After receiving a lot of buzz from festival circuit, You’ll Never Find Me, the debut feature from Josiah Allen and Indianna Bell arrives on Shudder. It’s a natural home for an indie horror with big ambitions and promising great things in the future for the directing duo. Set almost entirely within a trailer belonging to Patrick (Brendan Rock), he is disturbed (in every sense of the word) by a visitor (Jordan Cowan) looking to escape the torrential storm. And so the stage is set for a two-hander as they gradually learn more about each other.
Stormy weather maybe a cliché horror backdrop but it is thrillingly realised here. The trailer is constantly creaking, burdened by the heavy rainfall that pounds on every wall, lights flicker on and off, barely any sunlight gets inside. Allen and Bell do incredible work with the limits of the location, finding inventive angles and making every shadowed corner threatening.
There’s a degree where this effectively dread-inducing setting undermines the ambiguity around Patrick – after all, what kind of man wants to live in a horrible, isolated place like this? But for all the sinister cues, Rock imbues Patrick with a loneliness, suggesting he is a man too accustomed to isolation that making connections with a stranger isn’t something that comes easy to him. When he introduces the Visitor to a card game of Bullshit (to those who don’t know it, it’s effectively a bluffing game), it’s an attempt to be playful, a way of letting his guard down. Or a way to sus her out as she has been doing with him as soon as she enters the trailer.
It’s an easy criticism to say something would have been better as a short film, but here it feels like three short films bolted onto each other and played as one ninety plus minute anthology.
For all the effort put into this set-up of cat-and-mouse style story, it ultimately lacks less substance in its storytelling than its atmosphere. Compare it with another Australian horror released earlier this year, Monolith, a similarly stripped-back slow-burn with ambitious visual styling. In fairness, they are very different films, with Monolith having a sci-fi concept easier to latch onto. But even so, it’s gradual unravelling of its ambitious narrative made you forget that it is primarily a single location and actor for most of the film. It had a mystery you could lean into, whereas You’ll Never Find Me holds its card too close to its chest, building tension without any real hint of what there is to be tense about.
Just as Patrick’s intentions could be read as either caring for the Visitor’s wellbeing or finding reasons to make her stay, the film feels like it is stretching itself out to feature length rather than actually developing a strong concept. It’s an easy criticism to say something would have been better as a short film, but here it feels like three short films bolted onto each other and played as one ninety plus minute anthology. There’s a fine line between building tension and just slowing down the action; the majority of the film is the two characters speaking cryptically to each other which soon becomes wearying.
This has been a harsh review, but this is perfectly fine film. Much like another Shudder indie Caveat, it has an incredibly striking and unique aesthetic but the story feels thin when put under scrutiny. As a debut for directors Indianna Bell (also the screenwriter) and Allen though, it effectively showcases their clear skill at creating scares and having a good eye for visuals, even if it is through set pieces and individual moments. With this first feature under their belt, I look forward to seeing whatever they do next as they hone their clear talents.
You’ll Never Find Me is out now on Shudder
