Offseason (2022)

directed by Mickey Keating

USA

83 minutes

4 stars out of 5

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Mickey Keating is one of those rare directors whose new films I always look forward to because of his track record. Each film of his feels different and has a unique and fresh premise. Offseason wears its influences on its sleeve, largely the oft-forgotten gem Messiah of Evil (which I'm just delighted is getting some love), and having those more obscure influences in a modern film means this is something that feels altogether new.

I want to talk about locale for a second, because Offseason is a horror film that roots itself in its location. There are typical backdrops in horror that we're all used to seeing: The crumbling, haunted mansion; the spirit-ridden forest; the backpacking trip gone wrong; even the open ocean has many films dedicated to the terror of it. But one of my absolute favorite types of horror is the regional horror film, the film that's set in a specific place, usually where the filmmaker(s) hail from, and that is immediately recognizable to other locals of the area. In this particular case, the setting is something I see far less often than the other horror locations I just named: haunted Florida.

It is hard to describe in words how good this movie is at establishing atmosphere, because you can never really talk about the way something looks and feels to anyone who hasn't seen or felt it. And as hard as it is for me to try to do that for you, here, in this review, Offseason faces a bit of the same problem: There are people in the world who haven't been to Florida. I'm one of them, even though I live in its more conservative hat, Georgia. How do you impart the feeling of a place to someone who's never been? It's a difficult thing, but watching this movie, I felt like I was there, and I felt like the potential for horrific Florida-based media is sorely underused and perhaps overshadowed by fiction making fun of the state for its wacky criminals instead of embracing that, like all places, it has an ecosystem all its own with traits that make it rife with the possibility of unique horror.

Offseason takes place, as the title would imply, in a resort town during the off-season. Florida is known for its severe weather, and that's the backdrop of the main character's visit to the town on short notice. Called back by a mysterious letter informing her that her mother's grave has been vandalized, she arrives in her mother's small, clandestine hometown to find that the town is about to draw up its bridge and close to outsiders for the season. The weather is taking a turn for the worse and the whole town is in a seeming state of perpetual semi-twilight, heavy clouds shrouding the sky and a humidity that is practically visible on film. I'm so impressed by how this is captured; the whole thing takes place right on the edge of a thunderstorm, and though I've never experienced a Florida-specific storm, I think everyone is familiar with that liminal state where you can tell the weather's about to break and are just waiting for the first peals of thunder or the sky to open up. The downside of this is that there are a scant handful of exterior shots where the main character kind of looks like she's walking through a green screen, which I'm assuming is just due to adjusting the color palette in post-production. But 99.9% of this film is completely believable, and again, draws very strongly from Messiah of Evil for its atmosphere. I basically never see this kind of environment in a horror movie - it seems like the "edge of storm" feeling is neglected unless the movie is directly about a storm, a la Storm Warning or Alexandre Aja's surprisingly good Crawl, or relegated to a few scenes, not the entirety of the running time.

And it wouldn't be right for me not to outright say that this is also an extremely creepy movie. I don't focus my horror reviews on the scare factor because it's not the most important thing in a horror movie to me, but this one is so lastingly eerie and in such a specific way that in this case the horror is central to the plot. We all know the "town with a secret" trope, but Offseason really makes you feel the main character's sense of being somewhere she's not supposed to be, and it does this in two ways. The first is that it feels like she's not supposed to be there because she's not welcome, the whole town is in on some truth that she's not and they don't respect or give time to outsiders. The second is that it feels like she's physically not supposed to be there, that she's entered a real-life "out of bounds" area, a place that's closed off and unattended. The town is a place set up for people to entertain themselves, but when it's closed, where do all the people and things that cater to tourists go? Essentially, what happens to a place with a specific purpose when that purpose is (temporarily) removed? It feels like being in an art museum after hours, and there is in fact an extremely scary scene where the protagonist wanders into a museum of history that, like everything else in the town, is closed and empty of people. There's just something so unsettling about being alone in a place that isn't meant for you.

There is a concept behind this other than just the general unfriendly vibe it gives off - a creature to this feature, if you will. Marrying a specific and established backstory to something as vague and nebulous as the secretive, isolated island town this film takes place in is a dangerous game - horror movies very often fall victim to over-explaining, and if you show the monster or even talk too much about how the monster works, they risk their viewer becoming used to the horror. But thanks to restraint and good writing, the darkness at the core of Offseason stays creepy no matter if you think about it a little or a lot. It's just... I really think the greatest horror films keep their focus small. The possibility that in this one place something truly incomprehensible can be happening. A small-scale horror that infects person by person, that you can brush up against and escape from without knowing. "These people are my fingers, this island is the palm of my hand." I don't see stuff like this these days. I'm so glad people haven't forgotten how to make things this way.