Review: ‘Backlash’ burns slow and hot

There takes great craftsmanship to build tension that worms under the skin. A balance must be struck, a teetering see-saw between strong character work, perhaps even subtly burning below the surface, and well-outlined story beats that propel forward. From Hereditary to The Lodge, feature films have a way of utilizing every inch of their runtimes to explore deep crevices of humanity and our darkest, most troubling fears. In the case of short, 13-minute thriller Backlash (streaming here), directed by Max Moore, the narrative is strung together through two timelines, the past cobbled together with a brutal, violently gory present.

The opening shot, the camera slowly peeling over to reveal blood-sloshed walls and a grieving young woman, cements Moore’s sensibilities as a director. He shoves the gruesome imagery down your throat before ripping it out again, only satiating your bloodlust until much later. Bits and pieces slowly reveal themselves throughout the film, and the unexplainably ominous mood slides like a serrated edge into a deer’s lifeless carcass. Backlash follows Joel Murrary’s Tim, a factory worker trying to do right by his family, as he must also navigate murky waters of a corporation’s greed and negligence no one could possibly have anticipated.

A style not unlike FX’s Fargo, the independent film ⏤ also starring Eliza Coyle (Dharma & Greg, Strip Mall), Molly Brown (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), Vincent Clawson, Alea Jazierski, and Kelsey Carlisle ⏤ litters with mundane, frivolous dramas American-made in small town life. Moore’s work is downright spellbinding, as he toys with the viewer, dancing between timelines, provoking an inky, inescapable dread to fill your veins. Such storytelling tricks don’t always land, but Moore performs an acrobatic routine and plops firmly on his feet. So, when the final few moments begin to unravel, a tremendous, stabbing pain and misery floods the screen. The onscreen tragedy, an exclamation point on Moore’s cinematic setpiece, is like a sucker punch to the stomach, knocking the air from your lungs.

Even when members of the cast might not always captivate, Backlash, featuring a score composed by indie-pop band Halfloves, is a damn treat.

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