Do you know what most low-budget independent movies lack? Well, a lot of things normally. A decent script, competent direction, halfway tolerable actors, and so much more are typically absent in some of the lowest of low budget movies I’ve suffered through. Do you know what this movie lacks? A few dollars and a big studio behind it. Otherwise, Dawning is an excellent example of how a few talented people with a modicum of cash can make a film that the big budget affairs should strive for.
Apparently, Dawning spent an inordinate amount of time (or perhaps a normal amount for this budget range) in development in different stages, reshoots, and the like. Given the final product, this is no doubt a good thing. This film even perfectly illustrates why I don’t like being around family: it’s awkward. Chris (Jonas Goslow) and Aurora (Najarra Townsend) are trekking out into the middle of nowhere to meet up with their father and stepmother at their cabin. There is certainly a lot of history between these four as the awkwardness stumbles out immediately upon their reunion.
The kids’ father Richard (David Coral) is allegedly a recovering alcoholic who was absent for a length of time. The stepmother Laura (Christine Kellogg-Darrin) comes off as welcoming and cold in the same breath. The tensions between the family are temporarily broken as a beaten and bloodied unnamed man (Daniel Jay Salmen) bursts through the door and takes the family hostage at gun point. He speaks of an “it” that is outside the claustrophobic cabin in a negative tone. Given that he claims “it” killed his girlfriend, he might be justified in that feeling.
As I was watching Dawning, I struggled to think of what it reminded me of. I tend to do this during most movies. There certainly is something familiar about a small group of people stuck in a secluded location as well as an unknown menace whose threat cannot be easily ascertained. However, co-writer and director Gregg Holtgrewe manages to combine those two elements with a bunch of developed characters almost effortlessly. The closest movie I can thing of off hand is Phantoms, and I cannot in good conscious directly compare this movie to Phantoms. I’d feel much better relating it to The Thing.
Holtgrewe has managed what few other directors have in that I was uncomfortable and on edge while watching this film. The last movie to do that was the delightfully creepy Insidious, which is great company for this film. The director crafts an ominous tone early on and barely lets up except to further ratchet up the tension between the family members. This is a movie that is not about cheap jump scares and more about a quiet sense of unease, which in my book is much more effective of the two. Admittedly, I was getting a bit antsy around the halfway point and feared that it might be playing things too safe. The rest of the time more than made up for it with its unpredictability.
Most everything here was professional as well. While the video quality was questionable (I could easily chalk that up to the screener copy), on a technical level everything was great. The editing was snappy, the sound design was quite effective, and I was even taken aback by the lighting which normally is a thorn in modest-budgeted movies like, I dunno … Friday the 13th. With the top-notch script (even though there are some random, unaddressed occurrences) and the quite decent performances from actors you haven’t heard of, Dawning is most certainly a movie worth checking out.
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