Movie Review: SITE 13

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: August 4th, 2023 / 11:47 PM

SITE 13 movie poster | ©2023 Terror Films

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Nathan Faudree, Katie Gibson, Leila Dean, Kelly Ray Shelton, Nichole McFarlane, Tony Urban, John Wisniewski, Marguerite Mitchell, Daryl Acevedo, Collin Dean
Writer: Nathan Faudree, story by Tony Urban & Nathan Faudree
Directors: Nathan Faudree & Tony Urban (“found footage” sections)
Distributor: Terror Films
Release Date: July 28, 2023 (VOD, digital)

SITE 13 is a low-budget horror movie that has definite Lovecraftian elements, although it’s also interested in concepts of good and evil.

We start with found footage, but non-fans of this format can relax (at least a little). SITE 13 goes back and forth between the present, which is shot in normal format, and ten years earlier, when the footage was shot.

The footage is actually being examined, in fits and starts, by Dr. Catherine Charter (Katie Gibson), a psychiatrist who had previously been a nun. She warily agrees to return to the Catholic-run mental institution where she had worked.

This is because one of Catherine’s erstwhile patients, Dr. Nathan Marsh (Nathan Faudree, who also directed and wrote SITE 13) has just awakened from a ten-year coma.

In the found footage (actually preserved on a VHS tape – let’s hear it for old tech!), we see Nathan talking happily to the camera about what he’s doing.

Nathan has made his way to Miskatonic University, where he’s doing research into a “devil’s circle.” Apparently, there are twenty-six of these across the globe, with one right near his hometown that’s supposed to be the most powerful. These are supposed to be portals to another dimension, linked to an ancient Sumerian personification of Armageddon.

Nathan is obsessed with these circles. A friend of his has developed a drug that Nathan believes will allow him to pass through the circle, and return. Which – no spoiler alert, since we see him in the present – he does. He’s just got some problems that he didn’t have before.

Early on, we also see some alarming occurrences in a prosaic suburban home. We don’t find out until a lot later how this relates to the rest of the story.

Faudree and Tony Urban, who directed the found footage sections and co-wrote the story with Faudree, have a pleasing sense of structure. They know how to juxtapose shots for maximum effect. They also know how to suggest mayhem, making us feel that we’re seeing more than we actually are (think the PSYCHO shower scene).

An unusual aspect is that the “ten years earlier” found footage was indeed shot a decade prior to the present-day sequences. The changes in fashion and tech are unforced, and Faudree looks subtly older in current scenes without visible help from makeup or lighting.

As a filmmaker, Faudree gets added credit for having a character do something unpredictable in response to a jump scare. Even better, he and Gibson elicit real sympathy for the determined Catherine. Dean also gives a multilayered performance as Sister Margaret.

Faudree himself impresses as Nathan, going from optimistic to ominous to many shades in between with ease.

However, there are some wrong-footed moves. For one, there’s an unnecessary-to-the-plot bit with Nathan sending a dog through the portal. What this mainly does is persuade at least some of the audience that Nathan deserves to potentially get stuck on the other side.

More to the point, we can believe more readily in an otherworldly dimension than that a college professor would document with a camera that he is having an affair with a second-year student (Kelly Ray Shelton), who is financing his research. Even more astonishing, Nathan thinks this project will get him tenure; it’s more likely to get him fired.

Then there is the Vatican’s interest in Nathan’s case. If they are at all aware of Nathan’s experiences (which is strongly suggested), why are they not keeping tabs on him? For that matter, where is the hospital staff?

Finally, there are some philosophical debates to be had, although SITE 13 seems to be in favor of goodness for its own sake, which is a generally heartening attitude.

There are some logic glitches in SITE 13, but it works as a Lovecraftian homage with characters who feel reasonably human.

Follow us on Twitter at ASSIGNMENT X
Like us on Facebook at ASSIGNMENT X

Latest Buzz

A good low-budget movie about a bad portal

Article Source: Assignment X
Article: Movie Review: SITE 13

Related

Related Posts:

Leave a Comment

Assignment X Poll

Newsletter subscription status