The aspect of world-building is measured in “Falling Stars” and it tactfully hints at horrors beyond what is depicted on the screen. This demonstrates the effectiveness and the shortcomings of the “less is more” approach. If witches are not harvested and ritualistically appeased, they fall to Earth in the form of shooting stars. Richard Karpala and Gabriel Bienczycki’s Film has crafted something that is just creepy enough to make you terrified and yet allows the audience to use their imagination. It is a terrifying work of micro-budget cinema that isolates rural life while attempting to tackle how one lives in a world where violence lurks at every corner.
In the movie, three brothers are followed. Mike, Adam, and Sal, who are referred to as Shaun Duke Jr, Andrew Gabriel, and Rene Leech, in the Inland Empire, are now a part of a world where witchcraft is a known fact. Along with Rob, their friend, they travel to the area in the desert where Rob says that he buried a witch he killed. While at the burial site, they inadvertently desecrate the body of the witch, which leads to a curse being released. In the process of escaping, Rob gets pulled in.
The siblings go to their mom (Diane Box Worman) when they are in need of direction, and to their relief, she reveals that they can lift the curse if they burn the witch’s body before dawn. The brothers, along with the sister, are annoyed with the idea but head out to the desert once again knowing that they are marked and it is only a matter of time before someone abducts them like they did with Rob.
The film is more on the slower side regardless of how stimulating the idea is. Instead of using traditional dreadful jump scares, Karpala and Bienczycki choose to use the pace that accompanies revealing suspense to scare the audience. The ever-so-gentle and temporary feeling of fear does end up transforming itself into curiosity. That is evident because for Sal and Adam, the younger brothers, witches are more intriguing than dangerous and it is much harder to feel the promised danger than it is to experience being amazed by the witch.
At what cost does one adventure pursue violence beyond this realm? This is the question Sal and Adam find themselves facing in a world where people and violence can both appear or disappear at a moment’s notice. This makes way for how youth develop around a world filled with violence, mirroring films such as ‘Gasoline Rainbow’ and ‘Spontaneous.’
This feeling of dread is embedded in the cinematographic choice-making of Bienczycki. The boys’ homeland is depicted through a haunting lens suggesting it has a life of its own. The immense and stunning untouched roads covered in sand veil a deeper evil, that being south California’s inland empire. Beinzycki constantly focuses his cameras on the star blankets strewn across the night sky, and by doing so showcases how everything we value is minimal. It leaves us feeling as if there is a chance of life beyond, but it is misleading. His cynical lens sheds light that we are not only unimportant but that life elsewhere feeds on sadness, making the stars lose their sense of beauty.
His obsession with the stars also encapsulates the fear that the brothers carry in the entire movie, as every time you avert your gaze, the fear of the fact that you might see a shooting star is unavoidable; it’s much better to remain focused so you can be cautious of what is coming.
While this world is developed, the rough edges of the script often leave the actors in the exposition’s shouting booth, weighing telling versus feeling. As the boys are driving to the witch’s grave Rob and Mike are discussing the witch while getting updated on each other’s lives. Now that is some spine-chilling action between two characters conversing. Yet, this particular moment may cut across the lengthier parts of the script without the supposed tension of the most mundane expository dialogue. Instead of feeling like two friends chatting wrinkles and all, it comes off as if the characters are constrained by the need to load the audience with backstory before the action starts. There is a subplot of a radio talk host Barry (J Aaron Boykin) and his aide Elana (Samantha Turret) trying to listen to the firsthand accounts of people claiming they had seen witches.
There is captivating commentary here on how people will capitalize on a global pandemic to boost their self-standing (many of the callers get dismissed as fake by Barry). Even then, it feels too superficial to the main drama of the film.
After the plot kicks in, it is clear where “Falling Stars” is headed and Karpala and Bienczycki do not allow their movie to turn off course once the brothers make the decision to go and set fire to the witch’s body. While it may seem like the goal is set in stone, Karpala and Bienczycki enjoy the process, which is investigating the problem of how impulsive behavior is appealing yet catastrophic and life-altering without morally judging the young people showing this behavior (one can assume the youth setting the example is in the middle of a global pandemic). Despite not fully living up to its promise, “Falling Stars” is extremely visually appealing and provides strong enough themes to delight and terrify the audience into awe.
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