The camera moves slowly across the floor and over to a bed, settling on a sleeping figure who abruptly thrashes awake, gasping. It’s an old man, and this is the beginning of Old Man, not to be confused with the TV show The Old Man, which is likely enjoyed by old men. But this old man, he’s played by one Stephen Lang, an actor who, either by choice or typecasting (why not both?), has really found the focus of his range in portraying menacing psychopaths. As seen (and to be seen, it seems, in an indeterminate number of sequels) as Miles Quaritch, the main antagonist in James Cameron’s Avatar, and more recently, as The Blind Man in Don’t Breathe and its (one, so far) sequel, Lang is quite good at conveying characters of intimidating derangement. No surprise then to learn that this old man is not all there.
Sporting the archetypal shorthand for hillbilly, a red union suit, the old man putters around his overly set-decorated cabin in the woods, muttering about his lost dog and other vague ruminations before a knock on the door heralds the arrival of Joe (Senter), a hiker who has somehow lost his way in the forest of the Smoky Mountains. After some trust negotiations, the shotgun is momentarily put aside, and an uneasy alliance is formed with a spit handshake. There’s a storm coming, so Joe’d best spend the night and head out in the morning, for no one knows these woods like the old man, and that’s a fact. The duo grab some firewood and settle in for a cozy, oil-lamped night of finishing a jigsaw puzzle that’s been particularly vexing the old man. Just kidding. Rather, the two men uneasily share their stories over brackish coffee and moonshine as repressed secrets and past crimes are uncovered in an atmosphere of escalating intensity. This jigsaw puzzle is in their minds.
Veteran horror director Lucky McKee, perhaps best known for his 2002 feature debut, Frankenstein riff May, knows how to sustain an apprehensive mood in this two-hander, assisted by both actors, who are engaging despite an extremely perfunctory script by Joel Veach. Lang is of course in his element here, but Senter holds his own, and my initial annoyance with his character dissipated as he won me over. But the same can’t be said for the film itself, an uninspired, mechanical tale, derivative of a first draft Twilight Zone episode or the chorus of that one Neil Young song whose name escapes me.
This article appears in The Drinks Issue (2022).