Written and directed by Jason Miller, spending the night in her car, a newly homeless couple wrestle with exhaustion, their crumbling marriage, and the threat of mysterious, masked strangers. Starring: Michael Reagan, Tedra Millan, Samuel Taylor, Chris Amos, Eli Hamilton and Matt Bowdren.
One of the great and underrated styles of film, especially today, is to contain your story, to have the confidence to keep everything in one place. When you can pull that off well, what you get is this satisfyingly growing tension, keeping such a strong focus makes your audience look for red flags and threats. Jason Miller capitalises on that with Ghosts of the Void, holding your attention exceptionally well and asking you to use your imagination and to dig into these characters rather than handing you everything.
To further that, Miller keeps the directorial style simple but effective, again pushing that focus but layering the tension and suspense, especially with the help of the editing work (by Brendan Jamieson). It already has a solid foundation purely setting this story out in the open, in the middle of the night, it’s instantly vulnerable so by then adding that these characters have just become homeless which has put extra strain on their marriage, as well as a looming outside threat, there’s limitless possibilities. That’s what holds your attention so well, it’s not necessarily what does happen, it’s the lingering dark potential of what could happen.
All of that is before you even get to unpacking these characters, they’re well written, and have personality and relatability. As the film develops, Tedra Millan develops a sincere complexity to Jen, her frustrations, anxieties and trauma all begins to tumble out. Which when paired with mysterious, masked strangers, it makes for a nicely tense atmosphere. Whereas Michael Reagan’s Tyler is a bit more straight forward, he still has a few layers to reveal but he plays a steadfast role in the story, his unreliability is reliable.
Ghosts of the Void is a tense and unusual exploration of anxiety, relationships and sleep deprivation. If you’re going into this just expecting your usual out for chaos and blood horror-thriller, you won’t find it because instead Jason Miller creates an unexpected downward spiral of mental health. Granted, that won’t work for everyone and the execution of its final scenes do feel a little rushed, not quite letting the dust settle on the truth. However, it’s shot very well, it has a strong atmosphere with a superb amount of tension and plenty to offer for horror fans.
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