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| Images courtesy of Synapse Films |
Kevin and Matthew McManus are probably best known for their
work in television, namely the Netflix programs Cobra Kai based on The
Karate Kid films and American Vandal for which they were nominated
for an Emmy and won a Peabody Award.
They’ve also a very small filmography, starting with their 2012
coming-of-age drama Funeral Kings and the 2020 quasi science-fiction/horror
thriller The Block Island Sound being released on 4K UHD for the first
time by Synapse Films. A shoestring production
filmed on the titular Atlantic Ocean strait co-starring the filmmakers’ sister
Michaela McManus as the protagonist’s sister, the scope widescreen thriller is
less interested in gory jump scares than creating a kind of oceanic Invasion
of the Body Snatchers by way of Barry Levinson’s eco-horror The Bay
with a proto-Nope like force lurking silently in the night skies. It doesn’t always stick or land but it was a
curious second feature from the Cobra Kai creative team nevertheless.
Off the cast of Block Island, a strange inexplicable
phenomenon is befalling the residents and animal life in the area. Birds drop out of their sky to their deaths
while fish inexplicably wash all over the shoreline and some of the residents
in the town begin acting out strangely in destructive ways. All the while, boozing Harry Lynch (Chris
Sheffield) stares in horror at his bearded aged father growing increasingly aloof
and foggy, often taking his boat out at night with no recollection of where he
went or why. When his sister Audry
(Michaela McManus) brings her daughter in tow to the town to see what’s wrong
with their father, her marine biology studies become integral to trying to
pinpoint what exactly is causing the strange Bermuda Triangle like phenomenon. Pointing towards something nebulous yet
threatening, hinting at everything from natural earthly inexplicable events to
the possibility of extraterrestrial forces without declaring anything, the film
soon becomes a maelstrom of madness and things beyond comprehension.
A tight little movie with characters that feel cherry picked
out of Sam Raimi’s A Simple Plan, right down to a local eccentric boozer
with a Chariots of the Gods? regard for the events unfolding, The
Block Island Sound joins The Devil’s Candy in the annals of
low-budget The Amityville Horror styled possession thrillers. Featuring arresting, scenic widescreen
photography by Alan Gwizdowski, a terrifying sound design by Shawn Duffy
underscored by an ambient electronic score by Paul Koch, the technical merits
of this little film are sound and beautifully represented in HDR 10 on the UHD
master. The lead actors in it are fine
with Chris Sheffield of The Stanford Prison Experiment turning over a
solid performance as the beleaguered alcoholic who, like his father, starts
succumbing to the possessive phenomena.
Also good is sister actress Michaela McManus as Audry who is the voice
of reason in the story who soon becomes maybe the only one who can actually
solve this bizarre dilemma.
Premiering at the Fantasia International Film Festival in
2020 before going on Netflix a year later and now granted a deluxe UHD release
from Synapse Films, The Block Island Sound as a whole is sadly a bit
underwhelming but the performances are good and the semi-Bermuda Triangle
setting and premise keep the picture from falling into a slog. It doesn’t really fully wrap up, leaving some
ideas open for interpretation, but it doesn’t exactly achieve untold science
fiction horror heights either. Fans of
the film and the budding career of the McManus Brothers will be intrigued by
this second feature effort by the duo though judging by this movie that shows
enormous promise which only gets halfway there, their time is better spent
working in television.
--Andrew Kotwicki
