Review: Backtrack

An appropriately gaunt and haunted-looking Adrien Brody stars as a Melbourne psychologist (!) still grieving for his dead child whose death he feels responsible for. Brody slowly comes to realise that his patients are actually sorta kinda not really there. In fact, they’re the ghosts of dead people trying to communicate to Brody about a tragedy from his deep past that will result in Brody venturing back to the rural NSW family home to dig up a few skeletons. Sam Neill plays a professional colleague, Jenni Baird is Brody’s wife, Malcolm Kennard is a childhood acquaintance, Robin McLeavy is a country copper, George Shevtsov is Brody’s cranky old retired cop father, and both Bruce Spence and Anna Lise Phillips (with a wonky English accent) play ghosts.

Who knew Adrien Brody had snuck into Australia and made a supernatural thriller? I certainly had no clue. This 2016 flick from writer-director Michael Petroni (co-writer of the lame exorcism flick “The Rite”, “Queen of the Damned”, and the underrated “Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”) isn’t bad, and neither is Brody’s Aussie accent. He was smart to do an urban Aussie accent, and not try to Steve Irwin the fuck out of it, as not only would that be inappropriate for the character (most Aussies, don’t talk like that), yanks tend to botch it completely. At times Brody really does nail it, which is surprising given his pathetic (possibly intentional) attempt at a cockney accent in “Summer of Sam”. He and the film itself are a little too mopey (even considering the grief-stricken subject matter) and hushed for my tastes overall, and I’m not entirely sure it’ll do much for the horror crowd, as it’s much more of a mystery-drama with supernatural elements. However it’s certainly an interesting, well-acted, if not entirely successful film.

It was a great idea to cast New Zealand actor Sam Neill as the supposed voice of reason here, given the dude played Damian in “The Final Conflict: Omen III”. Perfect unsettling casting there, though Neill isn’t in the film as much as I would’ve liked. Look out for small turns by local talents Bruce Spence and Malcolm Kennard as Brody’s childhood buddy. Kudos for also having the creepiest title design/music score combo of 2016, too. In fact, Dale Cornelius’ (“Prey”) music score is the best thing in the entire film, it’s terrific.

Watchable stuff, but a little low-key and it’s kinda hard to shake “Sixth Sense” vibes if you ask me. Fine performances help, but this one’s just a tad under for me. It’s certainly not uninteresting, just not especially original and one of the major twists is pretty transparent from the performer’s first scene.

Rating: C+