Black Rock: Strikingly Realistic and Unnerving

Mark Duplass has become my guiding light. When I pulled up Hump Day on Netflix a few years back, I realized instantly that this was the kind of film I wanted to be making. Nothing in indie film had clicked with me on so many levels, and so I sought out his other work over a prolonged, mumblecore-heavy week. After ingesting all the creative output of the Duplass brothers, I turned to the films of Mark's wife, Katie Aselton, whose The Freebie brought clever twists and profound honesty to a relationship plot device that would have turned cliché in less capable hands. Now we get Black Rock, where Aselton (working from a script by Duplass and herself) turns similar tricks with the survival horror genre, and it is an overwhelming success.

The film follows three female former-friends who are conned into a weekend retreat in hopes of recapturing some youthful magic and purging their bad blood. Returning to their childhood stomping grounds on an island off the coast of Maine, their infighting attracts the attention of three hunters on the island, who are familiar to the girls but also subtly off-putting. A drunken campfire with the men leads to a terrible misunderstanding and soon the women are being hunted to the death by a group of ex-military psychopaths. 

While the setup sounds worn, the delivery is remarkably fresh, unnerving, and above all, strikingly realistic. The cinematography operates from angles and movements which never let you forget a hunt is in progress, and the three leads (Kate Bosworth, Lake Bell, and Aselton) go from fear to feral in a believable arc which will leave you shaking as the credits roll. The antagonists’ behavior and motivations never become as cartoonish as one might expect from monsters, leading up to a scene near the end where, even with blood on their hands, the survivors from both sides wonder if they can simply talk this out. This is one of my favorite horror scenes from 2013, as taking a breath to remind us that no one here is insane doubles down on the brutality we've already witnessed.

But the brutality never goes too far. For a horror film, there are no sudden leaps of realism in the violence. No heads chopped off, no exaggerated spraying of blood. When people fight, it looks like two frightened people fighting for their lives, and when death comes it is a reminder of frailty. One character even breaks a leg because, let's be honest, running through the forest at night is going to get someone hurt. And maybe my attention is drawn here because of recent discussion over similar build-ups in the video game world, where protagonists unprepared to take a life have to psych themselves out to just deal with the consequences, or even debate the mechanics of how to kill. The recent Tomb Raider reboot in particular featured a Lara Croft who vomits after her first kill, but murders 2 through 2000 have no comparable weight. Black Rock does not succumb to similar issues.

Not since The Descent has there been this level of fem-powered ass kicking in this genre, and it is a welcome return. Elements occasionally play with the expectations of the female horror form, including a deliberately non-sexualized sequence of nudity. The power of women is never discussed, only personified, and said strength becomes an image of violence in its own right. It's an entertaining, empowering, and gorgeous ride which not only showcases Aselton as an excellent director, but also serves as another reminder that crowd-funded films are well worth your attention.

Black Rock is in theaters and on VOD now. Hunt it down.