Raindance Film Festival review – Jackalope

Raindance Film Festival review – Jackalope

Brothers Aidan (writer-director Bryce Hirschberg) and Conor (Alex Mandel) – who’ve not seen a lot of each other lately – drive out into the wilderness to an isolated Air B&B owned by their father (a phone cameo from Howie Mandel).  Conor is not recovering from a bad break-up and Aidan has some ideas of getting him out of his rut … though there are omens on the road, like a stray dog Aidan suddenly adopts and Dad’s instruction to disable the WiFi at the house.  It’s plain that both brothers have secrets, though possibly not as many as Lilly (Catherine Corcoran), a blonde model who shows up claiming to have double-booked the place for the weekend … and can’t be driven to a motel because Aidan’s car suddenly isn’t working and knocking out the WiFi means no phoning for a Uber.  So the brothers take the stray girl in – and she’s happy to share a hot tub and hint at more, even though all three characters are flying red flags.

This falls into the currently thriving Air BnB mix-up horror sub-genre, though the specifics are different from, say, Barbarian or Bone Lake.  Hirschbirg writes well for the brothers, taking the role of oversharing, basically decent (with qualifications) motormouth while Mandel plays it closer to his chest as a miseryguts who doesn’t think he deserves to be cheered up and is only reluctantly drawn back into old verbal routines and car games.  There’s a nice thread about a riddle ‘only psychopaths get’ (NB: it took me a minute or so) and interesting observational material.  The film could probably get by on the brothers alone, but Corcoran’s Lilly shakes things up considerably – she isn’t what she says or seems to be and isn’t what Aidan or Conor think she is underneath either.  Without giving too much away, the film gets into occult business at the mid-way point, not coincidentally after someone has had a breakfust mug of shrooms, with a strikingly shot gruesome ritual and even some quasi-demonic/cryptic elements (though the jackalope of the title remains, as ever, elusive).  The home stretch is especially satisfying as all three players reveal things to the others and a three-way Mexican standoff manages at least three surprises.

In tone, I was reminded a little of Jeepers Creepers, Spring, Almost Human, SiREN and Shadows of Willow Cabin (also at Raindance with a couple of the same tropes) … but Hirschberg has a new story and his own set of interests.  I look forward to more from him.