HEAD COUNT

US, 2018, 90 minutes, Colour.
Isaac Jay, Ashleigh Morgan, Bevin Bru, Billy Meade, Hunter Peterson, Chelcie May, Cooper Rowe.
Directed by Ellie Callahan.

This is not a particularly startling film – it is for the characters in the situations but not for the audience watching them.

A young man goes to visit his brother in California, the brother being protective of him. But, the young man decides to go with a group of young people he encounters in the Californian desert around Joshua Tree.

On the one hand, there are the ordinary shenanigans of young adults going together on holidays, drinking, relationships, expeditions into the desert, clashes.

A supernatural element is introduced to the group, a mysterious formula, a mysterious monstrous presence – who seems to be able to infiltrate computers but also take the shape of various members of the group, leading to confusion, drunken mistakes…

At one stage, the proper brother is suspected of causing harm to members of the group, especially a girl who falls down a cliff and who had a relationship with the young brother.

The pace of the film seems rather slow, speeding up towards the end, revelations of the mysterious presence, the mysterious presence being destructive.

And to the brother, sometime vehicle for the mysterious presence, going off with his protective brother at the end.

Very much a take it or leave it kind of horror film.