In the sci-fi film Slash/ Back, we see that summer in Pangnirtung is a time for bored teens to have fun.
Slash/ Back follows a group of kids who have to defend their homes from a sci-fi menace. The alien appears in an isolated place, which the script acknowledges with an overt reference to The Thing. The setting of Slash/ Back is exactly where it takes place, in a remote pocket of Canada's Nunavut territory, and the way it weaves Inuit culture, including monster lore, into its story makes it stand out.
In Slash/ Back, Maika learns from her father that in order to survive, we must be knowledgeable and patient. When Maika, Jesse, Leena, and Uki realize that something strange is happening, this lesson is important. A bear lumbers out of the wilderness, moving in an oddly discombobulated manner, oozing black blood, and shooting its arms out of its eyes. The kids, mostly left to their own devices by their parents and the other adults in town, who are somehow both over protective and completely checked-out, follow the story beats you would expect. Along the way, Maika learns a valuable lesson about embracing her heritage and being proud of the life-saving skills she has learned as a child.
The girls are often distracted by their own drama, like who is being annoying to get attention, whose little sister is being too much of a tagalong, and who is getting too close to someone else. One of them muttered, "Can we go back to hunting a blood sucking alien?" The interactions can slow the plot down, but they are not. The performers are engaging but the acting is not. The Slash/ Back kids were cast on location, adding even more authenticity to the story, but it's noticeable enough to work against the movie, especially during any scene in which someone needs to be expressing heightened emotions.
Not to pile onto a micro-budget movie that was clearly a labor of love, but the special effects used to bring the aliens to life are limited, which you can see from the image above. There is no Thing-level creatureosity here. Slash/ Back has a lot of heart and good intentions behind it, and it's impossible not to root for its kick-ass young cast.
Shudder has Slash/ Back arriving on November 18.
Do you want to know more about io9. You can check out when to expect it.
What's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, what's next for Star Wars, and much more.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
