Dis­cov­er the psy­cho­log­i­cal hor­rors of this microbud­get slasher

Apart from the pun­ish­ment of co-ed youth, the killing by num­bers and the odd flash of tit, what uni­fies most films in the slash­er genre is the POV shot – hand­held ​‘sub­jec­tive’ cam­er­a­work, often accom­pa­nied by the sound of heavy breath­ing, that rep­re­sents the per­spec­tive of the unseen (but see­ing) killer, and expos­es the desire for mur­der­ous spec­ta­cle implic­it in the filmgoer’s own voyeurism.

Famous­ly, William Lustig’s Mani­ac opens with one of these shots, as the psy­chokiller first spies on, and then mur­ders, a cou­ple on a beach (in a dream) – and although the film then shifts to more ​‘objec­tive’ cin­e­matog­ra­phy, we remain con­fined to the strange inner world of the tit­u­lar pro­tag­o­nist. Frank Khalfoun’s aston­ish­ing 2012 remake takes a leaf from the book of Robert Montgomery’s 1947 film Lady in the Lake by main­tain­ing a POV shot through­out its dura­tion (with only a cou­ple of brief for­ays into exter­nal – but still very much sub­jec­ti­fied – camerawork).

Like Khalfoun’s film, Derek Mungor’s You Are Not Alone stitch­es togeth­er POV shots that rep­re­sent the imme­di­ate, unmedi­at­ed expe­ri­ence of a sin­gle char­ac­ter. Yet what makes the par­tic­u­lar per­spec­tive in this Kick­start­ed and microbud­get­ed Amer­i­can indie so unusu­al is that it belongs not to the killer, but to the ​‘final girl’ (even if by the end that dis­tinc­tion might have been called some­what into question).

This is not all that is unusu­al about You Are Not Alone. The film begins with a police record­ing (over a black screen) in which a female caller is heard being attacked after stat­ing that a ​“kin­da fun­ny” man has come to her door and won’t leave – and so it announces itself as a slash­er movie. Yet before even that, the first thing heard on the film’s sound­track was a ren­di­tion of the ​‘Star Span­gled Ban­ner’ – and for the film’s first hour, as Natal­ie (Krista Dzialoszyn­s­ki) returns from grad school to her home­town of Wal­nut, Illi­nois for the 4^th of July week­end, and divides her day between see­ing her broth­er Gar­rett (David O’Brien), her beloved Nana (Mary Mik­wa), and her best friends Miles (Keenan Camp) and Katie (Nik­ki Pierce), You Are Not Alone offers an agree­ably mean­der­ing por­trait of small­town Amer­i­ca (over the most Amer­i­can of hol­i­days), and with its aim­less, dope-smok­ing not-quite adults, feels less like a slash­er than like, well, Slacker.

Which is not to say that the film’s sta­tus as a slash­er is ever entire­ly for­got­ten. Not only do we reg­u­lar­ly see head­lines or hear back­ground reports about a ser­i­al killer ​‘on the loose’ in the region, but – more sub­tly – the film keeps allud­ing to slash­er tropes with­out quite imple­ment­ing them in the expect­ed way. When Gar­rett picks Natal­ie up from the air­port, he tells her of a mid­dle-of-nowhere mis­ad­ven­ture he had ear­li­er that morn­ing, evok­ing a thou­sand camper slash­ers – and even declares of his hik­ing expe­ri­ences, ​“This is how hor­ror movies start.”

Lat­er, when a deliv­ery man knocks at the door, the sib­lings duck and pre­tend not to be in, fore­shad­ow­ing the home inva­sion hor­rors to come. After sub­tly crit­i­cis­ing Miles’ lack of direc­tion, Katie says, ​“That was a stab” – and lat­er, stoned and clown­ing in the woods (that key slash­er set­ting), the pair mock-skew­er each oth­er with fall­en branch­es. At a house par­ty, an unin­vit­ed guest wears a creepy mask. Even the hol­i­day set­ting con­jures the cal­en­dri­cal focus of slash­ers that began with Black Christ­mas and Halloween.

After all this laid-back dress rehearsal for a hor­ror film, the real thing kicks (the door) in dur­ing the film’s third act, as Natal­ie, home alone – but not quite alone – late at night, finds her­self being men­aced and stalked by a well-dressed man with very mali­cious intent. At first, while in the house with its many win­dows, our restric­tion to Natalie’s fre­net­ic per­spec­tive comes with a refresh­ing angle on pan­ic. Yet by the time gig­gling, taunt­ing cat and ter­ri­fied mouse have left the house, a cer­tain monot­o­ny, not to men­tion cir­cu­lar­i­ty, sets in, as Natal­ie repeat­ed­ly flees and then stops flee­ing, allow­ing her relent­less pur­suer to keep catch­ing up.

There is, though, in this sto­ry of young Amer­i­cans caught in their own immo­bil­i­ty, a sly psy­cho­log­i­cal dimen­sion to Natalie’s inabil­i­ty to escape. For like Miles’ friend-cum-deal­er The Cap­tain (Eric Woods), a ridicu­lous fig­ure still liv­ing at home with mum, sport­ing a nau­ti­cal cap despite nev­er hav­ing been near a boat, and described by Miles as ​“hap­py being stuck”, Natal­ie too is stuck, if less hap­py. For although she, alone amongst her peers, man­aged to get away and go study in big-city Min­neso­ta, here she is now, split up with her boyfriend, back in Wal­nut, uncer­tain of her life prospects and in need of a killer new perspective.

You Are Not Alone is released on DVD by Sharp Teeth Films on 22 February.