The Thin Man

Viewed on Amazon Prime

[NOTICE This review is not of the finished version of The Thin Man, this review is of the reedited version of the film uploaded illegally to Amazon Prime. I was unaware that this was not the definitive version and leave this review up to draw awareness that this hijacking has happened and continues to happen to indie filmmakers. I intend to view the completed version and write a more accurate review. Thank you to Bayden Redshaw for bringing this to my attention.]

I didn’t start this review series to make fun of low budget filmmakers. Indie films have incredible potential because they operate outside the spheres of production typically used by major studios. There are plenty of movies that manage to transcend their limited resources and emerge as something unique and powerful. Thin Man is not one of those.

Thin Man is a movie that I really wish was able to reach the heights that other low budget films have, but it just doesn’t have the  experimental ideas or unique approach that makes so many indie films stand out from the crowded horror genre.

Thin Man starts with two actors who are brothers in real life, Dylan and Bayden Redshaw, meeting their friend Jordan (who is probably also their friend in real life). I guess having everyone play a fictional version of themselves was meant to make the movie more realistic as a found footage film? But is it lazy writing that they didn’t even change their names?

Anyway so Bayden has just returned from the hospital in a wheelchair and the 3 get together to drink and discuss their next big project, a youtube video based on the legend of the Thin Man. The Thin Man is a paranormal entity who is totally not a ripoff of Slender Man so don’t even bother suggesting that because they already said he isn’t anything like that other guy. They discuss the Thin Man mythos a bit, establishing that he was starved to death in the woods and then his bones are buried out there and in order to stop the Thin Man from abducting people, his bones must be gathered and burned. The actual details are a bit muddled but that is completely fine as lots of ghost stories operate on that same vague beginning. What really matters is that their goal is to perform the ritual that is supposed to summon the Thin Man and they are making this video as an attempt to debunk the urban legend.

Our gang drinks a bit and then leaves to perform this ritual. On the way over to the ritual spot they spy a cane toad on the ground and kick it. The cane toad screams in mid air and is dead by the time it hits the ground. I really really hope this is a special effect and they didn’t just kill a toad. But I  suspect they did as Australians tend to hate cane toads. For some reason they decide to offer the cane toad as a sacrifice during a ritual they plan to perform. They then go to a school to perform the mystical ritual under the bleachers.

The bleacher ritual involves lighting a few nondescript candles and all three of them chanting in unison about the Thin Man. Strangely, it takes an unusually long time for this group to light the candles.  I can’t tell if they were just struggling with the task in real life or if it was supposed to be some kind of plot point about the universe trying to prevent them from enacting this ritual and summoning an evil entity. It is also unclear if they were serious about offering the toad as a sacrifice because they never take it out of the bag they put it in or reference it during the ceremony.

Of course,  this ritual may not have been as fake as they believed it to be, as strange things begin happening to the group when they get home. Unseen visitors, mysterious noises and tons of camera static plague the group for the rest of the night as they are menaced by forces beyond human comprehension.

This all sounds pretty exciting but unfortunately the movie never approaches the levels of terror that were made possible by this premise. It is filmed in the “found footage” style. This is not necessarily a bad sign as many movies have used the the style as a way to keep production budgets low while giving the movie a more ‘realistic’ feel to it that might resonate with some viewers. But the filmmakers still need to have a keen eye for visuals and must be able to utilize this style to maximize the strengths of the actors and locations they have at their disposal.

This is where the movie fails and the entire thing just falls apart. Almost every shot of the movie is either a hyper close up of someone’s face as they are saying their dialogue or it’s a shot of someone looking into the darkness at some vague shape. It drains energy from the raucous sequences of the friends having fun and prevents the viewer from being drawn in and becoming invested in these people’s lives.

Not being able to see the forces amassing against our heroes isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as the unknown is a huge factor in many great horror films, but the reason you can’t see things in this movie is because the camera is often out of focus or constantly being moved or both. This shaking got so bad that I legitimately got a headache during the movie and had to stop and get some ibuprofen before I could continue. Close to 60 minutes of the film are spent in one house and while I can accept that this may have been the only location they had to film, very little is done to make this location atmospheric. Once they come back from the ritual they begin complaining about hearing noises like incessant knocking or something shrieking outside, which could have been scary, but the problem is that I couldn’t hear these things and I genuinely wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be hearing them or not. Much later in the movie I eventually heard some of the sounds they had mentioned, but if this was supposed to signify me as a viewer now falling under the same spell that they were,  it was unclear and I thought it might have just been an audio issue. None of what I saw in the movie is helped by the generic dialogue that the friends spout at each other.

Story-wise the movie also suffered from a great deal of pacing issues, with much of the movie taken up by 2 of the group members wandering around the house and looking around different rooms where they claim to have heard noises coming from. Things perk up a bit at the end of the movie when a previously unseen character arrives and provides information about the Thin Man in an attempt to stop him. What is interesting about this segment is that much of the information provided by this character seems to contradict statements made earlier by the main characters, giving the Thin Man a different back story and expanding on his methods of harming people. This last minute twist could have breathed a bit more life into the movie but there were only a few minutes left in the film at this point and the actor playing this new character was less than stellar.

While this wasn’t the best indie film I have seen, there are moments of potential in the movie and I hope the Redshaw brothers continue to improve their craft.