Descendent could also be the simplest use of allegory to discover a personality’s concern of fatherhood since David Lynch’s Eraserhead. In crafting his seminal horror traditional, Lynch crammed the display screen with surreal and unsettling imagery that, for some, made the movie laborious to interact with as something greater than a midnight film. Descendent takes the other method. Led by a pair of unaffected and approachable performances by Ross Marquand and Sarah Bolger, Descendent avoids the temptation to lapse into full-blown horror. As a substitute, it makes use of alien abduction to discover how a person’s idea of himself as a courageous, assured and robust protector can fly out the window with the terrifying prospect of first-time fatherhood.
In his directing debut, actor Peter Cilella — who additionally wrote the script — stretches this allegory so far as it could go. Actually, by combining impending parenthood, male fragility, household tragedy and alien abduction, it typically feels as if he’s addressing an excessive amount of. The inconclusive ending additionally leaves one wishing for a tad extra closure. However Ciella earns a lot credit score for tackling the story in a mature trend that does not depend on too many timeworn horror methods. On the entire, Descendent is one other sturdy entry from Rustic Movies, the Los Angeles-based manufacturing firm synonymous with low-budget, filmmaker-friendly style fare like She Dies Tomorrow, Issues Will Be Totally different and The Infinite, which featured Cilella in entrance of the digital camera.
Descendent
3
/5
- Launch Date
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March 8, 2025
- Runtime
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93 minutes
- Director
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Peter Cilella
- Writers
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Peter Cilella
- Producers
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Aaron Moorhead, Arianne Fraser, Henry Winterstern, Justin Benson, Mark Ward, Delphine Perrier
Descendent is the primary main lead function for Marquand, who is understood principally for his work on AMC’s The Strolling Useless. Along with his imposing, but soft-spoken demeanor, Marquand makes for a sympathetic everyman. Right here he performs Sean, an elementary college safety guard in L.A. whose spouse Andrea (Bolger) is sort of pregnant. The approaching and blessed occasion triggers in Sean the same old assortment of fears and anxieties, like easy methods to land the personal safety gig that will higher present for his rising household and easy methods to keep away from his Aunt Robin (Susan Wilder), who thinks he’s a little bit of a loser.
On the outset, the artful Cilella and hulking Marquand deftly maneuver us into pondering that Sean is simply one other well-meaning would-be father who’s in over his head. That adjustments when Sean falls off a roof whereas repairing a light-weight fixture moments after witnessing a vibrant gentle dart throughout the night sky. Whether or not Sean was truly kidnapped and probed by aliens after falling onto the pavement turns into the movie’s central thriller, unlocking long-buried trauma and prompting a sluggish breakdown that creates cracks in Sean’s psyche and his marriage.
The Stress Stays Excessive, the Scares Keep Low
Cilella’s measured method retains our curiosity and the stress excessive. The extra we learn about Sean’s previous, the extra we perceive about his psychological state. After the accident, Sean develops an enhanced capability to listen to distant conversations, plus a beforehand untapped capability to attract. Since troubled folks typically draw sketches to specific concepts and feelings which can be too troublesome for them to articulate, Sean’s obsessive doodling tantalizingly provides to the thriller. So does the troubled previous he discusses with a therapist (Clare Cooney) who discovers that Sean’s mom died in childbirth and his father dedicated suicide, giving him no parental mannequin to emulate.
As Sean slowly unravels, Cilella isn’t above delivering some boilerplate horror moments, similar to Sean’s ever-more unsettling nightmares. In any other case, whereas some audiences will maintain out hope that Sean was certainly kidnapped by aliens, it is extra probably that he’s merely manifesting his insecurities in weird methods. Cilella retains each potentialities in play longer than is critical, nevertheless it’s nonetheless a powerful show of restraint and talent.
Marquand manages Sean’s psychological disintegration with out overdoing it, holding us invested in his story. Bolger’s interesting efficiency, which carves out a strong-enough id for Andrea, helps immeasurably as effectively. Since Sean is just not able to articulating his fears to his more and more confused and terrified spouse — particularly since they embody a potential alien abduction — Andrea has no alternative however to contemplate that she might have to lift her baby on her personal. Even when Bolger’s main job is to extend the strain on the primary character, she’s nonetheless a robust presence. With out her, Sean could be unraveling in a vacuum.
‘Descendent’ is No ‘Take Shelter,’ However It Nonetheless Works
Descendent is much less a fine-grained exploration of the anxiousness that clouds the minds of expectant fathers than a intelligent, genre-appropriate depiction of those considerations. Its principal weak spot is that it doesn’t convey all its story threads collectively in a satisfying manner, particularly in comparison with related movies like Jeff Nichol’s riveting Take Shelter and Adrian Lyne’s nerve-jangling Jacob’s Ladder. However it nonetheless punches above its weight as a low-budget horror thriller that is not afraid to confess that fatherhood can set off primal fears in males primarily based on their perceived inadequacy, particularly after they come from a damaged household. Whether or not you’re changing into a father otherwise you’re kidnapped by aliens, your life is eternally modified by a being made out of stardust.
Descendent, from RLJE Movies, opens in restricted launch on August 8 and in theaters nationwide and on VOD August 15