FrightFest 2020: ‘Don’t Look Back’ swaps fate for karma in timely thesis

Filmmakers often have a particular style to which they adhere across their portfolios. Whether we’re talking Alfred Hitchock, John Carpenter, or more recently Ari Aster, storytellers possess a singular vision. In the case of Jeffrey Reddick, creator and writer for the original Final Destination, his long-overdue directorial debut Don’t Look Back, now on VOD and riding high off its FrightFest premiere, fashions as a sharp spiritual relative while emerging as its own powerful entity.

Don’t Look Back trades fate’s death grip for karma’s vicious comeuppance. Its skeletal remains, of what could be its own Final Destination incarnation, leaves little room to squirm out from under such a towering pillar in horror cinema. Even more, its thesis pummels like a mallet to the back of the skull, jarring in its messaging but potent and necessary nonetheless. Kourtney Bell plays Caitlin Kramer, a young woman forever scarred by the death of her father, who met a swift and severe demise when two masked intruders shot in him cold blood.

Nine months later, Caitlin remains lost and tortured by the past, replaying that morning over and over like a sizzle reel. When her boyfriend Josh (Skyler Hart) convinces her to finally leave the house and go for a run, she witnesses a grisly beating in a nearby park. What is most unsettling is none of the passersby do anything to help or hinder what is nothing more than a senseless tragedy; it’s ripped right out of the headlines in true horrific fashion, casting a dark, dreadful shroud across the rest of the story.

Don’t Look Back quickly unravels a moralistic yarn, centering on karma’s dominating presence throughout our lives. As Caitlin wracks her brain with guilt over her role in letting a man die, she hallucinates death, or perhaps an unseen force, is coming back to teach her and fellow bystanders a lesson ⏤ one by one, they must pay a heavy price for what they’ve done. Even our protagnoist, as good-natured and well-meaning, is not immune to such a reckoning.

Don’t Look Back feels beholden to Final Destination. When several uncanny deaths occur, the lead investigator suspects Caitlin of wrongdoing, in much the same fashion as Alex Browning in the original film. It’s sometimes constrictive, often coming across as a beat-for-beat rehash, and other times, it impresses with an on-the-nose cautionary tale. If anything, Bell’s outstanding lead performance grounds the picture and completely sells you on the entire discourse. When the story fumbles, you’re invested so much into the outcome that you’ll let particular story beats or finale twists slide. The greater whole hits much harder than its singular pieces do, and that’s OK.

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