from: Brewster took what he learned from the experience of his second
feature and went back to Lord of Tears to make a revamped
director's cut which polished some of the first release's rough edges
and more fully realized the film's potential. Then for his and Daly's
third feature they decided to go back to the mythology of the Owlman
yet again - this time for a prequel story. The Black Gloves is
that prequel. But despite being set in the same countryside manor
house and delving into the mythology of the same demonic figure, it
is not simply retreading familiar ground; far from it. Shot in black
and white and set in the 1940s, this is a stylistic homage to classic
Hollywood Gothic and to vintage Italian horror in the giallo vein;
James Whale meets Mario Bava. In that sense, it is the most ambitious
of their three features so far, and while I am not sure if it is
quite able to surpass the stellar The Unkindness of Ravens as
their best, it is certainly up there.
The film stars Brewster's favorite
leading man Jamie Scott Gordon (star of The Unkindness of Ravens
and co-star of Lord of
Tears) as a psychologist haunted
by the death of a patient who suffered from nightmares of a family
curse and an owl-headed demon. When he learns that the exact same
delusions are shared by a famous ballerina (Alexandra Hulme, also of
Lord of Tears) who
recently disappeared from the spotlight after a psychotic break, he
becomes obsessed with solving the mystery, and works his way into a
position as the ballerina's therapist. But his rational assumptions
about the world are about to be badly shaken when he moves in with
the ballet star and her domineering instructor (Macarena Gomez, who
is surely by no coincidence a striking doppelganger of Bava-regular
Barbara Steele) in the sinister country house where the dancer grew
up – a house central to the nightmares about the Owlman shared by
both his new patient and his deceased former one. The story unfolds
as a brooding, slow-burn Gothic mystery, centered around the
psychologist's desire to understand how these two women could both
share the same nightmares of the same frighteningly specific figure,
when the obvious explanation – the Owlman is real, and something
genuinely supernatural is happening at the estate – is, according
to his worldview, absolutely impossible.
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| "I'm here to figure out how many licks it takes to get to the center of YOUR SOUL!" |
While
Lord of Tears entered
into outright horror territory a bit faster, The Black
Gloves takes its time, with the
push and pull between the flashes of Owlman-focused horror and our
protagonist's insistence that that there must be a rational,
psychological explanation playing out as something of a game of cat
and mouse. This makes The Black Gloves a
different sort of film than its predecessor in a few key ways. While
the Owlman was very much present as a character in Lord of
Tears, right down to having a
few creepy monologues, he is scaled back here into a shadowy presence
that pervades the film but isn't overused. The less-is-more
philosophy when it comes to the use of the Owlman gives him a bit
more mystique, adds to the sense of him being a Lovecraftian
ancient-one type of figure, and makes his appearances a bit more
impactful in their creepiness. This film is also much more
ensemble-focused in its character development, with the interplay,
shifting allegiances, and holding of secrets between the film's three
central characters forming the backbone of the plot. Lord
of Tears already established
what the Owlman is and what he does (though that is recapped here for
newcomers – seeing that film first is not required), so that frees
up this story to explore the mystery of ballerina Elisa Grey's
history, and how her life and her psychological traumas are tied to
the house and the demonic figure which resides beneath it.
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| "The owls are not what they seem." |
This
different focus and slow-burn ensemble-piece approach meshes
extremely well with the film's stylistic conceit, as a retro-style
throwback to both Europe and Hollywood's Gothic past. The movie wears
these influences very heavily on its sleeve in the opening credits,
which are styled after those you might see in a 1930s Universal Studios monster
movie, but the film isn't as specifically anchored in the past as
those credits seem to indicate. The atmospheric cinematography and
lighting doesn't restrict itself to the style or technology of 30s
Hollywood, but also takes stylistic cues from Hammer's classic horror
films and the Italian genre pioneers like Mario Bava, and the whole
thing has a distinctly giallo feel. One must assume that the title is
itself an homage to the giallo subgenre, for which black gloves worn
by the killer are one of the most iconic symbols; not to mention that
a supernatural horror movie set in the world of ballet immediately
conjures up thoughts of Suspiria.
The overall effect is a love-letter to horror's cinematic past,
taking cues from various eras in the genre, but mixing them into a
whole that is stylistically cohesive. It is definitely a film made by
lovers of classic horror for lovers of classic horror.
Between
the highly stylized approach of the film and the intimate ensemble of
essentially just three characters, a whole lot rides on the shoulders
of Gordon, Hulme, and Gomez to make it work – and all three are up
for the challenge. We get to see a different side of Jamie Scott
Gordon's range this time around, and he impresses: while his
characters in Lord of Tears and
The Unkindness of Ravens
were fairly similar (decidedly modern psychologically troubled young
men with scraggly long hair), here he gets to go rather against type
in a straight-laced, scientifically-grounded period role. As with The
Unkindness of Ravens,
the movie is first and foremost about his character's psychological
journey, and again he proves that he has more than what it takes to
carry a film. Hulme is once again very memorable in an ethereal,
haunted performance with more than a few echoes of her Lord
of Tears role.
Gomez, meanwhile, plays the character of the mysterious and abrasive
ballet teacher just a step away from being too over-the-top: she
absolutely recalls the somewhat arch, melodramatic performances of
Italian horror classics like Suspiria,
yet she keeps it just restrained enough that it works rather than
going too far. The vintage black and white aesthetic probably gives
her more room to have fun with the role and take it as far as she can
without breaking plausibility, and she ends up being quite a
scene-stealing character.
If
the film has a flaw, it is that at 80 minutes it is just too short.
It works beautifully when it is in slow-burn mode, but that isn't
quite enough time for a slow-burn horror film to really do all it
can; what is here is great, but it could have used a bit more room to
breathe. Aspects of the characters could have been fleshed out a bit
more, but in particular the mythology really could use more time to
develop. Granted, we know plenty about the Owlman's history from
Lord of Tears,
but there are certainly additions to the mythology in this film that
I wished it had explored more, and aspects of the third act that
could have used a bit more room to breathe. But in the end, the film
works perfectly well on its own; I do wish that it had been longer,
but that's mostly because what we got is so strong that it easily
could have sustained, and benefited from, a longer runtime.
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| "This is how I dressed to go see the new 4K restoration of Suspiria." |
Brewster
and Daly's Hex crew have proven themselves once again to be among the
most interesting indie horror auteurs at work today. The
Unkindness of Ravens
may still hold the distinction of being their best film to date, but
The Black Gloves
isn't
far behind. With its moody black-and-white Gothic atmosphere and its
expansion of Lord
of Tears'
occult mythology, it manages to both build on its predecessor in an
interesting way while also being very much its own beast. For fans of
Lord of Tears
or those who would enjoy a cinephile throwback to several veins of
vintage horror, this film is certainly recommended.
- Christopher S. Jordan
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