Hallowatch 2026 No. 13: Proxy (2013)
Wikipedia for the synopsis • Spoilers may follow
This is the brightest damn movie I've ever seen in my life. It's like someone tried to direct "Bound" in a wal-mart, performed by a hungover improv troupe. It's like they hired every gaffer that Game of Thrones neglected to. Even Midsommar, set during the summer solstice in Sweden, had mid and low tones on screen, and was not as bright as this local bank commercial of a film.
This was a real travesty of a movie. It could have been an interesting if meditative piece if it'd kept a perspective or POV the entire time, but instead it jumps around to everyone's suburban paranoia, none of whom are interesting or really, sympathetic — Esther kills a kid after arranging her own beating-resulting-in-miscarriage, Melanie fantasizes about her family dying so she can go on talk shows, Patrick fantasizes about killing and torturing a home intruder, and Anika is constantly looking for a fight. I think someone who could better articulate Ballard's "the suburbs thirst for blood" quote could make something similar, but the team of Parker and Timperman isn't that. Which is to say, I see the vision; the execution, felt like Neil Breen was in the editing booth, if not the director's chair.
A lot of the story beats felt like they should've been set up earlier or more cleanly; instead, there's a degree of handing off of the POV that just feels so clunkily executed. This is trying to play in the melodramatic ensemble sandbox of Magnolia, Requiem for a Dream, Crash [2004], and utterly failing. It's not really a horror film in the same way none of those are, and what jumpscares or splatter shots it does have are either immediately resolved or rendered inert by the excessive brightness. I'm not sure what Parker was talking about describing it as a "spiritual sequel" to Rosemary's Baby other than they both deal with family/pregnancy. This was also maybe a half hour too long.
It's frustrating, to find a movie who's reach exceeds its ability to execute. Like there could've been something good here, maybe there's a good remake possible. But this was a dud. ■
