Alone Together - Feature Film

When an evil presence enters her home, a young girl must confront the dark past of her relationship and her faith.

Couch directed his vision with a keen eye for 60’s horrors’ creeping, lingering terror, yet also with an archaic flare seen in the cryptic anecdotes and the debauched subtext in reference to the pulp horror of the 80’s.

Before going any further, it’s important to address that this is a low budget student film and was made with minimal cast and crew. Despite this, and the Coranavirus pandemic, the production quality is highly professional. I think it’s fair to say Couch’s days of amateur filmmaking have long since passed, this is a legitimate feature length film. There is still room for improvement throughout, but that’s only natural with a first film.

Meg Olssen gives a stellar debut performance, portraying Bella’s grapple between faith and her own hatred with sharp control and a great theatricality; a gradual descent into insanity and the hands of evil. This is most prevalent at her most pivotal moment, the confession scene. With some fantastic lighting at her aid, she expresses a vivid and emotionally punchy conflict. It’s frightening in a similar way to how silent era horror films feel overwhelming. It matches the stylised language of the script dramatically. Kamran Mohammad deserves credit too for tackling such a difficult character. His performance shines particularly during the dance scene which wonderfully brings forth the character’s long dead romance - we understand what they once had in one great moment.

Rory Laws’s musical score is fantastic. It’s not pure horror, but it is classically sinister. Tonally more like a fantasy, which works to give the picture a dreamlike quality. I adore the rock’n’roll punctuating the film. It’s such a contrast to everything else, you can’t help but think imagine it as the manifestation of ‘sacrifice’ and their strained love amongst the hatred.

The black and white cinematography is consistently moody, the lighting is specially impressive creating a gothic aura. It blends into the tight claustrophobic aspect ratio. The detail in the mise-en-scene was a joy spy out, such as the bare outlines of picture frames where our leading couple had once hung photos of each other and the pitch black make-up on the hands of Balam. Blood and sweat bring the backgrounds alive.

In all, Luke Couch has delivered an awesome feature debut at the age of 18. He has a distinct voice that echoes in the horror genre. Give this guy some love, it can’t be understated how difficult it is make an 88 minute feature amidst education and everything 2020 has thrown at them. A massive well done my dude.