The spectre of Schrödinger’s cat looms sphinx-like over the entire proceedings – did everyone accidentally dab too much of the aforementioned dubious keta-tincture?īyrkit shoots and edits the whole thing as if we are witnessing a particularly phantasmagorical reality TV show, complete with shaky cameras, the odd blurry shot, and characters talking over each other, along with sudden cuts to black. Em meets Kevin at their car, but there is something about him she doesn’t quite recognise, while nobody seems to be able to escape from this dark and discombobulating purgatory. Inside one of the other homes, they have glimpsed a group of people who look remarkably like themselves. The pair who departed soon return with a strange box containing Polaroid-style photographs of each of the party guests, and a set of numbers written on the back, along with an apparently innocuous table tennis paddle. So far, so stereotypical cabin in the woods scenario, and yet standard horror tropes are soon swapped out for far more cerebral sci-fi stylings.
Two of the partygoers begin investigating nearby homes to try to establish if anyone in the neighbourhood has a working telephone. The evening begins amicably enough, but then a power cut puts the wind up the party guests, shutting down wifi and, apparently, mobile phone connectivity. It is clear that Mike (Nicholas Brendon) has a drinking problem, while another guest, Beth, has a bizarre habit of offering ketamine-laced tincture to anyone who fancies it, which may or may not be adding to the general sense of dysphoria and dislocation. There are tensions from the start: Em (Emily Baldoni) has turned down her boyfriend Kevin’s request to join him on a work trip to Vietnam, and is nervous that his vampy ex Laurie has also been invited along to the gathering. The film-maker’s 2013 debut centres on eight friends who gather for a dinner party in a California home on the night that a comet is due to pass by.
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