Film Review: Double Blind (2024)
Epic Pictures
Double Blind wastes no time, and for this I am grateful. It opens with a zooming shot on a caged lab rat, which is promptly lifted from above by a latex-gloved hand and beheaded off-camera by a garish, oversized mouse-beheading device. This, believe it or not, is a great microcosm of the movie as a whole: efficient, practical, stylish, a touch dramatic, and ultimately effective.
Party at the Pharmacy Dorm
The film opens with a young woman named Claire arriving at a Blackwood Pharmaceutical facility, looking a touch distraught and descending into a windowless underground test lab where she will be participating in a five-day, double-blind drug trial alongside six other twenty-something volunteers. The group will be onsite throughout the duration of the trial, sleeping, eating, and living in the underground dorm. They’re introduced to the physician conducting the trial, given their first dose, and move on to a group meal where they casually banter.
Up to this point, I’m very pleased with the film. The style is modern and clean, not spending any time on extraneous detail or trying to shoehorn in aggressive or unearned character development. The sets are sterile, clinical, corporate, the shots mostly stay tight and do a great job of imparting a stifling, sinister vibe. The characters, while a touch archetypical, show solid acting chops and avoid any element of caricature. It’s a really solid filmmaking that lets the viewer know what they’re in for without any wasted effort or distracting sidebars.
Epic Pictures
And what are we in for? Well, the participants in this clinical trial strangely wear uniforms. Thick, heavy, styleless orange under layers with what can only be described as navy hospital scrubs over the top. If you squint a bit, they look like inmates, at least to my American eyes. It’s a curiously discordant note that seems wholly unnecessary given the plot, but it soon comes to fit the story perfectly. While the participants have phones, there is no service, and the only activities they seem to have to occupy themselves are exercise and chess. In retrospect, it looks like Blackwood knew exactly how this trial was going to go.
On the first night, Claire finds sleep elusive, and eventually makes her way to the common area of the facility only to find that the six other participants are already there, each experiencing a similar manic sleeplessness that they presume is connected with the trial drug. The following day, the group is informed that the parameters of the trial have shifted, and they’re now expected to stay awake as long as they possibly can.
No One Read the Waiver
While I won’t explicitly spoil what happens next, suffice to say that the volunteers deduce that they’re part of something far more sinister than a simple drug trial. When one of the participants inexplicably dies of a brain hemorrhage after falling asleep and the facility is put on a twenty-four hour lockdown, the remaining participants resolve to stay awake until the quarantine is lifted.
I’m going to be real: the science here doesn’t make too much sense, but that’s okay. This is very much a film that understands how to approach its premise, not bogging the audience down with a bunch of pseudo science or bizarre villainous motivations; it presents a scenario in which a group of people believe they will die if they fall asleep, and it works that premise up to its natural conclusion, horns, thorns and all. The movie is unapologetic about its thinner elements, putting them out there and moving the audience on to the next thing without any real time to consider, and that, I think, is the exact right approach to something kitschy and fun like this. The pacing is superb, and that covers all manner of cinematic sins.
As the story progresses, the group members experience horrific and bewildering hallucinations, but it’s not clear to the audience if these are the result of the mystery medication or their sleep deprivation. Most of these setpieces are simple but well-executed, not trying to do too much but always doing it reasonably well. There was no moment where I felt the creators were reaching, or trying to pull something off that they didn’t have the technical expertise to manage, and that’s something to commend.
The group begins to breakdown mentally as well as physically, and suspicion that trial participants might not be who they represented arise. The characters work well, and are scaled appropriately for the story, each having a backstory that adds enough color to give them a lane without disrupting or distracting from the main plotline. Similarly, the acting is solid and well-balanced, with each actor filling their shoes but not doing so much as to take energy from group scenes. Perhaps most important in a film like this, the kills, at least those of which aren’t simple brain hemorrhage caused by the trial drug, are satisfying and well-constructed, rendered in practical effects that fit the film's stark tone.
Final Thoughts
Double Blind is a really solid early-career effort from director Ian Hunt-Duffy–who also plays one of the more antagonistic volunteers–and it’s a decent horror film to boot. Most of the elements are played safe but effectively, and there’s not a clear misstep to be found. The script, sets, acting, setpieces, and plot all serve the aim of the film, and the fulfilled promise gory sci-fi horror entertainment outpaces the modest creative ambitions. My caution is to manage expectations appropriately, and this film will deliver provided you’re just looking for a bit of fun.
Verdict: 6.8
Strengths
Solid pacing, acting, script, and cinematography
Some nice practical effects
Smart filmmaking
Weaknesses
Plays it a bit safe, not really breaking new ground, or even flirting with such
Some significant plot holes for those who care scrutinize such things in ninety-minute indie horror films
Final act is weaker than what got us there
You may also like: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Resident Evil, A Nightmare on Elm Street
Double Blind will be in select theaters on Feb 9 and on VOD Feb 13th.
