John
Dunning can see dead people, but is he ever defensive about it. The last person
he should be teaming up with is an ambitious journalist trying to work her way
out of listicle Hell, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Dunning
was born desperate, thanks to his incessant visions of the dead and the
increasingly severe mental stress they have caused. However, he might achieve some
measure of relief and redemption if he does not completely crack-up in J. Van
Auken’s Revelator (trailer here), which opens this
Friday in Los Angeles.
The
only dead person Dunning has not been able to see is his late wife, a school
teacher who drowned with her students in a freak ferry accident. Every three
years, he moves into a brand-new apartment complex, because that is generally
how long it takes before the first resident dies in the building. Unfortunately,
that leaves little money for anything else. Despite his shady rep, Dunning has
amassed little through his gifts.
The
closest thing he had to a patron has just passed away. By law, he stands to
inherit an unusual property from her, but the wealthy and powerful Bellevue
family intends to contest the will into eternity, unless he can solve the
mystery surrounding the death of patriarch Carmine Bellevue’s developmentally-challenged
son. When scuffling journalist Valerie Krueger sniffs out the story, she sets
off Dunning’s alarm bells, but he still lets her observe him at work, because
he needs a regular ride. Dunning can indeed see the late poor Jacob, but in a
somewhat unsetting turn of events, he also seems to see Dunning.
Revelator might have a few
rough edges, like most first features, but Van Auken offers up a number of
fresh wrinkles on the psychic spirit-chaser genre. In fact, some of the eeriest
incidents actually do not happen on-screen, but are related as evocative
confessionals. That also means they are quite well written.
Directing
himself as the lead might sound like a vanity project or a decision mandated by
a rigid budget constraint, but Van Auken arguably projects the right world
weary, spiritually-deflated psyche for the literally haunted Dunning. Yet, the
real discovery is Mindy Rae, who is terrific as the brash but also somewhat
broken Krueger. (Careful googling her, because there is another Rae, who is
completely different and totally NSFW.) Plus, Greg Lucey does his best to
channel the Hammer Horror greats as Old Man Carmine, which is definitely not a
bad thing.
