Liminal spaces and anomalous architecture are hot right now, from House Of Leaves to the viral Backrooms YouTube videos to the hellish Skinamarink to even David Bruckner’s heart-shattering The Night House. Nothing is more terrifying than the house you love and feel safe in suddenly feeling unfamiliar and dangerous not due to human invaders, but because of its very architecture. Nothing is safe as the world seems to shift around you. Australian director Jack Dignan, who is being lauded as the next James Wan, puts a unique spin on this with his found footage horror film Puzzle Box.
The film starts with Olivia (Laneikka Denne) taking her older sister Kait (Kaitlyn Boyé) to a secluded cabin in the woods to detox. Think Evil Dead (2013) but with two sisters, a shaky cam, and no Deadites. Olivia is filming everything as proof that her sister isn’t dangerous, despite a series of poor decisions by Kait in the throes of addiction. The entire drive and arrival they bicker and gripe, exposing a lot of open wounds, especially around their recently deceased mother.
But as soon as they arrive at the cabin, things start to get weird as they hear screams from the woods and things start to move on their own. As tensions build, doors slam shut and walls begin shifting as Kait must face the ghosts of her past. It’s a lean, mean, single-location found footage horror that plays with space in creative ways.
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At its core, Puzzle Box presents a fascinating story about how a shifting house shifts your own perceptions of yourself. But unfortunately, here, the script is so heavy-handed and erratically paced that it becomes difficult to watch during the second act. This is mostly due to a prolonged sequence of a strange woman running around the house covered in blood and screaming for a large chunk of the film’s runtime. Her reveal is a great jumpscare, but it becomes more grating than terrifying after the sixth time she appears.
Paired with this is a lack of empathy or investment in the relationship between Kait and Olivia. Almost as soon as the camera starts to roll, they’re fighting and insulting each other. I understand that sisters fight and that this situation in particular is emotionally fraught. But their seeming hatred for each other makes it difficult to want to see both of them survive. There’s no nuance or complexity to their relationship, it’s just one screaming match after the next.
Puzzle Box is an example of a film that tries to use grief and trauma to create an existential narrative about human nature. Unfortunately, despite the use of liminal spaces, Dignan misses the mark in trying to balance the emotional stakes with the scares and strange goings-on in the house. There’s something to be said about leaving the viewer partially in the dark about what’s going on, but Dignan leaves too much in the shadows. Even with its missteps, Puzzle Box is another example of the rising wave of Australian horror crashing on our doorstep and I couldn’t be more excited.
Puzzle Box had its world premiere at the 2023 Popcorn Frights Film Festival.
Summary
Puzzle Box presents a fascinating story, but the script is so heavy-handed and erratically paced that it becomes difficult to watch.
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