WE GO ON
(director: Andy Mitton, Jesse Holland; screenwriter: Andy Mitton; cinematographer: Jeffrey Waldon; editors: Andy Mitton, Jesse Holland; music: Andy Mitton; cast: Clark Freeman (Miles), Annette O’Toole (Charlotte), John Glover (Dr. Ellison), Giovanna Zacarius (Josephine), Jay Dunn (Nelson), Laura Heisler (Alice); Runtime: 90; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Logan Brown, Richard W. King, Irina Popov; Untethered Films/Shudder; 2016)
“Its cryptic search for answers becomes tiresome.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A haunting and visually pleasing supernatural thriller co-directed and edited by Andy Mitton and Jesse Holland (“Yellowbrickroad”). Mitton’s eye is on the afterlife in this low-budget supernatural drama.
The young adult loner Miles Grissom (Clark Freeman) works at home as a commercial video editor, who deals with many phobias. He’s uptight over his fear of dying and that there would be no afterlife. His most pronounced fear is of cars (his loving father died in a car crash when he was 3). In the opening scene he dreams he caused a car crash, and awakens in fright.
Because of his death phobia and need for answers, Miles goes on a wild journey in Los Angeles when he takes out an ad online and in the newspapers, and offers $30,000 to anyone who can prove life “goes on” when we die. Most of the thousand responses are from pranksters, but there are 3 responses he thinks can help him: the academic Dr. Ellison (John Glover), the over the top Spanish psychic Josephine (Giovanna Zacarius); and the airport runway maintenance worker Nelson (Jay Dunn), who can see ghosts. Dr. Ellison’s suggestion of going back to the past to face his trauma fails to work and the psychic is just plain crazy. But Nelson enables him to see the dead, which turns into a terrible haunting experience as one of the dead won’t leave him and it becomes an ugly situation to ditch him.
Miles has a doting and protective mother (Annette O’Toole) he leans on for support, who also wants answers about an afterlife. Mom doesn’t believe in a life after death, and joins her son in his quest for answers.
Though competently made and watchable, its cryptic search for answers becomes tiresome.
It played at the Fantasia International Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 4/8/2024 GRADE: C+