Gazer
Directed by Ryan J. Sloan
Written by Ryan J. Sloan and Ariella Mastroianni
Starring Ariella Mastroianni, Marcia Debonis, Renee Gagner, Jack Alberts, Tommy Kang
Runtime: 1 hour and 54 minutes
In theaters April 4

by Heidi Krull, Staff Writer

Psychological thrillers are some of my personal favorites to watch, not only because they are a challenge to do well, but also because of their absurdity. Gazer, directed by newcomer Ryan J. Sloan, taught me a new definition of the bizarre and took a close look at a woman being swallowed by her own reality.

Gazer begins with our protagonist, Frankie (Ariella Mastroianni), who has a degenerative neurological disorder that affects her perception of time. She has a young daughter of whom she has lost custody. She tries desperately to save money for her future, but she struggles to hold down a job. One night, she observes a mysterious woman (Renee Gagner) hastily escaping from her apartment window after being hit by someone inside with her. The woman, Paige, keeps showing up to the same places Frankie is and eventually confides in her that she is trying to get away from her brother. Frankie agrees to help her but at a high price for the sake of her daughter. Frankie’s life after meeting Paige and accepting this job causes her reality to become even more distorted than it already was, and it leads her down a path of intertwining conspiracies and paranoia that threaten her life and others.

This film is straight up my alley: weird, surrealistic, and smart. Gazer had a million layers to it that made it stand out to me, one being the audio elements. To keep her symptoms under control and to keep track of her day-to-day life, Frankie uses cassette tapes that direct her to focus on the world around her. What was so interesting to me was how Sloan used these audios. Sometimes, they were just to show how Frankie functions, and other times, they were used to build suspense and heighten the viewers’ senses. Frankie spends a lot of time following people in this film, which can often come off as slow and stagnant to some, but the addition of hearing nothing but the faint buzz of a cassette tape rolling along with Frankie talking softly to herself made each scene that much more creepy and warped.

Another aspect of this film that I must applaud is Sloan and Mastroianni’s ability to mislead the audience until an eventual twist is revealed. I have seen a few psychological thrillers that have all the makings of a great film, yet do not execute the twist or the ending as well as they could have. Gazer did more than just achieve this effect, it mastered it. The twist in this film is delightfully unexpected and is pushed forward by Frankie’s ever increasing number of disturbing dreams and visions. As strange as it sounds, I loved how each moment in this film made me uncomfortable. I genuinely could not predict where the plot was going and how Frankie was going to survive the deadly ordeal she involved herself in. Everything about Gazer turns my typical expectations for this genre, or frankly any genre, on its head.

With Gazer, writer and director Sloan and co-writer Mastroianni showed remarkable expertise, despite being new to the industry. Their ideas felt fresh, and every little detail was intentional, down to the soundtrack. I am extremely impressed that this film was made over the course of two years just on nights and weekends, showing their hard work and grit. They absolutely nailed the drab, mundane, yet frequently changing world of Frankie and her odd New Jersey town. While most can expect any given film to have a sense of finality, Gazer’s ending was anything but satisfying. However, I mean this as high praise. Nothing about Frankie’s past or current life had any clear answers. Neither she nor the audience know what happened before she lost custody of her daughter, and throughout the story, reality and fiction are twisted into one for both parties. It only makes sense for the ending to appear to have loose ends, and I would not have wanted it any other way.

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