Movie Review: SUNRISE

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: January 19th, 2024 / 01:41 AM

Rating: R
Stars: Alex Pettyfer, Guy Pearce, Crystal Yu, William Gao. Olwen Fouéré, Kurt Yaeger, Lalor Roddy, Riley Chung, Chike Chan
Writer: Ronan Blaney
Director: Andrew Baird
Distributor: Lionsgate
Release Date: January 19, 2024

In SUNRISE, opening title cards inform us of a demon in the Pacific Northwest that used to get ritual animal sacrifices from the First Nations. The demon could bestow eternal life when it chose. Eventually, humans were sacrificed. Settlers called the demon the Red Coat. The demon gets its power from blood.

We see what appears to be someone in a red cloak feeding on a deer. Then we cut to scarred-up, suited Joe Reynolds (Guy Pearce) talking about blood, but not as sustenance. Rather, he’s expounding on the blood ties of family, spewing racism for an audience that includes his like-minded mother (Olwen Fouéré), some factory workers, and Chinese immigrant farmer Mr. Loi (Chike Chan).

Reynolds wants Loi to sign over his farm property. When Loi refuses, Reynolds murders him in front of the onlookers.

Loi’s family – wife Yan (Crystal Yu), teen son Edward (William Gao), and little girl Emily (Riley Chung) – know only that he’s disappeared, although Edward correctly suspects what has happened. Yan in determined to hang onto the farm.

Then Yan and Edward discover a strange man, Fallon (Alex Pettyfer), who has taken refuge in their outbuilding. Fallon is in bad shape, and Yan brings him into the house until he’s on his feet.

A radio program has been broadcasting news of lots of dead animals in the area, and rumors of the “urban legend” of the Red Coat. Edward isn’t so sure the Red Coat is mythical, and thinks that in fact Fallon could be him.

Meanwhile, Reynolds still wants the family off their land.

Directed by Andrew Baird from a screenplay by Ronan Blaney, SUNRISE is visually beautiful. With locations in Northern Ireland standing in for the rural northwestern U.S., the mist-shrouded forests, fields, and enormous trees all look suitably mythic, while the depleted rundown town speaks volumes about economic hardship.

For a while, we’re willing to let SUNRISE build. The performances are good, with standout work from Pearce as the enraged Reynolds, Fouéré as his iron-hearted mother, and Yu as the courageous Yan.

But a format of flashing back to earlier events becomes repetitive. We also start to have a lot of unanswered questions, starting with what drew the Loi family to this extremely inhospitable community and what so weakened Fallon in the first place, and proceeding onto the timing of his actions (or lack thereof) as the situation escalates. Finally, although this doesn’t impact the film’s content in any way, we wonder about the title, since the sun doesn’t appear to affect anyone or anything.

SUNRISE is persuasive in its portrait of the ugliness of self-righteous xenophobia. However, it’s far too abstract to register as horror or folklore, and that’s where it seems to aspire to resonate.

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Atmospheric but slow not-quite-vampire tale

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Article: Movie Review: SUNRISE

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