Meet Me There (2014)

The start of this film is so, so good and offers up the promise of a cheap but inventive psycho-horror. This proves not to be the case. Far from it, in fact.Where to begin? Everything is shoddy! The acting is stilted with the lead actress in particular failing to match her emotions with the events occurring around her. The plodding, inane dialogue becomes an endurance test in unnecessarily long scenes. The director clearly has no idea how to use a camera to tell a story - his 'style' is a perfunctory point-and-shoot approach with some bad shot choices, awkward framing etc. The audio is terrible with much of the dialogue dubbed over.Here's the perfect encapsulation of how clumsily and poorly put together this film is: you can hear the director call "Action!" at the start of one shot. How the hell do you make that sort of mistake?! How incompetent do you have to be to not catch that? I won't say much on the plot because I'm not sure what the f*** was going on. I can deconstruct and explain the likes of Lynch's 'Lost Highway' and Kaufman's 'Synedoche, New York' with the best of them but I'm clueless as to what the muddled mess of an ending was about and nothing short of a loaded gun is gonna get me to go back and watch it again.Ignore the high praise of the early reviewers. They're clearly friends and family of the film makers. Not only do many of them have the same location as the film makers (Texas) but they've also signed up just to review this film and talk it up as if it's the Second Coming of horror. It's not. It's truly awful.

Small towns aren't just weird, they're weird in a way that's completely unique and unsettling, and that's something that Meet Me There understands perfectly. From the moment that Calvin and Ada arrive in town, this movie is relentlessly unsettling, keeping everything on edge with exactly the kind of creepy atmosphere that you get in those weird, out of the way places that either drive people out or absorb them into their own weirdness, and it's a thrill to watch Calvin and Ada, particularly Ada, struggle with trying to escape only to be dragged back in again and again.Also, it probably goes without saying, but Dustin Runnels (the WWE's Goldust) is absolutely amazing in his role as a preacher who effortlessly moves from folksy to terrifying, sometimes in the span of a single scene. Great stuff, and well worth watching.

Mostly a horror flick, yeah, but there's funny moments in here, too. That's important to keep in mind when reading about a movie like Meet Me There. I was uncomfortable at times (in a good scary movie kind of way). I was weirded out at times (in a good scary movie kind of way). I was grossed out at times (in a good scary movie kind of way). I also laughed a few times (bonus!). The acting was pretty great and I enjoyed the locations as well. Looking forward to more from the actors, writer, and director who combined forces for this project. I saw this film during Wrestlemania weekend in New Orleans and it was one of the best things I witnessed (and Wrestlemania was awesome so that's saying something special). Thumbs up, this is a good (and bizarre) movie.

Hovering somewhere between supernatural and psychological horror, "Meet Me There" is a welcome twist on the tropes that permeate both horror and independent film. A spectacular cold open filled with creeping dread sets the tone for the film, which specializes in leaving you unsettled and never fully answering all of your questions. This is a breath of fresh air in a genre that has lately taken great pains to over-explain everything, no matter how unsatisfying the answer. "Meet Me There" aspires to the lofty heights in both tone and quality of recent transcendent genre films "Beyond the Black Rainbow" and "Kill List" -- while also being nothing like either of those movies. "Meet Me There" manages to squeeze terror out of a small town in the middle of nowhere, while presenting a pair of exceedingly likable protagonists that you actually want to root for -- another rarity in the genre. The largely-unknown cast really shines, while professional wrestler Dustin "Goldust" Runnels is a standout in an understated, sublime supporting role.Witty dialogue, a master class in building tension waiting for the other shoe to drop and a talented hand guiding the production add up to a small-budget horror film that is worth going out of your way to experience.