Look Into The Fire | Average Guy Movie Review

What begins as an experiment involving induced memory quickly turns into a nightmare when the grad students responsible inadvertently unlock repressed memories for their test subject. After undergoing the procedure, Adam (Artie Shase) - who also happens to be one of the grad students running this study - begins having flashes of a gruesome event. Raising questions to which some would prefer he didn't find the answers.

To say that Look Into The Fire is a psychological/sci-fi/horror wouldn't exactly be accurate. What it does do is drift/jump between each of these genres in the telling of this increasingly bizarre tale. At first it feels like this movie wants to be Flatliners - a bunch of grad students messing with a rather dangerous but ambiguous experimental procedure - but then everything shifts and it begins to resemble something else entirely. This continues to happen throughout the movie, making the whole thing feel like a mish-mash of Flatliners, Inception, Misery, Shutter Island, and maybe even a little Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. 

I know at this point you're probably thinking that it all sounds a little confused, and you'd be right. There are times when Look Into The Fire doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But it turns out that this really is one of the movie's greatest assets, because even though it takes a while to really get interesting, the fact that you never really know what is going on - and I mean right up to the very end - does draw you in. You are almost compelled to dig deeper, or at least watch Adam and his friends do it. And it certainly helps that you really can't trust anything you see or hear.

Along with all the genre-hopping, writer/director Tim Morrell's feature debut does include many of the clichés of both a thriller and a horror. For instance, there are more than a few unlikeable characters - pretty much all of them, in fact, at one point or another. All of whom make some really dumb decisions - like how to deal with someone who has suffered a head injury without phoning for an ambulance, or what to do when asked to deal with someone who has suffered a head injury, without phoning for an ambulance. But there are also times when Look Into The Fire is able to surprise you with what it doesn't do, as much as what it does. Things you expect to happen, never do.

Not that any of this prevents the movie from being infuriating. In fact, where would a movie such as this be without that most sacred of horror tropes?  It helps that the performances are pretty good, albeit a little robotic at times, but they do capture the general lack of common sense we humans are increasingly known for. If there is a particular standout, it's Nina E. Jordan as Adam's possessive stepsister, Janet. Her arrival marks a major shift for the movie, and Jordan's decidedly creepy performance not only reflects that, it brings an unpredictability to both the character and the movie. All of which does make for a surprisingly compelling mystery. Morrill is able to draw you deeper and deeper into this rather odd world, even if he does try to go a step too far with one final surprise leap... I mean, twist.

Not all wood burns and not all movies necessarily make a whole lot of sense. But apparently they're not always meant to. That is certainly the case here! Look Into The Fire may jump between genres quite a bit, but its ability to draw you in by being completely untrustworthy and never telegraphing where it's headed, is impressive, even if it does try to go a twist too far.

6.5/10

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