Locally shot thriller touches on Mothman, eternal questions

Early on in Dane McCarthy's new film, "The Watching," one character sagely warns another, "There's more in the universe than you think, Harvey."
This recap of Hamlet's advice to Horatio could serve as a thesis statement for McCarthy's movie, which he describes as a supernatural thriller with a leavening of comic relief.

"I think I'd like the audience members to come away with a sense that the universe is vast and mysterious, and don't take it for granted," said the local filmmaker, who wrote and directed. "There's a lot more out there than we think."

"The Watching" features a cast of local actors including aspiring B-film starlet Megan Marie Wilson of Coolville ("Fraternity House," "Red River"), who's billed as Megan Marie. It will be screened at 7 p.m. Sunday at ARTS/West in Athens.

Even if this review were meant to spoil the film's plot, it couldn't; "The Watching" defies, as the saying goes, description. It centers on a group of friends who, as the movie begins, are off on a road trip to Point Pleasant, W.Va. They hope there to learn the truth about Mothman, the mysterious winged creature who terrorized the area for a year in the late 1960s.

They don't bring home the skinny on the cryptozoid, but their questioning of things unseen draws the attention of "the watchers," a shadowy consortium of invisible cosmic supervisors. The watchers' job, apparently, is to make sure humans learn what they need to learn during their time on earth, and to "reset" lethally the ones who don't. Those who are reset come back for another go at life, after a spooky trip through a forested twilight zone.

If all this sounds like the wheel of death and reincarnation described in some Eastern religions, McCarthy admits that it's no accident.

"It's pretty old - I didn't make it up," he notes.

The audience never gets to see the watchers, whose wet work, so to speak, is handled by "Mr. Him," a bleak functionary played by McCarthy with suitably low-key menace.

"The character is kind of a supernatural hit man, like one of the thugs out of 'The Godfather' but on a supernatural level," the filmmaker explained. "He just does what he's told."

Possibly connected to Mr. Him (the film is full of "possible" connections) is another inter-dimensional nemesis, played by Cortney Blaisdell, and listed in credits as "The Little Red Demon." TLR Demon seems to be some kind of paranormal incarnation of righteous female rage, assigned to slap the bloody bejeesus out of obnoxious, exploitative men. But that's just one viewer's opinion.

After their jaunt to Point Pleasant, the friends begin to get unexpected visits from the disturbing Mr. Him, and to realize that something quite weird, metaphysically speaking, is up. Their attempts to figure out what it all means, as they work though numerous intertwined side-plots, drive the rest of the story.

The dialogue is rather a marvel sometimes groan-inducing, sometimes bizarrely, hilariously deadpan, and often both at once; just right for a film about the knotted mystery at the heart of creation.

A clerk in a head shop enthuses over a packet of incense, solemnly assuring a customer that its "special herbs" are guaranteed to induce "an awesome, almost Zen-like enlightenment experience."

On a first date Garth and Debbie, a woman he's attracted to, share the following, Bergmanesque exchange: He: "I've been through a lot." She: "We all have. But you don't seem bitter." He: "You just don't see it."

At another point Tammy informs Warren, who has reported being assaulted by the scarlet she-devil, "I don't marry guys who see demons."

"It was only once," he points out.

The soundtrack plays around with "Shenandoah," alternating that gentle tune with harrowing metal percussion worthy of early Einsturzende Neubauten. The latter was pounded out by McCarthy himself on all manner of pipes, pan lids, bicycle spokes, and, by the sound of it, the proverbial kitchen sink.

"I was banging on all kinds of things," he recalled.

The movie makes bold to ask the very biggest questions, such as Garth's anguished query to Mr. Him: "So the universe is a serial killer?"

Does it answer these questions? That would be telling. Suffice it to reveal that it sends Garth, near the end, on a very Orpheus-like mission into the netherworld to rescue his Debbie/Eurydice, and that if he doesn't learn everything, he at least comes back with something.

If Debbie is to learn enough to not be "reset," Mr. Him warns Garth, "she'll need to suffer."

Garth brightens. "I can do that!" he says.