Come True: An OW REVIEW
Canada has been churning out some truly fascinating SciFi and Horror content over the past decade. See Brandon Cronenberg’s ANTIVIRAL and POSSESSOR (nepotism perhaps, but I give it a pass since he’s actually talented), or Jeff Barnaby’s BLOOD QUANTUM (socially conscious and boasts perhaps the last clever twist on the zombie trope which, like its subject, refuses to die off). Here at Other Worlds, we proudly count Tricia Lee (BLOOD HUNTERS) and the Black Fawn Distribution team (I’LL TAKE YOUR DEAD, THE HERETICS) among our alumni from the Great White North. Today I’m here to tell you that the 2020 film COME TRUE, though not without its faults, deserves its place among this library of recent genre flicks that are worth your attention.
Anthony Scott Burns wrote and directed this little lo-fi number, but any fanfare upon release was unfortunately buried during the catastrophic shitshow that was 2020. COME TRUE follows 18-year-old runaway Sarah (Julia Sarah Stone), who joins a sleep research study to earn some much-needed cash. Her nightmares about an otherworldly monster with glowing eyes quickly worsen, and she suspects that the experiment has a sinister purpose. Sarah must escape from the power of her own mind and dreams with the help - or maybe hinderance - of Anita, a determined researcher, and Riff, the project’s awkwardly charming co-captain.
Much of the film’s success is thanks to the steady directorial hand of Burns. The narrative takes its time in developing, but it creates such an air of creeping dread that even during the slow bits, the film demands your attention. The muted color scheme, seemingly innocuous suburban setting, and quietly menacing synth score all push and pull against each other to create an uneasy, chilling atmosphere. And that’s to say nothing of the dream/nightmare sequences, which unfold almost like a video game as the viewer is led unwillingly through some truly unsettling scenery. Bodies are strung up in unnatural positions, the ground is a bottomless pit, and danger looms in the dark. There’s a lot to balance here, but it mostly works.
Like countless other SciFi movies of recent years, COME TRUE’s visual style skews heavily toward 1980s nostalgia. I wasn’t even sure in which era the film was set until a smartphone shows up about five minutes in. (Why, for example, does Sarah have a WEEKEND AT BERNIE’S poster in her bedroom? Why does this super-secret research project only have bulky, outdated computers and operating systems?) To its credit, the film justifies its retro stylings as the story progresses. It’s not simply style over substance, though it may seem so at times because the substance is deliberately…elusive.
This brings us to the real meat of the film. Now, I proudly wear my love for the esoteric on my sleeve. That said, COME TRUE does the audience absolutely no favors when it comes to parsing out meaning. The horror in this film is the unknown, which is as straightforward and abstract as it sounds. This primal fear that lurks in the corners of Sarah’s mind when she dreams is almost intangible at first, yet it proves inescapable. There is a wary regard for the mind’s power; the fear of relinquishing control when falling asleep; the thin veil that separates consciousness from unconsciousness. What’s real? Who are we? How deep is this abyss of the unknown? Ahhhh!!! The sheer ambition of the film’s subject matter both lifts it up and weighs it down.
There are certainly some less effective elements here. For example, the subplot attempting to build a romance between our high-schooler protagonist and the handsome but 30-year-old scientist who watches her sleep is, in a word, unfortunate. The film also stumbles on its landing, attempting to answer way too much in the final few moments instead of putting its trust in the insidious sense of dread that it has spent so much time building up to. That said, this film creates a truly evocative world around its suffering protagonist. Examining dreams via films is far from new, but COME TRUE effectively melds the horror of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET with the sinister bureaucracy of DREAMSCAPE and humbling awe of INCEPTION to create its own unsettling look into the human mind.
You can stream COME TRUE on Hulu, or rent on other digital platforms.