Mystery Spot (2020) Review

Love Horror Frightfest 2021

Mystery Spot is one of the lower budget, independent US horror films to make an appearance at this year’s FrightFest. In recent years the festival has cast its net wider, allowing more choice and variety.

Rachel (Lisa Wilcox) appears early on as our lead character, a photographer that is drawn to an easy to miss motel. The location used to be somewhat of a tourist trap when it was convenient accommodation for a ‘mystery spot’ nearby – mystery spots being quirky, shabby attractions that use illusions to give visitors the impression that there are paranormal forces present.

Mystery Spot 2020

As Rachel pokes about, taking photos and generally looking perplexed, she meets others that are drawn to the place. There’s Max (Lyle Kanouse), the sort of ‘friendly one minute, weird the next’ motel owner; Nathan (Graham Skipper – a young Zach Galifianakis on a budget) who is conducting odd audition/interrogations with people; and Leon (Bobby Simpson), a curious cop that is staking out the place and spending his time observing the comings and goings of the visitors to the hotel from his car.

Early on it seems that Rachel is looking for closure on painful past events. And as the film progresses, we discover that Nathan and Leon also have skeletons in their closet. As the characters initiate conversations with people that appear and vanish mysteriously (ghosts or figments of their imagination) it becomes clear that the mystery spot might indeed be a hub of paranormal energy which allows guests to make contact with lost loved ones.

As more guilt-ridden auditionees show up for Nathan’s scrutiny, we slowly (very slowly) get to better understand the metaphysical power of the mystery spot and how it brings terrible memories back to haunt the people that end up there.
But the reason why and overall purpose of the film becomes less clear as it approaches the end.

Mystery Spot 2020 Frightfest

Who people can see, and why (some are alive, others are dead) isn’t overly clear and as this is the main thread on which everything hangs, the film gradually unravels. What remains could be mistaken for a long, diluted Twilight Zone episode. And it’s a shame because the whole idea of strange goings-on at a mystery spot did immediately pique my interest.

Mystery Spot is a mediocre idea that seems to have been over-developed and made unnecessarily complicated and long, making it feel very much like a short film that has been bloated with dialogue and superfluous elements to stretch it to feature length.

Characters purposefully avoid talking about things directly, purely to keep the audience guessing but at the expense of making the film feel less realistic. And on the subject of realism, most of the cast seem to struggle to perform, which adds to the amateur feel. While some of the actors seem rigidly bound to the script and appear robotic and focussed on dialogue, others ramble in an ad-lib way that doesn’t lend itself well to the screen.
The film also gives away its low-budget in more typical ways, such as the overuse of found footage-style camcorder artifacts, often for no real purpose. The framing of shots lacks consistency and regularly breaks basic composition rules. Taking into account the complexity of the production and number of people involved, falling short on the cinematography side is confusing.

Mystery Spot horror film

Mystery Spot is a below-par horror which sits in the chaff of Frightfest 2021 and I’m surprised that it made it to the screens of this prestigious platform. I would have felt cheated had I missed something worthwhile at the expense of watching it.
It’s hard to tell whether it was a bad story, or an average story that was poorly interpreted – either way, it offers very little and is a chore to watch.

Movie Rating:★☆☆☆☆ 

Trailer:

YouTube video
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Tom Atkinson

Tom is one of the editors at Love Horror. He has been watching horror for a worryingly long time, starting on the Universal Monsters and progressing through the Carpenter classics. He has a soft-spot for eighties horror.More

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