[SXSW 2021 World Premiere Review] Offseason Is A Slightly Meandering Homage To Silent Hill

When you look at the filmography of writer/director Mickey Keating, trends start to emerge. Critics have often examined his works through the lens of the filmmakers who’ve inspired him, noting that he takes elements and combines them into something that feels somewhere between an homage or an imitation...depending on their perspective. Carnage Park is often compared to the era of 70s of grindhouse entertainment. Darling exemplifies 60s era psychological horror films and, in particular, Roman Polanski’s early oeuvre. In an interesting semi-swerve, his latest film world premiering at SXSW 2021 is Offseason, a seemingly curious stylistic homage to both a film and a game.

To put a fine point on it, Offseason is an indie film exploration of Silent Hill...without (most) of the monsters. 

A cold open introduces us to a rich matriarch named Ava Aldrich (Melora Walters), a bed-ridden woman who seems delirious as she wails about inescapable nightmares before coming to the decision to stop running and welcome them with open arms. In a stylistic flourish bordering on camp, she then puts her hands to her face and screams as Keating gives us the title card. Offseason is then broken into chapters as we follow Ava’s daughter Marie (Jocelin Donahue) on her journey to an island town her mother has been interred. Similar to Silent Hill 2’s protagonist, Marie has been sent a letter, informing her that her mother’s grave has been vandalized and instructing her to return post haste; discretion is, of course, at the upmost importance.

We’re quickly introduced to Marie and her boyfriend George (Joe Swanberg) as they drive through the windswept palm trees and desolate highways of Florida, towards a mysterious island town called Lone Palm Beach. A large bridge provides the only entrance and egress to the island and it is, after all, the titular offseason, where storms are a constant presence. The bridge operator (fantastic genre character actor Richard Brake) initially warns them to turn around, but when Marie presents the letter to him he stares at her with haunted eyes, before letting them pass and they continue onward to the cemetery.

Drenched in cold blues, grays and greens, cinematographer Mac Fisken frames the cemetery with Gothic excess, replete with a shadowy woman who materializes from the requisite and unending fog. It’s here that Keating’s breadcrumb story starts tipping its hat. The camera pauses to focus on an altar formed out of waves and a very large demonic creature, while the score provides an appropriate flourish as if to say, “this is important.” While the narrative drops these crumbs for the viewer to follow, Keating also intersplices flashbacks that fill in the backstory of Marie and her mother Ava that lend the film a fatalistic flair. At various points, Marie finds herself mostly alone in the fog-enshrouded island and as she wanders from location to location, she discovers that something in rotten in the little tourist town of Lone Palm Beach.

Something nightmarish that doesn’t want her to leave.

Offseason is a well-acted experience that focuses on a mood rather than a story and puts most of the onus on Jocelyn’s confused plight in a nightmarish town. She’s more than up to the task and turns in a fine performance that was easily my favorite part of the film. As she runs or wanders from shop to beach to tavern, Keating stages each location as a kind of set piece to showcase a different side of the unearthly horror Marie finds herself in…some to greater effect.

An early interaction at a bar (appropriately named Sandtrap) is a standout. It’s initially presented as a lively and bright salvation from the oppressive cold and through the window we see the townspeople laughing while an old woman happily plays a jaunty song at an upright piano. And if you’re already predicting that they’ll freeze when Marie and George enter, you’re absolutely right; the patrons stop mid-action and stare. It’s a well-used trope, but it provides a welcomed sense of surrealism that works perfectly, particularly after one of the patrons (Jeremy Gardner) sidles up, wanting to reveal something before being interrupted. And as she asks where the caretaker would be, the crowd responds, “didja check the cemetery?” before erupting into raucous laughter verging on delirium.

Dread and mystery exudes from every inch of the fog-encrusted streets of the empty town of Lone Palm Beach. A lone phone rings in the distance and Marie is forced through rooms filled with mannequins while the omnipresent thunderstorms rumble in the background. Offseason is an indie film where nothing overtly scary happens through most of the runtime, yet the tension the sound design creates adds a texture that keeps the tension bubbling for most of the film. It gives the film an appropriately apocalyptic and nightmarish tone.

As the narrative introduces more of the town and explores Marie’s predicament, the connection to both Christophe Gans’ Silent Hill and Keiichiro Toyama’s seminal game become increasingly clear. While the scene in the cemetery evokes the kind of Gothic horror you’d expect in a Hammer horror film, a shot of Marie walking down a deserted, fog-encased street looks exactly as if Jocelin Donahue literally stepped onto the set of Silent Hill. Later, in one of the film’s truly humorous set pieces, Maire is forced to watch a VHS tape to solve a puzzle in a sequence that truly evokes the preposterous head-scratchers the game is known for.

And yet Offseason mostly works because of the stylish flourishes and a who’s-who of notable genre actors and directors who provide good, oftentimes haunting, portrayals. While it’s missing a lot of the monstrosities you’d expect from a film that so closely homages Silent Hill, it manages to do a lot with very little. A few moments are punctuated with some delicious scares, such as an attic-set horror stinger and a beach revelation that embraces the cosmic feeling Keating wants to impart. Unfortunately, the second act feels rudderless as it strips Marie of her agency, forcing her to wander from location to location and mystery room upon mystery room; an immersive theatre experience for one.

It feels rather empty, which is appropriate given the situation but sometimes makes a frustrating viewing experience. Still, as an experiment, Offseason is a solid piece of atmospheric and nightmarish dread that fans have come to expect from Mickey Keating.