Joshua Erkman’s debut feature A Desert follows a struggling photographer down a spiral of unpredictable horrors in The Middle of Nowhere, USA. Hoping to recapture the spark of his earlier work, he sets out into the unknown, capturing the urban decay of locations left for dead. An abandoned movie theatre, a junk yard fighting a losing battle with rust- these are the scenes he hopes to make the subject of a new, career-invigorating book. Getting “purposefully lost” in the wasteland of America, he instead steps into a living nightmare that lies hidden just outside his depth of field.
The film is a really accomplished indie slow burn that plays by its own rules and doesn’t fall in line with the mainstream Horror template. Its story unfolds as it sees fit, introducing new characters or plot points whenever it damn well pleases. The characters drive everything, and each one feels like a full-fledged person whose motivations and history are kicking and clawing at each other for dominance over the narrative. Because of this, it plays like a real tug of war between subgenres and a surprisingly unpredictable movie for what initially looks like a real straightforward road trip thriller. So many modern movies feel like they are just checking boxes but A Desert has a real strong sense of what it wants to be, and isn’t afraid to peel back more layers and explore new themes as they reveal themselves.
I love a movie that makes you feel like you’re mainlining the universe. Movies like Nicholas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (1973), Lucio Fulci’s The Psychic (1977), George Sluizer’s The Vanishing (1988), or literally anything David Lynch has made (of course). A Desert operates on the same wavelength, tickling that weird little spot in your brain where logic is unpredictably elastic and a mysterious sense of intuition is your North Star. Don’t get me wrong, this is a still a movie that takes place primarily cheap motel rooms where all kinds of yellow-toothed, double-dealing bastards circle like sharks but it’s that eerily ethereal quality of A Desert that makes it such a standout out debut feature.
A Desert is a grimy neo-noir nightmare but has its roots in classic cinema. Its easiest comparison is a movie so familiar to everyone that even mentioning it might give away too much but needless to say, if you like dark movies A Desert is right up your alley. What does that mean? Well, bad news for you, I’m not telling. Don’t you want to get lost down a creepy winding road in a barren and desert and see where the night takes you? Sometimes you gotta just trust your gut, pay the toll, and take the ride.
“A Desert is a grimy neo-noir nightmare but has its roots in classic Horror cinema.”
Joshua Erkman’s A Desert, presented by Dark Sky Films & Yellow Veil Pictures, hits theatres! Let us know what you thought of this cerebral slow burn over in the official Nightmare on Film Street Discord (cause social media is a cesspool and Discord is where all the cool creeps are hangin’ out)
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