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‘Descendent’ Review: A Security Guard Unravels After Experiencing a Close Encounter in Effective Suspense Drama
Peter Cilella's mystery film, premiering at SXSW, follows a man afflicted with trauma, either from an alien encounter or his own family's past.
More familiar notes of terror and disorientation come with the UFO territory of Peter Cilella ’s “ Descendent.” It has “The Walking Dead’s” Ross Marquand as a working-class Southern Californian whose world comes unglued once he suffers an apparent alien abduction. But those expecting straightforward sci-fi horror may resent the writer-director’s insistence on sticking to an ambiguity, played somewhere between the narrative models of “Communion” and “Mysterious Skin.” Cilella never fully resolves whether our protagonist is, indeed, the victim of extraterrestrial meddling or instead suffering delusions triggered by delayed childhood-trauma memories, leaving the story suspended in irresolution. His interactions with authority figures, including a counselor (Aisha Camille Kabia) and his rather awful “Aunt” Robin (Susan Wilder), suggest long-term anger issues that his marriage had hitherto muffled.
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