Reviewed by Melissa Garza
There are a few precious times in my life that I’ll watch a movie, see a television show, or read a book that pushes me over the edge with what can only be described as an intellectual orgasm. The first time I read Immanuel Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals, or Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil doors opened for me that I hadn’t known existed. Scott Adams God’s Debris and both the book and the 1957 movie 12 Angry Men moved me and taught me to think in a critical manner.
Angels Crest is a film that made my mind explode with concepts, thoughts, ideas and images in a way that had never been visited before. I purchased the film for $5.99 from MovieStop. From the back cover description I was thinking at best I would be watching an interesting thriller. I hadn’t any idea that I was in store for a piece of ingenious and brilliant art. I think it’s a shame that this film was not released in theaters when uninteresting and idiotic movies like the Saw series and anything by Happy Madison Productions is put forth year after year.
Angels Crest opens with Teddy (Chris Bauer) giving his co-worker Richard (Currie Graham) a ride to work. Richard who is late asks to go through Angels Crest which is a shortcut through the woods. The duo begins to have a deep philosophical discussion that delves into matters of fate vs. freewill. Richard declares that actions dictate results. Essentially, there are several questions that follow the movie throughout.
One that arises is whether a sequence of coincidences can occur without meaning or if a greater force and a designed plan dictate the outcome. Richard believes the former while Teddy is convinced that the latter is true. Believing such, he hits Richard over the head and ties him to a tree advising him he only has 36 minutes to live.
We find out that Teddy had a girlfriend when he was a child. The young girl’s name was Claire. Though the kids made plans about the future, such as getting married and buying a house that was not to be. She moved away with her family never to be seen again though Teddy never stopped loving her. Years later Teddy ran into a cousin of Claire’s and was told that sadly she had died. Claire’s father had gotten a job in New York. At the age of 14, during recess, she was brutally raped by two classmates who threatened her to keep quiet. By 16 the tragic event impacted her so much that she began doing drugs. One day she was so high that she drowned in a fountain at Central Park. Though there was barely 7 inches of water, she was unable to raise her head out of it.
Though Richard adamantly denies involvement of the rape, Teddy is convinced he held Claire down and participated in the crime. Here we are again with a quandary. Was it Richard’s actions which put him in the predicament? Is it fate and design by some invisible force or has Teddy gone mad?
After all, Teddy claims that all day there had been signs that showed him he had to kill Richard. It started with Teddy who had requested the day off of work over a month ago but decided to go in. He then saw Richard at the bus stop. He had missed the 9 o’clock bus and absolutely no one was around when he picked him up. It had been Richard who insisted on going to Angel’s Crest. He also knew that Richard had been suicidal last year at the same time as it was his wedding anniversary and his wife had left him.
Richard tried to tell Teddy all that occurred were simple coincidences but Teddy was convinced it was fate. He told Richard that he didn’t want to kill him. He even pleaded with Claire by staring at the sky and telling her he refused to complete what he had started. Still, he came back and felt he needed to fulfill his duty – to fulfill what nature intended.
There is so much to say about this movie. There are so many simple phrases that mean so much more than what they seem on the surface. For example, prior to the kidnapping, Richard and Teddy are having a friendly conversation. Richard compares Central Park to the woods and Teddy disputes it, until Richard says that the animals are just of a different sort. Teddy then agrees. Of course, once the rape is introduced, the animal of Central Park becomes those that participated in the violation of Claire.
There isn’t enough to say about this film. The writer/director J. Michael Couto made a small appearance in the movie during a pivotal scene at the gas station where unbeknownst to Richard, Teddy makes his decision.
Couto should be immensely proud of this movie. It’s brilliant without being pretentious. It’s intelligent without talking down to the audience. It demands the viewer’s attention and doesn’t pretend to know the answers. It gives so much without standing upon an ultimate truth. It doesn’t try to be bigger than what it is by declaring its own philosophical belief. That is put upon the audience – not to draw a conclusion but to understand that there isn’t any – that the questions remain unresolved. Even as Richard faces his own fears and illusions invade reality, the skeptic can be convinced that his own guilt compounded with the hit on his head created this un-reality. The believer, of course, will take the coincidences as fate, the un-reality as an alternate reality and the invisible force – karma – as the design.
One then has to wonder, will Teddy face any punishment – will he need to atone for his sins or if they are of this invisible design – are they simply justified? He obviously is tortured and feels guilt about his participation as necessary as he believes it to be. What will come of his future? What is his fate? The viewer isn’t meant to know and that’s why the movie is so powerful.
A quick note, there is another movie called Angels Crest from 2011. I haven’t seen that, so please as you seek this out don’t be mistaken.
I strongly urge any fans of The Twilight Zone, the British series QI, or simply those intrigued by philosophical quandaries to seek this out immediately!
Sadly, this is Couto’s only work according to IMDB. I really hope he reemerges as this is a work of absolute intellectual brilliance.
Scared Stiff Rating 10/10 – J. Michael Couto = Rod Serling reincarnated
