Day 6: The Corridor (2012)

The Corridor (2012)
Starring: Stephen Chambers (Ty), James Gilbert (Everett), David Patrick Flemming (Chris), Matthew Amyotte (Robert/Bobcat), Glen Matthews (Jim), Mary-Colin Chisholm (Pauline)
Category: New, Foriegn
Plot Tags: breakdown, other world, possession
Original release / release date: festivals 2011, release March 2012, DVD summer 2012
Format viewed: DVD (own collection)
Directed by: Evan Kelly
Written by: Josh McDonald
Distributed by: IFC Films

Okay, so keeping with the trouble that occurs with talking about movies with twists and turns, I bring you The Corridor, a Canadian horror/thriller distributed by IFC Films. I can't really 100% get a bead on the real release of the film - I've seen 2010-2012. As near as I can tell, the actual non-festival release was earlier this year. So, that counts as new. With that out of the way, I attempt the perilous task of talking about this movie without giving too much away. Maybe I'll just take a cue from the trailer and stay within those bounds.

Overall, I was very affected by the film. It lingers pretty delicately on the personal relationships between the main characters. Instead of slam-bang, throw em together and it all goes to hell type of approach, the director and writer (Evan Kelly and Josh McDonald, respectively) take a close, intimate look at the people and who they are. This can, at times, be annoying because something will be referenced that doesn't get explained until a bit later on in the film. In a way, this is done to give some humanity to the film but more often than not, it was distracting in that I thought I might've missed something. Also, being a Canadian film, there were certain things I didn't 100% pick up on (not unlike the great Good Neighbors or the great until it went goofy, Pontypool) that I assume are cultural in terms of speech or terminology. "Kraft dinner" being an obvious one - but I knew that one (thank you, Barenaked Ladies).

The bulk of the film surrounds a group of five friends, Ty, Everett, Bob, Jim and Chris, headed to a family cabin for a wake/funeral for Ty's mother Pauline. The film, however, starts with a pretty traumatic event at Ty's home where three of the friends (without Jim there) arrive to find Pauline face down in the upstairs hallway, dead, and Ty with a severe cut on his face babbling incoherently in the closet. They try to confront him and he loses it, slashing with a knife and cutting Everett's face and stabbing Chris through the hand. Chris, by the way, is a sign language teacher at the local high school so the after effects of this attack are far reaching for more than just the obvious reasons. The film then fast forwards to the friends coming together in town to head to the cabin. Ty has been released from the mental hospital and is on anti phychotic meds to calm his fragile state. It is at this point that the first element of tragedy seeps into the story. You develop a care for these characters as they have great care for one another. Again, so many scary movies just throw a bunch of cardboard cutouts into a mess and hope you care. In this case, the humanity of the group is front and center, punctuated by a lovely snowball fight at the cabin preceded by an uncomfortable scene that plays into a joke. These guys love each other but love to give each other crap too.

Ty ventures out to spread his mothers ashes and experiences some kind of phenomenon in that a barrier, almost a box, seems to surround him once he has reached the mountain ridge and lookout tower. His senses seem to go high, his nose begins to bleed and the barrier seems to change and move and react as he does. Trying to explain this to Chris, he comes off understandably crazy but after some soul searching, Chris agrees to come with him to find this thing. The night wears on and you start to experience the short nerves of each of the men. Ty being scrutinized because of the incident, Chris being the peacemaker but all the while plotting his move away from their town, Bob, overweight and clinging to past successes in high school, Everett working a crap bar job with no life prospects and Jim with a successful career track and beautiful wife but dealing with the shame of being the reason he and his wife cannot conceive a child. All these things come to a head as Everett spikes Tys drink and causes a scene. Chris and Bob 'get back' at him by shaving off one of his eyebrows when he sleeps. "How will I make tips???" He howls when discovering this the next morning.

So the tension is already on the upswing when all five venture out and find the box/forcefield thing in the woods. They are all immediately affected by it and are able to sense each other's thoughts, hear great distances, experience higher strength and other strangeness. Four of them (with the exception of Ty) get extremely excited about the prospects and immediately make plans to 'stake the claim' on the thing. Everett agrees to first watch and the rest of the men head back to the cabin. At this stage, things go progressively downhill. The effects of the thing, now long and tall and expanding are profoundly changing each of the men and Ty, being the only one on medication, is seeing the dangerous path they are all on. I feel at this point it would be important to wrap this up by stating a few things about what happens and my final thoughts without laying it all out. The discovery of each event, each thing, in the context of the story are much more effective and brutal. Standing alone, they only seem, well, gross. There is a good bit of violence from here on out as each of the men seek to capitalize on the power they feel. Bob and Jim breakdown in very sad ways, reflections on who they really are. Chris dials into the 'prophet' mentality and seems to channel the, now, corridor's power. Everet's bitterness towards the world magnifies ten fold and his violent actions and cruelty are very arresting. So there is a lot of ugliness and violence in the film's final act but again, in context of the story, doesn't seem exploitative.

Things come to a head in a slightly confusing but also open ended way. I liked how you could read into it in a number of ways. I also liked having the ever-loving crap scared out of me in one particular scene that I won't give away but it involves sign language and a bit of a jump scare and caused me to shoot in the air about 6-7 inches and fling the changer randomly. I really dislike jump-scares but this was really good. All in all, a challenging movie that reminded me a little of Event Horizon or Dreamcatcher but all together original. Sad but interesting, The Corridor is definitely worth watching if you can deal with the breakdown aspects, the sadness of loss and the slightly confusing aspect of what it all means.