The Absent Does a Good Job With a Small Budget
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The Absent has some troubles, though, with the straight ahead storytelling. The point gets across alright, but the path is a bit disjointed.
Written by The Horror Czar, Don Sumner
May 8, 2011
Movie Trailer
Image Gallery
Release: March 15, 2011 (U.S. DVD Premier)
Directed by: Sage Bannick
Written by: Sage Bannick, Ari Bernstein and Damon Abdallah
Starring:
Damon Abdallah as Mr. Anderson
Samuel Ball as Sheriff John Jackson
Jennifer Blanc as Kathy Johnson
Poor young Oscar. “Accident” after accident befalls him, ranging from being electrocuted when he touches the light switch in his bedroom to a sudden lurching backward of the family car just as Oscar gets busy picking up some laundry that was dropped right in the car’s backward path. Something seems fishy to Oscar about these happenings though as his parents appear suspicious in the aftermath of these near-miss happenings… kind of like they are up to something. Some investigation on Oscar’s part turns up a stack of past-due bills and a fully paid life insurance policy on his life. Oscar determines that he must take matters into his own hands.
Years later and after spending his youth and early adulthood in prison for his heinous actions he begins writing letters to his beloved brother Vincent, a science teacher at his hometown high school. His parole is coming up and he fancies a reunion.
Meanwhile Vincent, for all of his pristine facade and professional
demeanor seems to have his own problems back at his new job at Liberty
High school. For one thing he has an eye for the lovely, yet 
excruciatingly slutty Kathy Johnson – beautiful,
smart, scientific… and underage. When a planned liaison with Kathy goes
terribly wrong people in the town start dying one by one. Has Oscar
come to town to make his brother’s life as terrible as his has been?
First of all, the Absent has a TON going on. Crazy kid killing his parents, forgotten brother making good until he goes bad, slutty smart science student, best friends who hang out in bed engaging in girl-on-girl action, trailer park trash screaming grandmas, cops chasing down a million crazy leads, football heroes having sex with every single girl in school, principlals having about a million assemblies… and a boatload of murders. Jeeze Louise this one is difficult to keep track of.
The story is interesting if not complicated and many-times done. I would be giving the whole thing away by citing other films that capitalized on the same general theme, but rest assured there are several, and some of them starring pretty big names. What does that tell us? First, the theme must be a good one to be so often utilized… and second it will become clear what the “big twist surprise” is pretty early if you’ve ever seen one of those “other films”.
Regarding character development, there are some inconsistencies that
were strange at a minimum. In one scene demure and angelic Kathy
Johnson wins the science fair and gushes about how science gives her a
reason to wake up in the morning… and later on we find out she is
engaged in booty-calls with the high school football hero and is known
as the biggest slut in the county. Those things just don’t go together,
even in the movies. The girl on girl scene
between a couple of Kathy’s friends was a bit strangely placed as well,
and not because of the pink hair streak the bisexual trailer girl has.
Complaints aside, The Absent is generally well done and it is very clear that it means well. There is a lot of thought and planning that went into this film - that much is clear. The budget was clearly pretty low, but the acting performances are surprisingly strong. From a direction standpoint, Sage Bannick pulled some good performances from these folks. The sound and cinematography are very good as well, two very common troubles for the Indie set. The problems show up in the writing and editing.
The art is in the storytelling, and the frustrating thing about The Absent is it is very clear what the filmmakers are trying to do, and it is clear what they are working to communicate – but every step of that is noticed and obvious instead of flowing and engaging. I heard it said once that Meryl Streep was a great actress because one could actually “see her acting”… is that really good? Where is the illusion? That analogy is lame and doesn’t make any sense… but you can see my point, right?
The Absent is above average in the Indie Movie World due to quality and professionalism in the presentation. The Absent will only appeal to the limited audience of Indie aficionados, though, because while many of the pieces of a good film exist they are assembled in a way that requires a conscious decision to overlook inadequacies because “it’s an Indie”. Bannick seems to have the technical elements figured out… with a bit of time to develop the art of storytelling he will be a force to be reckoned with.
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