Day 283: Pod

I started watching Mickey Keating films this year trying to figure out what the big deal was about him. I didn't care for Darling and I liked Carnage Park just fine. Pod was the movie that really impressed me, however.

Pod is almost like an intense play for the first half. Martin is a dishonorably discharged army vet who is living in his family's lake house. His brother and sister, Ed and Lyla come to see how he is doing and maybe force him to return with them to a mental institution he was once in. Martin tells his siblings he discovered a pod out in the woods one day and found an alien inside. He defeated it and is keeping it in his basement. He says the alien looks like a human but Martin can tell it is from beyond this world. He also begins pulling his teeth to remove listening devices he believes the government has implanted in him. Something pretty drastic happens at about the halfway point in the movie and the siblings must decide whether to believe Martin's claims or explore the basement for an innocent person being held hostage by their psycho brother.

I loved the ambiguity of the first half of this movie. Martin is clearly a lunatic but he has moments of clarity that make him believable. Lyla wants to believe her brother but Ed is firmly against everything he says. Once the basement is opened, the whole thing becomes pretty predictable but the lead up is great. There is a plot device in the form of Larry Fessenden I don't entirely approve of but that was pretty minor.

This one is worth a look to see a new voice in horror emerging.