“A Haunting is a lonely thing. No one else can see what you see. Even the people you love would call you crazy.”
We all have our fears, and that’s a good thing for the folks in the movie-making business. Fright sells, and we all like to be afraid … at least a little bit. From rollercoasters to movies, fear is a business, and going by box office receipts and streaming numbers, business has been good. The nice thing about movies that deal with fears is that they make excellent independent film fodder, because it’s something everyone relates to, and you can do it on a pretty modest budget. But the writing has to be good, and the performances must be compelling, particularly when you don’t have the cash to dazzle them with computer-generated delight. You might not get that box office jackpot, but with streaming and home video, a good movie does indeed have an afterlife. Writers/directors Jesse Holland and Andy Mitton have just that with the Lightyear Entertainment release of their 2015 horror film We Go On. It’s a barebones release that just might be worth a spin after all.
We Go On looks and sounds like something you might have seen in a classic series like The Twilight Zone. I almost expected Rod Serling to come out from the shadows and introduce this rather compelling little tale. Let’s say he did. It might go something like this:
Submitted for your approval. Meet Miles Grissom Owen (Freeman), a man haunted. A man of many fears. He suffers nightmares of losing control of his car and driving himself into an early grave. What is interesting is that Miles doesn’t even have a driver’s license because he’s afraid of just such a nightmare coming true. But it doesn’t stop there. He’s afraid of nearly everything. He seldom leaves his apartment. He works editing those annoying infomercials that are all too familiar to the modern insomniac so he doesn’t have to leave the confines of his home in order to make a living. While it wears many disguises, there’s really only one fear that drives them all. He’s afraid of dying and wants desperately to believe there is something else after we die. He thinks this knowledge will be comforting and allow him to live a “normal” life. But would it truly be comforting? Miles is about to find out when an ad in the local classifieds takes him headlong into … The Twilight Zone. OK, I made up that last part. But it pretty much sums up We Go On. Which is exactly what I’m going to do for you now.
Have you heard the joke about The Scholar, The Medium and The Entrepreneur? Miles decides to place an ad that offers $30,000 to anyone who can offer him tangible proof of an afterlife. Of course, the ad gets a lot of attention, and Miles receives 1067 replies. His mother (O’Toole) doesn’t like the idea at all, so she agrees to help him sort through it all to try to keep him from getting scammed. They narrow down that number to three that might be promising. You guessed it. A scholar, Dr. Ellison (Glover), a medium, Josephina (Zacarias) and an entrepreneur, whom we never end up getting to meet. But it isn’t until he meets an airport maintenance worker named Nelson (Dunn) that he finds someone who can get him into “the inner circle” where he finds what it is he has been looking for. You know the warning that you should be careful what you wish for, and Miles is a classic case. It appears that when some doors get opened, they don’t end up getting closed again. It’s a cautionary tale as much as anything else, and it all really depends on Clark Freeman as Miles to pull it all off, and that’s pretty much where any gold to be mined here can be found.
The cast is pretty good from top to bottom. Annette O’Toole does a wonderful job of playing the protective but understanding mother. She’s not about to let him get hurt. I mean, Mama is packin’ heat in that purse of hers. But O’Toole allows us to get a bit of a hint of the secrets that will Miles will encounter on his journey. It’s more than a solid performance. John Glover has always been a favorite of mine going all the way back to the short-lived television series Brimstone, where he plays a devilish Satan. He had a great run on Smallville where he out-Luthored Lex Luthor himself in the Superman origin series, where he also shared the screen with Annette O’Toole as Clark’s mom. . He’s one of those incredible talents that you can never get enough of. He’s the scholar, and he sucks you right in, and doesn’t he always? Giovanna Zacarias has a small part that ends up being not quite so small and still feels underused. There’s a visceral authenticity in the actress and character that anchors the film in the real world. Jay Dunn is suitably haunting as Nelson. But, of course, Clark Freeman has to deliver the goods, and I was impressed with how well he came through. There are a lot of emotions going on in this character, and he has to play both fearful and tortured, and if we don’t believe it even for a second it all falls apart. I wasn’t very familiar with his work, and it seems he’s done a lot of television guest shots and a regular role in a series called Narcos: Mexico which I haven’t seen, but I might have to change that after seeing him here.
The film is atmospheric and gritty enough that you slide into this world quite easily. It’s a slow burner at first, but it picks up before you lose interest and starts to feel a little episodic. It takes pretty much to the last 20 minutes or so for it all to come together, and that’s the film’s central weakness. The pace falls apart a bit, and while there’s a twist or two that serve as nice payoffs, the ending doesn’t quite bring it all together smoothly. I get the feeling that Holland and Mitton didn’t really know exactly how they wanted to bring this one to a close, so we get what feels like multiple endings, and so while hedging their bets they don’t quite bring this one in for a smooth landing. But the film has some nice moments and some very convincing performances and is worth a quick look.
I found I could relate to Miles at least in a small way. While I don’t share his almost crippling fear of death, I have wanted very much to believe some of the ghost stories I’ve heard over the years. Friends tell me about them, but as much as I want to, I just haven’t seen anything that seals the deal for me. I not scared by the whole ghost thing, but quite intrigued. The ghost-hunting shows I’ve seen just leave me frustrated. None of it connects. No matter how many stories I hear from people I trust I’m just not a believer … yet. “You just have to open it yourself to see what comes out.”
