The Big Picture
A Desert
is a horror film with striking visuals that become increasingly petrifying and profound.
The eerie and sinister debut feature finds a unique atmosphere through quiet moments and disquieting imagery.
The finale ties everything together in horrifying fashion, leaving you wishing that you could scrub your own skin off.
Just like the process of taking any good photograph, it takes a while for writer-director Joshua Erkman’s feature debut A Desert to frame everything just right so that its full striking vision can be felt. This may take a bit of arranging, including moments where the often refreshingly patient horror film retraces its steps, but that only makes the images it creates all the more potent. While the film initially centers on a creator of such images in the roaming photographer Alex, played by Kai Lennox of recent series like Perry Mason and Fargo, it soon expands outwards. First, we get to know a couple of strangers that he encounters on his trip through the American Southwest, but they only represent the beginning of the trouble that will consume everyone in Alex’s orbit. There is his wife Sam, played by Sarah Lind of the underrated recent horror film A Wounded Fawn, as well as the haggard private detective Harold (David Yow) who she reaches out to for help when things begin to go awry.
Too much else about the plot of the film would only take away from what becomes an increasingly petrifying and often unexpectedly profound experience. It’s also quite grim and mean-spirited, pulling us further into darkness until an ending that will leave you wishing you could scrub your skin off. All of this is very much intended as a compliment, as the film really goes for it and earns all the unsettling swerves that it takes. It’s an experience defined by dread just as it is bloodshed, where a scream at the sight of the damage wrought by a knife cuts just as deep. Along with his co-writer Bossi Baker, Erkman has made a distinctly eerie and sinister debut that succeeds at sneaking into the depths of your subconscious. Once you’ve foolishly let your guard down for it to carve its way inside, that is where it’s free to rip apart the body and soul of you as well as the doomed characters who get caught in its grasp.
A Desert (2024)
Release Date June 7, 2024
Director Joshua Erkman
Cast David Yow , Kai Lennox , Sarah Lind , Zachary Ray Sherman , Ashley B. Smith , Rob Zabrecky , S.A. Griffin , Bill J. Stevens
Runtime 100 Minutes
Writers Joshua Erkman , Bossi Baker
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‘A Desert’ Is a Horror Film That Keeps You on Your Toes
Before we first enter into the film, we start with a classic countdown leader, which is where the numbers are used to count down to assist the projectionist. As will be notable later on, this isn’t something that is present when we go to see movies now. We then see the similarly old-fashioned Alex wandering around an abandoned theater, wielding a heavy camera and a headlamp to take a photo of the screen. Though he hears a banging in the projection booth that startles him, he continues working to get the shot. We then abruptly cut to him on the road, the vast desert stretching out before him. He doesn’t know it yet, though this is where his life and those he loves will be forever upended. Alex initially seems comfortable with his work, though he later remarks in a phone call to his wife from a seedy motel about how he feels like he should take more photos of people as opposed to just empty locations.
In many ways, this mirrors the way the film goes through many shifts of perspective to bring into focus the people that populate these places. Without ever feeling pretentious, Erkman taps into a sense of discontent with modern life just as there is a desire to reconnect with one’s craft. It’s not the main focus of the film, but it represents a subtext that feels like it is also a mourning. When Alex goes out to look at a nearby drive-in screen, a recurring visual motif that will become important later on, something feels off. Like there is a disconnect or, even worse, an already looming sense of loss that is taking hold of every frame. As shot by cinematographer Jay Keitel, who previously worked on the stellar series Outer Range and the spectacular film She Dies Tomorrow, the beauty of the world as seen through the camera can easily become nightmarish brutality. What begins as reverence for the remote world soon turns to something closer to abject terror as the characters realize too late the evil that lurks.
This ensures, when the film makes its first big leap to another perspective just after a horrifying burst of violence that takes it even a terrifying step further while bathed in a hellish red light, the disorientation of this moment makes the sudden downshift all the more impactful. Just as we see new characters stumbling down a similar path to what feels like tragically inevitable violence, Erkman directs this all with the necessary patience and confidence to not rush through the buildup. If anything, the film could have benefited by slowing down even further to let some moments linger. The private detective left sitting alone at the table or taking a lonely drive through the night are striking images that then contrast with the more grimy ugliness that follows. Still, the film finds a unique atmosphere in the quiet moments that grows stronger and more suffocating the longer it goes on. There is just so much that feels desolate and barren. It ensures that the humans making their way through each setting, unaware of what horrors await them at their destination, seem mighty small indeed. Though it can drag a bit in the middle, it still finds more disquieting moments that threaten to beat you down. Nowhere is this more felt than in the crushing conclusion.
The Finale of ‘A Desert’ Pulls No Punches
Image via Tribeca
After all the building up, Erkman goes all out in an ending that is defined by tying the various interconnected parts together just as everything comes unraveled. There is no hope to be found in this, just more and more horror. While some of this is undeniably about provocation and seeing how far it can push things over the edge, including the wheeling out of a certain corpse, it is all still grounded in the foundation that the filmmaker had been laying up until this point. Though there is one final burst of gore in the midst of this, the most impactful moments come from seeing how everyone has now been psychologically broken by the hell they have been drawn into. Even when they try to return back to the past, there is no getting free. It doesn’t paint a pretty picture, but it certainly finds the photos of people in all their petrifying glory that Alex had been seeking. As they play back before us in one final boldly mesmerizing flourish that is as evocative as it is effective, all one can do is gaze upon them in horror.
REVIEW
A Desert (2024)
A Desert is a strong feature debut for Joshua Erkman that sneaks its way into your subconscious before tearing apart body and soul in its finale.
ProsDemonstrating a refreshing amount of patience, the film creates horrifying imagery in its harsh world.With multiple shifts in perspective, it keeps you your toes as it drags you further and further into the darkness.The ending pulls no punches, creating one particularly potent closing sequence that one can only look upon in horror. ConsThere is part of that can start to drag a bit in the middle before getting back on track.
A Desert had its World Premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival.