Too many movies waste time convincing their own characters that the supernatural is real. But in XYZ Films’ striking horror gem “Falling Stars,” the people of San Bernardino County already know that witches exist. They’ve spent years coping with their neighbors’ instantaneous abductions, as spelled out in a cold open that shows a young woman running along a winding road. One moment, she’s bouncing to the beat of her footsteps, enjoying the desert air, and surveying the sprawling landscape; the next, she’s just gone.
That scene and many others in this haunting poem of a film are shot partly overhead. Although “Watch the skies!” is advice typically reserved for alien outings, that bird’s eye view proves essential to co-directors Gabriel Biencyzycki and Richard Karpala’s stirring reflection on community, survival, and the unforeseeable acts of God. Caught somewhere between 1996’s “Twister” and HBO’s “The Leftovers,” this emotional saga (also written by Karpala) dovetails a tight disaster flick with an intimate family drama to electrifying effect.
An annual worldwide event known as The Harvest happens earlier every year, explains local radio host Barry (J. Aaron Boykin). The on-air personality and his bookish producer Elana (Samantha Turret) help give “Falling Stars” its sometimes “Halloween”-like atmosphere and their witchy forecasts serve as a kind of connective framework for residents. Preparing for a hurricane you might buy groceries and board up your windows — but readying for a witch invasion, you gather the ingredients for a fairy circle and stay inside, no matter what.
Curious country boy Mike (Shaun Duke Jr.) tempts fate when he invites his younger brothers Sal (Andrew Gabriel) and Adam (Rene Leech) on an ill-conceived adventure in the middle of a new Harvest season. In this complex and ethereal universe, humans believe in witches without seeing them: A quirk that could make you question why these beings were ever named “witches” in the first place. But when Mike’s friend Rob (Greg Poppa) takes the boys to an isolated spot outside of Joshua Tree, he uncovers the gnarled corpse of a witch he claims to not only have seen but killed with a shotgun months before.
“The longer you spend with her, the harder it is to leave,” the tortured man warns.
Rob is the one putting all four of these would-be victims in danger, and yet his wife Meg (Orianna Milne) is equally wary of Mike. With a two-year-old daughter to raise, Rob can’t afford to get swept up in a crazy night of partying — let alone disappeared into the clouds. Intense relationship dynamics like theirs underpin most of the film’s naturalistic dialogue, which is delivered by a believable cast that sucks you in from the start.
This community’s fight for survival swings between passive acceptance, anxious theorizing, and stark death scenes that aren’t so much graphic or violent as they are spiritually intense. The victims’ understated, almost rapture-like disappearances make this obviously out-there concept feel more real and help its remarkably cohesive cast sell lines like “Demons love to fuck witches, man!” in an impressive script that’s simultaneously restrained and lore-dense.
After things inevitably go sideways at the gravesite, the men return to town fearful that they’ve conjured up a curse that will kill them all. Mike’s mother Danni (Diane Box Worman) is the first to shame him for being so reckless and putting his brothers at risk — but a truly chilling performance from the actress suggests a judgment that’s been impaired by ghosts and regrets from her own Harvests past. She’ll push her sons to stop the familial doomsday they’ve started, even as it becomes clear one or more of them won’t make it through the night.
Not to be missed, “Falling Stars” reimagines the fantasy tropes of witchcraft through the kind of regional character specificity that indie audiences see more often in films like “Winter’s Bone.” That approach builds to a quietly horrifying climax that may be lacking in typical creature-feature effects, but troubles in a deeper, more existential sense. The result is a raw allegory ripped from the contradictions of American life — bewitching but not beyond help under oppressively spacious skies.
Grade: B+
From XYZ Films, “Falling Stars” is in select theaters October 11.
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