Proxy: 12 of 31 Horror Movies I've Never Seen

Every so often you find a film that you have trouble making a decision about.  A film that gives you certain things you wanted, surprises you in ways you didn't quite expect, and let's you down in other ways that can be for both of the two reasons at the same time.  This one is going to be dedicated to such a film.  The film is called Proxy and in all honesty I'm having trouble deciding how I feel about it.

Proxy is a psychothriller with a horror edge.  It focuses across a few different protagonists who are all linked from the opening incident, in which Esther Woodhouse, played with a reserved blankness by Alexia Rassmusen, is assaulted outside of her OBGYN appointment and loses her baby weeks before the due date.  She then meets Melanie Michaels, performed by Alexa Havins in a saccharin sweet way, at a grieving parent's council meeting.  From there we begin to learn about the twisted web of lies facing each of the protagonists, learning that both Esther and Melanie have Munchausen By Proxy Syndrome, reference by the films title.  I literally can't say any more about the plot without giving the entire thing away.

The film is about madness lurking in the most unassuming places.  Anika, played by Kristina Klebe, is the one character who wears her violently dark side on her sleeve and ultimately is the only honest character of the entire bunch.  Unfortunately, she's reduced to more of a side character, but she easily was my favorite.  Which gets me back to the problem of "how to feel"  I thought the film was quite well shot, the editing choices were interesting, and while I generally enjoy the use of long takes, I felt that a few of them were unjustly long as the actors were not able to command my attention in some instances.  The score, on the other hand, was incredibly good, harking to Bernard Herman's work for Hitchcock, aiding and in some cases driving the mood of the scenes.  Another thing I found enjoyable about the film was how the perspective shifted over the course of the film in a chronological order.  All good points, but there was something missing in the dialogue, but more importantly it was in the pacing.

Good pacing makes the majority of Horror films.  No one walks out of Texas Chain Saw Massacre saying, "Gee the pacing of that movie was slow."  On the flip-side, a deliberately slow pace can achieve a tension building effect that is explosive.  This film, unfortunately, had neither of those.  It's pacing was awash throughout, at times quick and sudden and at other times excruciatingly long winded and without purpose.  There were scenes in the film that quite frankly could have been cut as their only reason for existence was to satisfy some other plot point, or to provide a flimsy red herring.

Still, the film isn't horrible.  It's certainly better than a 2 star rating, as was the suggested rating to me according to Netflix.  It just could have been better with some additional cutting of the superfluous.  Other than that it was pretty good and there were some stand out performances from Klebe and Joe Swanberg.  Give it a go and make up your own mind.

3 out of 5 skulls.