FrightFest review – Ponderosa
The opening sequence – less a montage than a slideshow – of Ponderosa shows a car centre of the Academy frame, always in the same place but with the background different as we see the car parked in all weathers in different places. But not moving. It’s a vehicle but it’s in place, like a lump. The title refers to a buffet restaurant where there are no mains only sides – the end credits specify that it shouldn’t be confused with the real restaurant chain (which I presume is a thing) though outside the US (or even outside a small sector the US) it’s more likely to be a reminder of the Cartwright ranch on Bonanza, a once-mainstream reference which is fading completely from the culture – Bonanza’s contemporary The Twilight Zone is still part of our pop culture universe, but the long-running Western just isn’t – the way that George (Bill Camp) worries he and his generation are disappearing from the conversation. Writer-director Rob Rice’s feature is liable to prove divisive – it’s unquestionably wrought with care and attention and acted with subtle power, but what exactly is it? Ponderosa is also a near-anagram of ‘ponderous’, and the film goes in that direction quite often – in the senses of sitting there weightily without engaging and of thinking so deeply it never quite gets round to doing anything much. My guess is that it’ll get a lot of ‘Worst Film of the Fest’ nods but will stick in the mind longer than more immediately crowd-pleasing pictures.
Zeke (Jack Dylan Grazer), a not atypical inexpressive unresponsive young man, has been raised by a single mom (Alexis Bledel) who works a minimum wage gig at Ponderosa, and senses he’s going to have to up his game when the branch closes. George, a regular customer, is the kind of guy it’s awkward to get stuck with – he’s not outright offensive, he seems to mean well, he offers some vague promise but he has something of an agenda. He suggests Zeke come to work for him at a real-estate development he might be in charge of, though he seems ineffectual and powerless on site – as if he were the front man for something else. In addition, George has sort of paternal designs on the young man, and sets out to groom him for a place in an extended group of similar middle-aged, seemingly unwived power players who gather at a mansion for obscure conversations and meals heavy of meat. In a room Zeke strays into, a cadre of young men are working out – and George tells Zeke not to show his back to them as if they were caged lions. There’s a feint here towards a generational cult story (I was reminded vaguely of the Australian The Everlasting Secret Family, a film about rich people sex cults which seemed ridiculously gothic when it came out but now seems to have understated the Epstein case) but Rice doesn’t elaborate further … and George, who Zeke eventually starts mildly rebuffing, proposes another odd, unsettling mentor-and-mentee activity (which will remind FF regulars of Seven Keys) as he produces the keys to a bunch of houses he’s built and sold and suggests burglarising them.
Camp, one of those character actors who’s good in everything, gets a rare lead and brings more to the table than would seem to be on the menu … his George is terrifying and tragic without ever chewing the scenery, and even when the film is marking time he’s watchable and unsettling. There is a possible issue in the disjunction between the film and the real America of 2026 when folks like George and his all-white, all-male, all-old circle aren’t sad, fading and obsolete but gloating, controlling and an imminent danger. Rice delivers this FrightFest’s second-best needle-drops – the winner is Drag – in the use of a selection of Tennessee Ernie Ford songs which aren’t his big hit (’16 Tons’) including a haunting rendition of the traditional song ‘Shenandoah’ (featured also, in a roundabout way, in Bad Karaoke) which will send you off to Spotify or the streaming music platform of your choice.
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