Posted in: Movies | Tagged: aaron b. koontz, andrew sensenig, camera obscura, cameron burns, catherine curtin, chiller films, christopher denham, horror, HRL, nadja bobyleva, noah segan

Camera Obscura Review: A Fun Enough Psychological Horror Flick

A former war photographer struggles to adjust back to civilian life when he is given a camera as a gift from his fiancée. As he starts using it, he discovers that dead people begin to appear in his photos. These people are set to die soon after in the exact location and manner depicted in the photographs. Suffering from intense PTSD, this man has to parcel out what is real and what is hallucination.

This is the setup to director Aaron B. Koontz's Camera Obscura, a horror film released recently by Chiller Films. It stars Christopher Denham (Argo, Shutter Island, The Bay) as former war photog Jack Zeller and Nadja Bobyleva (Bridge of Spies, Getting a Life) as his fiancée, Claire.

The premise is intriguing enough for some decent horror. Your first guess would probably one of two extremes. Either Jack is outright insane, or it's a haunted camera. The truth, pleasantly enough, is somewhere in the middle.

Jack is suffering from hardcore PTSD, with hallucinations, blackouts, and erratic moods and behavior. The camera itself is supernatural, but it doesn't seem to have any discernible personality beyond "evil."

The plot of Camera Obscura progresses at a steady pace. Jack finds camera, weird stuff happens with camera, and then Jack has to figure out what to do with his knowledge when it becomes apparent that there is something going on with his photos and the camera.

The relationship between he and Claire is actually pretty endearing. They have chemistry and a specific back-and-forth that makes them feel like more than a generic film couple.

The acting is alright. Denham is doing a very apparent Jesse Eisenberg impression that makes it difficult for him to emote when things get heated. However, his squirrely, neurotic, and understated personality does make some scenes more engaging, and it does allow for him to seem genuinely damaged at times.

Bobyleva seemed to be trying for an American accent towards the beginning of the film, but after a couple of scenes, she seemed to relax into her American-Russian hybrid. Beyond that, she is a pretty decent actress who shows some chops here.

Beyond the main cast, there is a friend of Jack's named Walt, played by Noah Segan (Looper), that is genuinely pretty bad. He's annoying, pretty inconsiderate at times given Jack's history, and the acting is subpar at best.

A detective named Dawson gets involved later into the film, played by Catherine Curtin, who seems to be having some fun and running her own side movie I hope is called Dirty Harriet. She's an enjoyable character that helps inject some life into the proceedings.

There are also a couple of bit characters that are genuinely fun. The guy who runs the store where Jack gets his film developed could not give a shit about anything going on around him. There's also Tad, of Tad's Hardware, who wants you to know that he isn't corporate-owned, and also he really wants to bang Jack.

The script for Camera Obscura is pretty damn solid. There are a lot of good lines, it isn't riddled with clichés, and it keeps the relationships from feeling tired. By a certain point, Jack seems a little too okay with what is going on. He buys the whole thing too easily and isn't that frightened when dead bodies first appear in his photographs. He kind of just rolls with it like he knows he's in a horror movie.

There is a sort-of twist about midway through where Jack figures out that if he saves someone, they later show up dead in developed pictures (there's a plot contrivance with a fire and some of the reels come in later). However, through an accident he figures out that different dead people can replace the dead person in a photo. The movie starts making Final Destination sounds from there, and, uh-oh, his fiancée shows up in a picture.

The resulting back-half of Camera Obscura sees Jack killing people to save his fiancée. It starts going American Psycho from here, and the film actually comes alive a bit more in these situations. Jack is a delightfully off-putting and unnerving serial killer. There are moments where he awkwardly struggles with the corpse of a decapitated prostitute, saying that "this isn't what it looks like" when someone stumbles across it. He also casually apologizes to someone for strangling them — while in the process of strangling that same person.

There are a few strikingly good shots in the film, as well. The PTSD is conveyed through some creative manners, and there's a particularly memorable moment when Jack is in the tub next to aforementioned decapitated prostitute with a slightly annoyed expression on his face while off-beat 1980s synth music plays in the background.

Oh, there's also a subplot about the camera having belonged to a serial killer. You think it's haunted because it was owned by a serial killer, but, oh wait! The camera was actually motivating the killings.

The ending is really unsatisfying. I won't spoil that particular part here, but frankly, that's because it really adds nothing to the overall film. Something very vaguely foreshadowed happens, and it ends the movie for no reason.

Overall, Camera Obscura is a fun enough horror flick with enough charm to keep it enjoyable. The PTSD-focused segments are the only ones that approach anything meaningful or scary. Denham's Jack Zeller is fun. Some of the side characters are quirky and memorable. It's worth a watch if you're up for a quirky and vaguely unnerving sit with a memorable main character.

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