Absentia

Offered as an interesting approach to why some might go missing, Absentia features an underworld creature (or creatures?) that uses a particular tunnel--which was once a sink hole before being covered by this tunnel--in LA as an access to snatch certain humans living in a community nearby it.
***½

This was indeed quite a nice surprise. I’ll admit, I wasn’t expecting much. The cover art is rather derivative: the lead character is being pulled away from something/someone sinister. While the film does have characters pulled into the tunnel, the film isn’t as derivative (thankfully) as the poster. The imdb poster is much more sufficient. The face of Katie Parker (who I hope continues to work in the genre; I flat liked her a lot) and the important tunnel behind her; this really is the film’s central focus and should be given special attention. I think why Mike Flanagan’s Absentia works so well is because he grounds the film in a realistic setting featuring characters very identifiable and human. Parker’s reformed (or trying to stay reformed) junkie, Callie (who had been on a cross country odyssey to find herself, while getting rehab in various facilities designed to help her kick the addictions plaguing her life), is very relatable as is the tired and (very) pregnant sister, Tricia (Courtney Bell, not too shabby in her own right performance-wise). Tricia’s haunted by the *specter* of her missing husband, Daniel (the tragic Morgan Peter Brown, certain to leave an indelible impression in just how he’s so damaged and left in such a tortured state), and she just wants to move on with her life after he’s seven years gone (a detective, Ryan Mallory (Dave Levine, a rough-looking cop with a 12-o’clock shadow and grizzled exterior), is her love interest; she met him when he was assigned to her husband’s missing person’s case). When Daniel emerges, badly mangled and unable to speak of what kept him away so long (in the same clothes, now tattered, his body bruised and beaten), just after Tricia got a legal document declaring him dead, it leaves a lot of questions the detectives want answers. But what “whisked him away” may be coming back for its plaything; not just Daniel is the creature interested in either. The film does offer possible alternatives to the monster from the tunnel. Because Callie has such a history of “acid tripping” and getting high thanks to the needle that what she sees (the creature’s presence in her sister’s home; it pulling away her brother-in-law and eventually her sister; Walter Lambert (Doug Jones, in a really unsettling scene) appears to her, lying on his back in a practical paralytic state, in the tunnel worse for wear; her insistence on the underworld) could be explained away by the cops as ravings from a druggie with dilated eyes and spaced-out face. When the girls go missing, the cops of the missing person’s bureau talk about the possibilities of them simply leaving, maybe even Walter’s kid (who had been kidnapping the neighborhood dogs in exchange for his father’s kept alive by “it”) killing Callie. Daniel’s sudden second disappearance could have been because he saw his wife kissing Ryan in the car, trashing his house in a rage, instead of the creature returning to bring him back to the underworld as Callie had seen it through her eyes. While I think it was important for director Flanagan to offer up these as a means to give the viewers a reason to possibly doubt Callie (she is questionable due to her past drug use; relapses are common), I never, myself, thought the creature from the tunnel was just a drug-induced nightmare. It is an interesting decision to offer such alternatives, however, and at least throw us around a little bit. 

However slight, there's a figure in the background watching her.

Momentary glimpse of the creature with Daniel in its possession.

Having to tell the parents their son is missing again.

I think the goods are delivered early in the film thanks to the jolts and startling appearances of Daniel to Tricia. Whether in nightmares or during the day, when he appears to Tricia it is normally when least expected. He’s never far away. The monster, an arachnid type of creature, can be heard, but Flanagan never allows it to appear in full view, just ever so brief glimpses. It’s just as well, I guess, because a full view of a CGI monster barely fit for the syfy channel might derail the power of Absentia. I think it benefits from the unseen. I think the decision to focus on the sisters and their difficult transition to re-bond is essential to the film’s development of the plot. Both have been through the emotional ringer; the tunnel (their flat is in close proximity to it) only contributes (maybe accelerate is a better word) to their further psychological decline. While it does seem as if Callie’s life will continue to deteriorate, Tricia’s seems potentially salvageable. Of course, Daniel’s re-emergence troubles the water; his plight and eventual disappearance again piles on the misery and exhaustion already prevalent. Callie becomes persona non grata upon return to her sister’s life as it pertains to Ryan’s feelings. He immediately has doubts about her character, taking her rough history with dope, and never trusts her. When the vanishing happens to those in close contact, and her own persistence about the tunnel and the monster that lives within its walls, Ryan has plenty to use against her.

The film does close with a rather alarming suggestion—a trade does not go according to plan and the hint of a fetus is especially disconcerting resulting in the *it* taking another soul—and the sight of a single shoe reminding us of the snatched person’s presence certainly left a feeling of unease (there’s no sense that the *it* will ever stop grabbing folks its fixated on). A figure that resembles Callie, caught momentarily by Ryan as places up missing posters of the sisters, leaves quite an ominous reminder of souls lost, a disturbing note that there’s no reason to believe others aren’t certain to vanish to whatever underworld this *it* comes from.

Take a look in the Another Page from the Darkside for images featuring Daniel's spectre and Walter.