Cryptic Movie Review
Cryptic Movie Review
Living in the past can be murder.
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Cellular devices in horror movies are usually all about the dead zones — dropped calls, not enough bars, the battery drained just when that lifeline is most needed. But in Cryptic, a neat little indie directed by Danny Kuchuck and John Weiner, the mobile phone works all too well.
Jessie Graver (Jadin Gould as the child, Julie Carlson as the teen) can claim having had the worst birthday, ever. Maybe even worse than Ginny Wainwright from Happy Birthday To Me. She too loses her mom on that special date, but to make matters worse it seems the death was due to murder and Jessie's got to travel back through the years to prove it, catch the culprit, and maybe even save more than one life. All this, only with the use of an old 90s brick cell phone — I hope she got the unlimited time (travel) plan!
To say much more would give away some good twists and turns, but if you've enjoyed stories like that Twilight Zone episode where the little girl communicates with her dead grandma on the toy phone, or if you dug 2000's Frequency, then you're primed for Cryptic. Now, it's not really a horror movie — definitely more along the lines of a dark thriller and sci-fi — but it's pretty intense at times and it's a damn sight better than M. Night Shyamalan's past few movies in spite of its obvious meager budget and no-frills approach.
Keeping paradoxes and time-space continuum mumbo-jumbo to a minimum, yet giving the average audience just enough info so as to not insult, Cryptic's strength lies in its characters and the mystery. It's ever-evolving, and just when I thought I had the story figured out, something else would pop up and blend perfectly into the narrative. Cryptic is an effective, suspenseful and memorable film.
My only issue with the movie is from a stylistic standpoint. It's got a pretty hum-drum, low-key look about it. I'm not talking about special effects of CGI — thank goodness the filmmakers didn't try to get too big for their budgetary britches when it came to that — but there wasn't a lot going on in the frame much of the time. It looks pretty static. However, if you key in and listen, and really get caught up in the characters' conundrum, at a mere 83 minutes the lack of prettiness won't matter.
Cryptic is currently making the rounds at film festivals; I don't know anything about plans for limited theatrical or DVD release yet — but catch it if you can.
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson