The Horror Show
Preservation
by Christopher Denham
Occasionally a horror movie will come along and break new grounds, turning the genre on its head. Preservation isn’t that movie. It’s completely unremarkable; not bad, just forgettable. The movie doesn’t take great strides in new directions. Instead, it follows in the footsteps of every survival horror movie before it, making it, at most, a good way to kill an hour and a half.
Mike, Sean, and Wit go camping on a nature preservation. This was intended to be a getaway for Mike and Wit who’ve been having issues. Mike decides to invite his brother, Sean, in an attempt to help him cope with his PTSD. When the trio arrive at the preservation, they notice that it is closed down. But no pesky chain is going to stop them.
We learn that Wit has been keeping a secret from her husband: she’s pregnant and afraid of how Mike will react to the news. When Mike wanders off, Wit and Sean play a game of truth or dare. Wit attempts to get Sean to open up by asking him about why he was discharged from the military. He seemingly blows off the question. When Mike returns, they all go to sleep for the night. When they wake they notice that their foreheads have been marked with X’s and all of their supplies are stolen. They even managed to steal the tent Mike and Wit were sleeping in and Sean’s dog. Mike believes Sean is responsible because of the mysterious circumstances surrounding his discharge and his PTSD. Unbeknownst to the trio, they are being hunted by another group of three.
This movie was entertaining yet frustrating at the same time. The main characters constantly make stupid choices and let their guard down during crucial moments. Let’s say you knock someone out trying to kill you, would you just turn your back to them casually or would you finish the job? That’s not a hard choice, you finish the job. Three times this happened in the movie. Even the soldier suffering from PSTD made this mistake. I’m pretty sure someone with PTSD getting shot at would go into a blood thirsty flashback. I find this a little hard to believe. Speaking of which, they killed off the most useful character first. The survivalist weapons expert is clearly unable to live until the end of the movie, that would be much too easy.
Preservation took the whole Chekov’s Gun principle a little too far. I understand that it exists as a means of removing unnecessary elements, but it can go too far. It made the movie way too predictable and easy to follow. For example, that smashed bottle at the beginning of the movie will be important later. How can a filmmaker expect to surprise anyone when they adhere too closely to dramatic principles? Simple answer is you can’t. All the movies I remember are the ones that caught me off guard and those are the ones that I love.
I felt like Preservation was trying to make a political statement about violence in video games and how terrible phones are. Once the movie changes focus from Wit to the killers, you see one of them playing a mobile game, a first person shooter. I believe they were being portrayed as being desensitized to violence. It also seems that the killers are attempting to hunt these people like it’s a game. Also, it appears that Christopher Denham hates-hates-hates cellphones. Everything bad in this movie has to do with a cellphone. Wit couldn’t enjoy the trip because Mike wouldn’t put down his cellphone. The killers would record people’s dying moments via cellphone. They would track Wit via cellphone. The killers would only communicate through text and not talk to one another. A cellphone game seemed to inspire the killers. Sean even said he didn’t own a cellphone because it was bad for you. Clearly, this is a movie about how much the director hates cellphones. There was a time when things like books were considered trash and looked down upon. There is always someone who hates the newest trends in society. Here’s the thing, no one cares what you think about cellphones. They aren’t going away.
The film also has several plot holes that irk me. The biggest of which was how the killerswere capable of finding the main characters in the woods. Teenagers can’t just camp out in a closed nature preserve for all of eternity on the off chance that someone will break the rules and decide to camp there. It’s quite infuriating. Then there was the whole Sean getting discharged thing. It’s never answered. Wit straight up asks Sean why when they’re playing Truth or Dare and he answers with an irrelevant story from his childhood. That’s not how the game works. When you choose truth, you have to answer the question truthfully. Then the game got sexual. You can never play Truth or Dare without it getting sexual.
Christopher Denham doesn’t have a strong directing or writing background. He only directed two films and wrote four. He seems to primarily act, and actors often have to paint their characters from their own personal experiences to make the character more relatable. I think that was a huge problem with Preservation. It didn’t seem like Denham was able to filter out his own personal beliefs from his movie. That’s why we ended up with a very anti-cellphone film.
Sadly, this movie was too similar to others like it. This movie actually reminded me a lot of The Descent, you know the cast of characters getting stalked and killed till just one is left. The one that is left decides to finally fight back and becomes a total badass killer. Speaking of, this movie is really about preservation, self-preservation that is. Get it? The movie takes place on a preservation, it’s about self-preservation, and it’s called Preservation. The movie even mentions self-preservation at one point, just in case you didn’t get it. Sadly, Preservation won’t preserve itself in our minds.
Billy Wayne Martin, HMS
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