The Scare Salon

In other words, I can totally see how some people might not vibe with it because it seems on the surface like not much is happening, but I found it absolutely mesmerizing and was completely sucked in by the ever-changing mystery and dynamics between the two characters. Just a heads-up before diving in.

Brendan Rock plays Patrick, a burly, bearded fellow who lives alone in a mobile home located in a somewhat isolated trailer park, whose other homes and residents we hardly ever see. At the beginning of the movie, it’s around two in the morning, and he’s sitting at his kitchen table, listening to a battered old radio playing Betsy Brye’s 1959 vocal version of the Santo & Johnny song “Sleep Walk,” a tune that will become something of a thematic touchstone throughout the story.

As he sits there, he contemplates a small vial of some clear liquid and has what we presume is a flashback to an indistinct young woman peering into a car window during a rainstorm. In the present, a parallel thunderstorm has begun whipping up outside.

Suddenly, someone pounds at his front door. At first, he shouts for whoever it is to fuck off, but the knocker is persistent, and he grudgingly goes to answer the summons.

To his surprise, a young, dark-haired woman is standing on his doorstep, soaking wet from the rain. She asks him for a ride into town, and after a few minutes of uncomfortable back and forth, he invites her inside. She reluctantly comes in. This woman, by the way, is never named but is credited only as The Visitor and is played by Jordan Cowan.

Patrick offers to make her some tea, which she declines, and then he gives her a towel, gruffly complaining that she’s dripping water all over his floor. He tells her that his car has been acting up and likely wouldn’t make it to town, especially not in this weather. The Visitor, growing understandably edgier, then asks to use his phone to call for a taxi, but he doesn’t have a phone either. However, he helpfully tells her that the trailer park has a pay phone; the only problem is that it’s outside a gate that’s locked at this hour and that if she went to find the phone he would have to go with her to unlock it. He generously gives her change for the phone, and says he’ll accompany her when the storm lets up, a prospect she’s clearly not happy about.

The Visitor is feeling more and more uneasy with the situation, and the weather outside is getting more and more vicious. As viewers, we’re also becoming increasingly tense, as it’s clear that Patrick is maybe up to something nefarious. He seems to be aware of The Visitor’s nervousness, though, trying to put her at ease by letting her dry her clothes on his heater and apologizing for his churlishness when answering the door; the neighborhood kids, he explains, have an annoying habit of knocking on his door at all hours of the night and then running away, just to fuck with him.

And the script introduces some ambiguity in The Visitor’s character as well, hinting that she might not be who she seems. For example, she initially claims that she had been at the beach and fell asleep, thereby missing the bus back to her accommodation and forcing her to seek a ride elsewhere. Patrick is immediately suspicious of this, as the girl has bare feet and it’s unlikely she walked the considerable distance from the beach like that.

During their conversations, she also sometimes contradicts her earlier statements, saying she wants to go “home” instead of back to the hotel she originally said she was staying at, and at one point saying she’d been at work when she’d previously said she was at the beach. She’s also vague about whether she’s a local or a tourist, though Patrick swears he’s seen her somewhere before.

There’s also the small matter of The Visitor seeing apparent visions of blood dripping from her head while she’s in the shower, and Patrick seeing blood on his hands while he’s washing out a pan that he used to cook tomato soup. On top of all that, the storm raging outside seems oddly unnatural, causing ominous creaks across the roof of the trailer and wails that sound like human voices.

As the story goes on, every word the pair exchange is fraught with weight and meaning, and as a viewer you’re left wondering exactly what is going on with these two. It’s clear that one or both of them are lying, but to what purpose?

At one stage, Patrick and The Visitor seem to establish some measure of trust after The Visitor realizes that Patrick hadn’t actually locked her in as she thought. They also bond over Patrick’s heartfelt story about meeting his wife, who has since died. Soon enough, though, that trust is completely shattered, and the third act of the movie goes in a fairly violent and somewhat surreal direction that nonetheless makes plain what the connection between the two of them is.

As I mentioned, this is definitely a character-based chamber piece and leans heavily on the strange conversations between Patrick and The Visitor. I found their interactions really engrossing, and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, trying to figure out what was happening (which I didn’t actually guess until much later in the story). The acting is top-notch, the cinematography is spookily effective, and the sound design gives the whole thing an unsettling atmosphere that really stuck with me after I watched it.

Fans of more action- or plot-focused horror might find it boring I guess, but I thought it was deliciously creepy and well-executed, giving me similar vibes to another recent film I loved, 2024’s Heretic, which was likewise focused largely on dialogue and uncertain motives as a driver of the suspense. They’ll Never Find Me is a great debut from a filmmaking team to watch out for in the future.

Until next time, keep it creepy, my friends.