By Simon Thompson
Writer/director Zeshaan Younus’s The Buildout is an impressively shot and tense horror movie. Suitably contemplative and deliberately paced, The Buildout is a film which really takes its time in letting you get to know the two lead characters and dragging you into its foreboding atmosphere.
The plot of The Buildout focuses on its two main characters, Cameron (Jenna Kannell) and Dylan (Hannah Alline), who undertake a road trip via motorbike across the Southern California desert. This road trip is a goodbye for the two close friends, as Dylan, a recovering addict, has decided to join a quasi-Christian spiritual cult (the kind that usually harasses people once they exit the tube), because of the structure and remote location it provides to protect her from her worst impulses.
Cameron, however, is completely suspicious and cynical about the company that Dylan has found herself involved with, but, realising that she isn’t going to change her mind no matter what, decides to resign herself to her friend’s new circle of peers. As the two of them venture further and further into the desert, it becomes clearly that something truly sinister is lurking there.
Both Jenna Kannell and Hannah Alline give naturalistic and compelling performances in their respective roles. Alline manages to strike a nice balance between portraying Dylan as a true blue believer, yet not having her come across as a total caricature of a brainwashed cultist. Jenna Kannell, on the other hand, sensitively portrays Cameron’s desire to do right by her friend but also conveys her disappointment about losing her to her new life.
The cinematography, by Justin Moore, is a joy to look at. Shot on location in the Southern California desert itself, Moore squeezes every ounce of beauty from the locale in real Terrence Malick fashion. Using wide angles, and contrasting them with p.o.v shots of the two main characters, Moore fully renders the stark, unknowable quality of the desert from which the film derives so much of its atmosphere.
While Younus’s desire to build atmosphere organically and not rely on modern horror cliches such as bombastic sound cues and jump scares is commendable, the third act still feels like somewhat of a letdown, because after close to an hours’ worth of build up what you finally see, at least from a subjective standpoint, didn’t feel worth the investment of time. This is a shame because Younus had me on the edge of my seat for most of the movie until the last fifteen minutes or so, which undid a lot of the heavy lifting done by the first and second acts.
The Buildout arrives on VOD platforms from 25 February 2025.
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