The evil that men do lives after them. So the Bard once said, and what people didn’t understand is that it’s way too easy to do evil. All someone really has to do is ignore the evil they know about. Dostoevsky explored that idea, but it is Ursula K. LeGuin’s 1974 short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” that provides inspiration for Robert Rippberger’s new horror film, Those Who Walk Away.
It’s not a direct reflection of the story, but the theme remains. Rippberger grapples with the question of how we can bury our consciences and let others suffer. College student Avery (Scarlett Sperduto) gives her new beau Max (Booboo Stewart) a quick summary of the story, then the movie rolls along into becoming an intimate horror film.
Max clearly has some hidden damage, but seems mostly sweet. So does Avery. If you didn’t know this was in the horror genre, it might seem like you were watching an indie romantic drama. Two people find each other through a dating app, and we follow them getting to know each other over a night. Except Avery loves local ghost stories, and wants to go the house where the monstrous Rotcreep was said to have terrorized a family.
It’s a shame they find it.
At that point, Rippberger amps up the terror. Max and Avery have walked into a nightmare, and the camera reflects that, spinning around and shooting from strange angles. Because it’s also often dimly lit, it can be hard to follow the couple’s path through the house, but every now and then the lighting becomes clear. That’s when we see shining fear.
They’re not the only ones in the house, with a character (Bryson JonSteele) whose very presence keeps the moral theme from drifting too far away. It’s a hard balance to keep, and the film doesn’t always quite stay upright. The need to scare weighs too heavily, along with the need to keep Rotcreep (Nils Allen Stewart) just outside the edge of our vision.
Part of that comes from having to shoot a low-budget film in the middle of a pandemic. The movie feels a bit underpopulated, but that also works to its advantage. There’s no temptation to cut away, provide a cathartic “meanwhile,” because there’s nowhere to go. Those Who Walk Away is a high pressure tour de force for the younger Stewart.
There’s more here than running and screaming. With co-writer Spencer Moleda, Rippberger acknowledges the buttons that must be pushed. Avery even protests that she knows that “Rotcreep” doesn’t sound too creative a name, but… locals. Once he appears, the real shame is that more money couldn’t have been spent on building him up; like last year’s Slapface, there’s the skeleton of a lasting monster here.
But as mentioned above, the lasting monsters can be ordinary humans. Those Who Walk Away never walks too far away from that point. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s a thoughtful one. And any horror film that can both scare you and make you think a bit? That’s worth watching.
