The Fargo Film Festival presented Absentia for the first time on 3 March 2011. It continued to make the festival rounds before Phase 4 Films acquired the streaming and DVD rights on 1 July 2011.
Today, people know this film because Mike Flanagan has become a big deal. He is now a horror icon. He has written some of the best horror series ever produced. These include The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club, and The Fall of the House of Usher. Every one of them is great. Psychotronic fans should search them all out.
But Absentia shows that Flanagan doesn’t need a big budget to do great work. It blew me away when I first saw it. So many filmmakers only succeed with big budgets. This is why every movie star makes passable films when they direct. I think there should be a law. We should force them to make a feature with a hundred grand first. That would stop most of them from wasting our time!
And the film is heartbreaking at its very base. When the husband is barfed back it takes a sad situation and turns it into tragedy. I also find the terrible police response to be very believable. The sister has a drug problem? That certainly explains what’s going on. The husband comes back emaciated after seven years, and so he’s suspect. Even in a world of supernatural horrors, humans are horrifying.
If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend spending 90 minutes with it. Absentia is great!
Absentia (2011) poster via Wikipedia under Fair Use.
