DIRECTED BY: Jack Heller
FEATURING: Scott Eastwood, Katherine Waterston, Shaun Sipos, Christopher Denham, Leigh Lezark, Jesse Perez
PLOT: In an isolated cabin, four strangers’ fates depend upon whether or not they can solve a
bizarre conundrum.
WHY IT SHOULD MAKE THE LIST: Enter Nowhere is not a bizarre movie; it is conventionally filmed and professionally shot within its adequate budget. Solid acting and appropriate camera work combined with good production values keep it out of the homemade and campy categories. It’s Enter Nowhere‘s plot that makes for a weird viewing experience. It is a genuine puzzler. The movie’s imaginative and unusual, logic-defying story as well as its constant, unexpected twists and turns keep the viewer off balance and disoriented, while riveted to the screen through the very end.
COMMENTS: Once again, Lion’s Gate has saved the day by picking up a high quality, independent effort for mainstream distribution. This time, it’s a small budget film shot on Long Island with Sarah Paxton, Scott Eastwood, and Katherine Waterston. The solid performances and clever plot fully warrant Lion’s Gate’s backing.
When three strangers with wildly varying backgrounds find themselves stranded at a shanty in the woods, they assume the others’ presence is coincidental. But as a series of disturbing evens unfolds, it gradually becomes apparent that there is some sort of morbid, horrifying design to the situation. Worse, the travelers can’t seem to leave or even agree on basic facts. Journeying in circles, unable to find geographic landmarks twice in a row, and enduring extremes in weather and temperature, the trio is running out of food, water, time, and ideas for extracting themselves from their predicament. Until a fourth participant discovers the cabin, that is; and he has an agenda that is, at best, unsavory.
A psychological thriller taking place in one location and focusing on dialogue over action, Enter Nowhere is tense and engrossing. The cabin and the surrounding woods are creepy, ala The Evil Dead, and the plot steadily mounts a foreboding aura of dread and inevitable doom. The fun of puzzlers such as Enter Nowhere is trying to figure out what’s happening, and we do so in real time, along with central characters who don’t know anything more than we do about the situation.
I know what you’re thinking. Enter Nowhere is another Saw, or maybe one of endless variations on “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” like Jacob’s Ladder or Dead And Buried. Wrong! Every time you think you’ve figured out the riddle and solution, Enter Nowhere contorts and twists again, heading off in an unexpected direction. The story is fresh and completely unpredictable.
Enter Nowhere was shot on a small budget, but is professionally filmed and edited, with solid acting. It is a modest budget production, but not a low budget movie. Enter Nowhere is one of the most cleverly constructed puzzlers I’ve seen yet, and it not only held my attention, but had me tearing the threads out of my seat cushion in nervousness and consternation.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: