A teenage girl is haunted by a dark figure who menaces her in dreams. Not exactly a novel premise, and the Canadian import COME TRUE (2020), executive produced by CUBE’s Vincenzo Natali, doesn’t do a whole lot with it. The film does, however, offer up some strikingly stylish visuals.
COME TRUE (2020) Trailer
18-year-old Sarah (Julia Sarah Stone) suffers from nightmares involving an indistinct shadowy figure. She goes to a sleep clinic where she’s greeted by Anita (Carlee Ryski), an officious employee who refuses to explain why she places Sarah in a weird space-agey sleep suit with a headpiece. Thus attired, Sarah sleeps in a room with several similarly garbed men and women, where, unbeknownst to them, their dreams are being monitored and recorded.
Following further dreams about the shadow man, Sarah decides to quit the program. She’s lured back by Jeremy (Landon Liboiron), an employee who has a none-too-concealed thing for her; their first meeting is in a bookstore, where the two bond over a novel by Philip K. Dick (whose reality-warping worldview proves quite pertinent to the narrative). Jeremy reveals to her the secret of the program, which does nothing to calm Sarah’s nerves. Nor does it stop the shadow man dreams, which take over her waking life to the point that she’s no longer able to tell dream from reality.
COME TRUE starts out promisingly, and continues in that vein for roughly its first half, only to progressively lose momentum as it becomes painfully clear that, contrary to how it initially seems, the film isn’t going anywhere very interesting. The indulgent edge, manifested in pretentious intertitles (“The Persona,” “The Anima and the Animus,” etc.), certainly doesn’t help matters.
What interest the film has lies in the performance of Julia Sarah Stone, whose childlike air and halting acting style fit the lead role perfectly, and the discreetly mesmerizing filmmaking. COME TRUE is, in contrast to most modern horror-sci fi movies, quiet; the first line of dialogue doesn’t occur until six minutes in, and the techno score by Electric Youth, accomplished with the film’s creator Anthony Scott Burns, is ambient and restrained.
The score isn’t the only thing, outside the writing and directing, that Mr. Burns is credited with: he’s also listed as the cinematographer, editor and special effects designer. For horror film veterans a single name repeated so many times is usually a red flag, and this film reminds us why.
COME TRUE may be stylish, but it’s deficient in too many other areas. The dream scenes, consisting of lengthy POV tracking shots through CGI landscapes packed with generic horror/goth imagery, are unimpressive, while the score gives a music video feel to the proceedings, and the narrative is meandering and unresolved (what happens to the other people involved in the dream experiment with Sarah?). Some strong collaborators, I believe, might have remedied at least some of those problems.
Vital Statistics
COME TRUE
Copperheart Entertainment/Angel Entertainment
Director/Screenplay/Cinematography/Editing: Anthony Scott Burns
Producers: Steve Hoban, Mark Smith, Brent Kawchuk
Cast: Julia Sarah Stone, Landon Liboiron, Carlee Ryski, Christopher Heatherington, Tedra Rogers, Brandon DeWyn, John Tasker, Austin Baker, Shane Ghostkeeper, Christopher Thomas, Caroline Buzanko, Orin McCusker, Tyler Dreger, Karen Johnson-Diamond, Tiffany Helm, Marla Renae, Millie Jayne, Alex Cherovsky, Michelle Rios