Take From Me review

By Simon Thompson

Writer/director West Eldredge’s southern gothic thriller, Take From Me, is a deliberately paced and well thought out horror movie that returns to a staple of the genre and puts its own spin on it. Although not blessed with a huge budget by any means, it’s a highly polished and professional work which goes to show that sometimes less is more. 

Set in small town Virginia, Take On Me follows John (Ethan McDowell), a grieving local resident drinking himself into a stupor to cope. John’s status quo is upended when a mysterious woman named Elizabeth (Kyla Dylan) turns up and begins to buy him out of his farmhouse. As this is going on, residents are starting to disappear randomly, leaving the local police captain Abe Jackson (Dwayne A Thomas) to investigate what is responsible.

Shot on location in Northern Virginia, Take From Me captures both the beauty but also the isolation of the area at the same time. The overcast sky which colours so many of the external shots contrasts nicely with the sunnier days that we see in John’s memories. Internally the intimate farmhouse itself works as a visual backdrop for the sense of helplessness that Eldredge is trying to inspire in the audience. 

The acting is solid across the board, but it’s Dwayne A Thomas’s performance as Abe which quietly steals the show for me. Thomas presents us with a man stuck in a professional rut, and how that in turn affects his home life in a richly believable way without suffocating the rest of the cast. McDowell does a strong job of conveying his character’s inner turmoil, and Kyla Dylan, who has the showiest part of the three, hams it up as the femme fatale but not at the expense of the movie’s moody tone. 

Taking its cues from Salem’s Lot and I Am Legend, Take From Me is a mature and assured piece of horror filmmaking but at the same time not so up itself that isn’t afraid to get its hands dirty and deliver in the gore department. If you want an independent horror film which treats you like an adult for an hour and fifty minutes with interesting well formed characters and a strong atmosphere, then Take From Me is definitely worth a look.