Psychosis
Written, Directed, and Produced by Pirie Martin
Starring Darryn Amoroso, Kate Holly Hall, PJ Van Gyen, James McCluskey-Garcia
Runtime 1 hour 38 minutes
Available on Tubi/AVOD October 4th 

by Christopher La Vigna, Staff Writer

There’s something about horror and noir that go together like chocolate and peanut butter, or more appropriately, like a shadow-drenched alleyway and an unreliable protagonist. Psychosis, Pirie Martin’s debut film, unravels an odd mystery for us that evokes both genres with vigor. It invites us into a bizarre underworld that feels both very familiar, and yet completely alien. Lurking about in this world is an anti-hero who seems to be constantly on the brink of a breakdown, and a faceless crime lord whose true nature remains unknown.

Psychosis starts with an empty black frame, paired with a cacophony of whispering voices asking questions and making commands, their bickering growing louder and louder until it becomes interminable. The viewer is immediately disoriented, and a sense of relief hits when the clear and composed voice of a Narrator (Lindsay Dunn) cuts through the aural muck to introduce the film’s hapless protagonist, Cliff Van Aerle (Derryn Amoroso). This narrator is revealed to be the dominant train of thought running in and out of the crowded terminal that is Cliff’s mind, and the myriad voices it dominates are the multitudes of manic passengers loitering about the platforms.

Cliff is what some might call a “fixer” in the criminal underworld, a blend of private eye and private muscle. He is also a deeply troubled man who suffers from a mental disorder known as paracusia, a condition which causes those afflicted with it to experience auditory hallucinations. In the film’s first scene, we’re not only introduced to him, but also to his clients, a pair of small-time hallucinogenic drug dealers by the name of Brodie and Aaron (Henry Errington and Michael Wilkop). This duo of dunces claim to have been attacked by a horde of literal zombies, set upon them by a rival drug dealer trying to muscle in on their turf. They’ve called Van Aerle to figure out exactly who sent the zombies, and to handle them accordingly. 

As bizarre as the pitch sounds, Cliff looks at the evidence of the attack – a zombie’s severed head, along with a literal calling card – and gets to work. He’s aided in this work by his old friend Hess (Kate Holly Hall), who helps by gathering intel, along with performing other minor tasks, like using hypnosis to jailbreak his brain from outside influence. Y’know, typical detective-type things. Later on, Cliff fights with/alongside Lone Wolf, a masked vigilante who carries himself like a refugee from a forgotten C-list comic book movie. What should be equivalent to tossing Batman into The Long Goodbye manages to work in a world where you're as equally likely to run into zombies as you are tattooed gangbangers, and interrogations of informants involve either acute physical violence or mind control. Of course, when we finally meet Joubini (James McCluskey-Garcia), the enigmatic mastermind behind this madness, the pulp comic elements only get cranked up further.

Psychosis’ world is shown in stark black and white, in a 4:3 aspect ratio. The boxed-in frame creates a sense of claustrophobia, instilling hard borders that stand in stark contrast to the heady and fluid reality the film offers glimpses of throughout its ninety eight minute runtime. Martin manages to blend occultism and science fiction with neo-noir and psychological horror, undergirding the whole affair with a dark and somewhat cosmic sense of humor, like Douglas Adams penning an epic run for the Hellblazer comics. Brief flashes of color — green lines across the screen of an EKG monitor, the purple and orange insignia, the blood and viscera on a mutilated head — punctuate the otherwise monochromatic world. 

Beyond the film’s visual language, Martin’s attention to his lead character’s condition is admirable; He does a good job of balancing the benefits and disadvantages of  Cliff’s condition, having the voices both help and hurt him in different situations— helping him take stock of a street gang’s weapons, confounding him after run-ins with mysterious characters. It deftly avoids the classic pitfall of treating a mental illness as a superpower, or as a crippling condition that dooms the afflicted to being an uncontrollable threat to himself and others. Martin also makes sure that you never forget about the severity of Cliff’s paracusia. There’s hardly a scene in the film where this put-upon fixer isn’t struggling to manage the many voices shouting in his head. It’s practically impossible to not share in his distraction and disorientation.

And make no mistake, disorientation is the order of the day in this film. In addition to auditory hallucinations crowding the soundtrack, along with the staccato editing and shaky handheld camerawork, we’re treated to an extended interrogation/breakout/fight sequence literally flipped upside down. The commitment to discomfort and chaos is admirable.

While the film succeeds in marinating in its darkened aesthetic for the first two acts, the limited budget is laid a bit too bare in the finale, where our heroes’ raid on the villain’s underground drug den goes down… then goes to hell almost immediately. The stark fluorescent lighting robs us of the sinister shadows that carried so much of the film’s atmosphere, but the kinetic pacing helps us glide through, almost too quickly, as we barrel towards a conclusion that closes the plot, but still leaves Cliff plagued with uncertainty.

Psychosis isn't for everyone. It’s deliberately designed to make you feel lost to the point of confusion and panic, uncertain about the fates of its complicated characters.