The block island sound

The block island sound
Original title:The block island sound
Director:Kevin McManus, Matthew McManus
Release:Cinema
Running time:97 minutes
Release date:11 march 2021 (France)
Rating:

Mulder's Review

Discovered at the Fantasia festival, The block island sound is the second film co-written and directed by Kevin McManus, Matthew McManus after Funeral Kings (2012). These two directors have a real gift for staging an unusual film that works like a puzzle and plunges viewers into an eerie atmosphere in which supernatural events take place without any real logical explanation.

Something is lurking off the coast of Block Island, silently influencing the behavior of fisherman Tom Lynch (Neville Archambault). After suffering a series of violent outbursts, he unknowingly puts his family in grave danger. His son Harry Lynch watches his father's decline while his sister, a marine biologist, returns with her daughter to her parents' port town and also witnesses inexplicable things that even science doesn't seem ready to hear about, putting our way of life at risk. Kevin McManus, Matthew McManus seem to have grown up watching the cult series X-Files and their second film could be seen as a clever extension of an episode of this series in which a small town suddenly falls victim to supernatural events.

With reduced means, Kevin McManus, Matthew McManus manages to keep us in suspense throughout the story and benefits from a solid cast in which we find in the two main roles Chris Sheffie and Michaela McManus surrounded by an excellent cast of supporting characters like Willie C. Carpenter (Men in Black), Jeremy Holm (House of Cards and Mr. Robot), Jim Cummings (Thunder Road (2013), The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020)). The careful direction and a willingness to give real consistency to the various characters make The block island sound can address in an original way the harmful ecological consequences of human activity on the seabed but also to apprehend the film of aliens in a bold way.

Kevin McManus, Matthew McManus also producers on the first season of the cult series Cobra Kai and writers of two episodes of this one seems to find in this film a real matter to experiment and revisit the genre film by adding a good dose of social drama and by playing with a malicious severity with the nerves of the spectators. By having recourse to few special effects and by letting the imagination of the spectators do the work instead of a protuberance of special effects, these two directors seem to be destined to a beautiful cinematographic career if they continue in this vein advocating originality, an undeniable talent and a will to continue to experiment and to stage their ideas if they don't take any risk and stay in a predefined mold.

The block island sound
Directed by Kevin McManus, Matthew McManus
Produced by Kevin McManus, Matthew McManus, Ashleigh Snead, Andrew Van den Houten
Written by Matthew McManus
Starring Neville Archambault, Willie C. Carpenter, Jim Cummings, Jeremy Holm, Matilda Lawler, Michaela McManus, Trisha McManus, Heidi Niedermeyer, Chris Sheffield
Music by Paul Koch
Cinematography : Alan Gwizdowski
Edited by Derek Desmond
Production companies : 30 Bones Cinema, Hood River Entertainment, Captain Intertia Productions, Title Media
Distributed by Netflix
Release date : August 28, 2020 (Canada), March 11, 2021 (World)
Running time : 97 minutes

Seen on August 28, 2020 (Fantasia Festival)

Mulder's Mark: