This debut film by Andrew Patterson blew me away, reminding me of Blood Simple (Coen Brothers), It Follows (David Robert Mitchell), Blue Ruin (Jeremy Saulnier) and The Babdoook (Jennifer Kent). The trajectories of the careers of these first or near-first time writer-directors varies, but the skill and care taken in their early work is astounding. I can’t speak much about Patterson’s film, which centers on a New Mexico disc jockey and phone operator who stumble on a strange frequency over their wires in the 1950’s, because it is a “whodunit/whatisit” to its very core. But Patterson’s assured manner heightens tension and drives a narrative in an almost Hitchcockian style, and his attention to detail is impressive. Hair-raising, creepy, but never overt, you feel as if you’re another denizen of the town, with Patterson letting you in on the mystery.
The film has its flaws (tracking shots that at times feel gratuitous, a lead who speaks rat-a-tat tat with a cigarette in his mouth which at one point almost made me turn on English subtitles, an ending that almost feels stubborn in it anticlimactic lack of convention), but now is the time to buy stock in Patterson. Currently on Amazon Prime.