Limitations can be a driving force for creativity when faced by passionate artists, especially in the world of film. And when it comes to cinematography, what greater flexibility is there than limiting yourself to a single take and refusing to use the shortcuts offered by editing? Understandably, this kind of advanced skill is rare in the independent world due to the enormous difficulty of achieving flawless productions without the time and resources of Hollywood, but it's not impossible.
So Australian filmmaker Luke Sparke (known for this year's Primitive War) decided he wasn't going to let something as silly as "budget" stop him from creating a respectable one-take thriller. The result of his ambitious cinematic experiment was the apocalyptic creature feature Scurry.
Director: Luke Sparke
Writer: Tom Evans
Stars: Jamie Costa, Emalia, Peter O'Hanlon
Written by Sparke's frequent collaborator Tom Evans, Scurry resembles the director's previous projects in that it seeks to appear far more expensive and blockbuster-like than it actually is. And although the film's marketing hinges on the moderate success of Primitive War, Scurry was completed before it, and its general release was delayed until Sparke became a more bankable name.
Here's an example of an apocalyptic film with limited horizons: with a necessarily narrow perspective on the end of days, no doubt for budgetary reasons, it's as if The Day of the Triffids were viewed entirely from a polytunnel, or 28 Days Later from inside an isolation ward. Here, director Luke Sparke descends in his introduction from a massacre in an office skyscraper overlooking a devastated horizon to ground zero: the bottom of a crater where Mark (Jamie Costa), a wounded civilian, is trapped under a rock.
Having freed himself just before a rockslide traps him in a tunnel, Mark encounters Kate (Emalia), also scrabbling in the darkness. With a shocking level of panic and a serious leg wound, he insists, at gunpoint, that he stay behind while they search for a way out. Not only does this petty thief's attitude portend an imminent end, but the chatter they hear in the darkness suggests that the solution is within reach.
Sparke demonstrates his skill with the camera by directing this nightmare in a cramped space in a series of long takes, sometimes pulling back to achieve poignant, Zippo-like distance from the cavers. But the script, as written by Tom Evans, leaves the film painfully little room for maneuver; there are many tedious disputes over resources like light and phone signals, and all-too-obvious false exits. When Mark and Kate aren't searching, they trade contrived revelations about their characters that seem concocted on the spot to pass the time. And there's little insight into the creatures' behavior—chitinous escapees from Starship Troopers—or how they fit into the larger apocalyptic picture.
To its credit, the film is well-paced for the experience of two people trapped in a tunnel; it's somehow agonizingly poorly written and, with the eccentric camerawork and relentless soundtrack, oddly over-the-top. At least the lead actors get a good workout: as an obvious graduate of the Shelley Duvall school of panic acting, Emalia displays a full adrenaline-fueled palette, from hyperventilation to stressed-out severity to throat-clenching collapse.
Scurry is available on digital platforms since October 6.
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