A DESERT (2024)

4 stars

Blue Finch Film Releasing. Digital. 24th November

In A DESERT (terrible title), Alex (Kai Lennox) is a photographer trying to revitalise his career. So he has headed out to the middle of nowhere with his large plate camera to take pictures of abandoned buildings and other settings that pique his interest – planning to create a new book, like the one he did two decades ago. He has no GPS and no mobile phone and is just driving through the desert looking for photogenic places to capture on film.

Staying in a motel one night he hears a disturbance in the room next door and, after reporting it to the front desk, Renny (Zachary Ray Sherman), one of the neighbours causing the noise, knocks to apologise – he is both charming and somewhat creepy. Before long he has introduced his sister (honest she is), Susie Q (Ashley Smith) and things rapidly go off the rails…

When she hasn’t heard from Alex, his wife Sam (Sara Lind) employs a slightly sleazy private detective Harry Palladino (David Yow) to try and find him, but there is much more to this than just a missing person.

This neo noir horror has great style and assured direction by Joshua Erkman – his feature debut – with a growing sense of dread as things progress. Great cinematography by Jay Keitel captures the searing heat of the desert and the eeriness of the abandoned sites. The music by Ty Segall adds to the pervading atmosphere. The whole thing is held together with top notch acting — especially Zachary Ray Sherman, with his Charles Manson vibe. I did feel, however, that the script by Erkman and Bossi Baker had rather too many contrivances to be completely convincing.

Steve Kirkham