Article Wednesday - Preview Review - Reclusion
There are elements of this trailer that feel cliche, and moments that seem far more intriguing. It makes it difficult to get a grasp of what exactly Reclusion is going to offer. The optimist in me is sitting on the side of an original film in an unoriginal trailer package. And by unoriginal I mean, "If I see one more horror trailer that tries to tack on some weak jump scare at the end, I'm going to throw my monitor across the room."
The elderly lead appears to be strutting some strong acting muscles as he teeters between insane recluse and quiet, misunderstood old man. The rest of the cast seems relatively standard; the concerned good samaritans that doubt in the supernatural just long enough to give us a climactic spiritual reveal. Yet, we get glimpses of some interesting supernatural behavior and material, hopefully leading to some quality scares and an unpredictable plot.
By far the most mysterious element in the film is the enigma behind the source of the darkness. We could be approaching various angles here. None are terribly original, but some are less contrived than others. Perhaps this is just a vengeful murdered family in the house that the now elderly husband keeps contained by himself. Or perhaps we aren't experiencing something spiritual at all. Maybe it's a psychological manifestation of the man's nightmares that awakens when he sleeps. Or, like something out of the X-Files, the old man experiences astral projection while sleeping, consciously aware of the evils he commits while dreaming.
Astral projection and haunted houses are nothing new. But manifested nightmares isn't fresh territory either. We have Sphere, which applied a very interesting take on the concept, and the recently released horror film Before I Wake, which took a fun idea and made it look as bland as possible. For some reason, I would prefer Reclusion be the latter, for at least it has the opportunity to resolve the issues in a creative way. I wouldn't mind a haunted house version of Sphere, that might be cool, but that might be far-fetched wishful thinking from a trailer that doesn't necessarily display evidence to the benefit.