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They Live in the Grey
R2 - United Kingdom - Acorn Media Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (25th October 2022). |
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The Film
 Child Protective Services social worker Claire Yang (The Invitation's Michelle Krusiec) has just returned to work after the death of her son Lucas, although she is far from well. Even before her loss, she has been self-medicating to reduce her psychic sensitivity to restless and violent spirits who can actually make physical and often abusive contact with her. When she is assigned the case of eight-year-old Sophie Lang (Don't Breathe 2's Madelyn Grace) who has fallen off of her skateboard one too many times for her school to leave her welfare to her parents Giles (Argo's J.R. Cacia) and Audrey (Final Destination 5's Ellen Wroe), she at first refuses to take the case when she senses a menacing supernatural presence in their home. While Sophie has tried to keep the truth from her parents as an additional source of stress after her father had an affair, it turns out that her parents are well aware of the paranormal goings-on in their home but they justifiably fear that telling the truth to the school, the police, and the courts would make them look even more unstable. When her encounters with the angry dead – including the spirit of a woman in the Lang house who may have murdered her son and husband – growing increasingly violent and causing others including her estranged cop husband Peter (Ken Kirby) to question her sanity, Claire must face the guilt she has over her son's death in order to save another family from being torn apart… or even worse. Another "I see dead people" film crossed with the "grieving parent spiritually opened up to the world of the supernatural" film, They Live in the Gray is conceptually interesting and technically slick but so bewilderingly poor in execution it boggles the mind. The second feature work of "The Vang Brothers" – Abel Vang and Burlee Vang of the killer app film Bedeviled – the film's pacing is so drawn out and stilted that it makes the performances seem more so, from Krusiec's long pauses before, during, and after lines of melodramatic dialogue (this is the kind of film in which multiple overwrought characters rhetorically ask her if she has ever felt something they are feeling only for her to reply "Yes, I have") to keeping in the beats after action and before cut is called. Details of Claire's loss of her son are parsed out throughout the movie so deliberately that it becomes hard to care about its effect on her, and her pretty much all of her co-stars come across badly like first take line readings never tempered or toned down. The twist is not so surprising but the climax is severely hampered by the filmmakers' decision to capture it all in one long take with a wide angle lens that not only looks extremely amateurish but also seems to have them under the misapprehension that they were capturing dramatic gold. The appearances of the ghosts are occasionally disarming in the creeping irreality of mundane encounters but some of the more The Sixth Sense-y ones are laughable, with the only truly effective one involving a canted angle, blue tint, and a spinning wheel looking like a visual reference to Kwaidan. While there are issues with performances, staging, and pacing, one feels that They Live in the Grey could have been improved immensely by a more disciplined and objective editor shaving off about twenty minutes from the two hour running time.
Video
The digitally-lensed They Live in the Grey looks polished on Acorn Media's 16:9 anamorphic 2.40:1 widescreen DVD which appears to be virtually identical to the U.S. release but in the PAL standard.
Audio
The Dolby Digital 5.1 track alternates long silences and muttered dialogue sequences with jump scare directional effects, but it is not as adventurous a mix as its more mainstream inspirations. Optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles are also included.
Extras
The only extra is a step-through photo gallery which is perhaps just as well as a string of interviews and a commentary track trying to impart depth to the film would probably be unbearable.
Overall
Another "I see dead people" film crossed with the "grieving parent spiritually opened up to the world of the supernatural" film, They Live in the Gray is conceptually interesting and technically slick but so bewilderingly poor in execution it boggles the mind.
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