Not quite a possession movie, nor a DON’T LOOK NOW-ish ghost movie, nor a SESSION 9 – inspired schizo horror, the commendably restrained DOROTHY MILLS takes elements of all three within an intelligently plotted screenplay that manages to unsettle without resorting to tried and tested clichés.
In a small Irish island community with more than its share of secrets, a young couple return home to find their recently employed teenage babysitter in the midst of choking their infant. The sitter, Dorothy (Jane Murray), betrays all the signs of adolescent schizophrenia, suffering intermittent blackouts and frequently lapsing into alternate personalities. Shrink Carice van Houten arrives in town to try to reach Dorothy and has her own personal demons related to the premature death of her own child. She hangs around longer than expected upon realizing the full extent of Dorothy’s disorder.
Thanks largely to the conviction of debuting actress Murray, in a strikingly difficult role, the movie generates vivid frissons of fear during the scenes in which Houten is confronted with the young girl’s alternate selves. There’s Mimi, an appropriately babyish 3 year old, faithful protector Curt, slutty flirt Mary and, most unnervingly, the aggressive, foul-mouthed baby-hurting Duncan. In some of the movie’s chilliest moments, “Duncan” mimics Houten’s tragically drowned little boy and, in a direct EXORCIST homage, coarsely tells our heroine to fuck off.
Avoiding cheap scares or overt physical horrors, director Agnes Merlet makes evocative use of the perpetually overcast, remote coastal backdrop and sustains a strong sense of unease as he peels away the layers of an intimate community rife with hypocrisy, fears and superstitions. The well-plotted movie is slow-burning but absorbing and for once its twists avoid contrived gimmickry : patient viewers will be rewarded as the mystery unravels and the truth about Dorothy’s condition and the antics of three ill-fated drunken teens become evident. It winds up being quite a novel riff on the post-SIXTH SENSE “I see dead people” formula.
Murray’s multi-leveled performance is a stand-out though good work is done by a convincingly haunted, underplaying van Houten and her character’s downbeat fate ties very neatly into a framing story hinging on a surprising “unreliable narrator” twist. Surprisingly, given the bleak nature of a film involving infant death and gang rape, DOROTHY MILLS opts for a resolution that’s relatively optimistic for at least one key character.
-Steven West
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
