Written and directed by Kenneth Perkins, the two lives of a suicide hotline operator and a recently kidnapped trauma survivor collide in this tale of botched suicide and unconventional redemption. Starring: Gea Rose Henry, Jon Devlin, JD Starnes, Dorothy Hadley Joly, Adam Cowart, John Grove and Constance Benson.
One of the biggest factors which determines whether or not you’re likely to enjoy a film today, with dwindling attention spans that are constantly ruined by doomscrolling, is how well it can hold your attention, and Velvicide does that surprisingly well. Kenneth Perkins creates a great consistency to the film, in the way that it moves and how the story unfolds, it’s steady and has a good snowballing quality to the plot.
Part of that is also the tone that Perkins establishes, there’s a cloud lingering over the film, a mixture of awaiting the reveal and exploring Velvet’s (Gea Rose Henry) trauma that makes for a great blend. Especially as films like this can often tend to go heavy-handed with the atmosphere so it’s refreshing to see Perkins pull back a little here and let things flow more organically. It’s also always satisfying to see opening credits used well like they are here. Plus, that opening scene to set that great tone works extremely well and has a nice edge of humour.
Another key element that indie thrillers struggle with is typically the performances but that’s not a problem here. Gea Rose Henry gives a satisfying portrayal of a survivor, she’s got a good bite to her, a nice bit of sarcasm and Henry builds a relatable personality for Velvet. She makes for a great lead, she conveys the trauma and pain but isn’t limited to that. Jon Devlin brings a good brokenness and timid quality to the table. While JD Starnes gives us the opposite, he’s brash and overly confident, which works but at times it feels like it would have benefited the story to play him with a touch more subtlety.
It’s one of the little missteps that it feels like Velvicide trips over. The way it rushes the relationship between Velvet and Starnes’ Isaac, as well as how it balances the time the different characters spend onscreen, it can feel like they’re handing you a few too many clues to where the story is headed. While the writing does still play out well, it’s not as unpredictable as hoped, particularly as it lets itself run a little bit longer than it needed to.
However, in spite of that, it does continue to hold your attention well, and another factor in that is the cinematography from Denton Adkinson. There can be a tendency to go either mundane or overly dark when it comes to indie horror-thrillers but here, Adkinson strikes a good balance. It doesn’t feel like it’s trying to veer too far into horror territory, but it leans enough into those richer colours to add that edge of thrill when it’s needed. That making of documentary type feel to its present day scenes also works really well, Velvet’s talking head scenes perfectly tap into the true crime genre.
Velvicide is a captivating low-key horror-thriller that will likely be highly appreciated by those obsessed with true crime podcasts and documentaries. The story paces itself well, it maybe could have shaved off a little time here and there, but its tone and atmosphere never wane. It’s shot and edited well, the writing could use a tiny bit of polishing in parts, but the plot works well and it’s entertaining. Gea Rose Henry takes the lead with a lot of confidence and gives a performance that almost feels reminiscent of a classic final girl. It may not be able to completely hide all of its secrets but it’s still enjoyable to watch them be revealed.
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