If you ever get the chance, look up the story of Centralia. It's a small town in Pennsylvania that has been all but abandoned after a series of awful decisions led to what some would call an outright environmental disaster. Basically, the town sits on an underground mine fire, one that's potentially going to keep burning for the next two-hundred years.
Basement walls were hot to the touch, the ground began to crack, a sinkhole opened and tried to eat a kid, and as a result the state bought the whole town and told everbody to f--k off.
Not all of them did.
Apparently, a handful of people, not concerned about their health (or the fact that the town has been taken off maps), still live there today.
Sounds like a great setting for a scary movie, right? About that...
As the only feature in Block E at the Harrisburg-Hershey Film Festival last month, Lotus Eyes certainly had my attention. Set in a future ten years after peak oil (and filmed in and around Centralia), director Joshua Land's film feels appropriately desolate and unstable. But, unfortunately, it also feels aimless and decidedly low-stakes.
Simon is a typical teenage boy, awkward around girls and uncertain about his future. When his mom's struggling business is robbed...again, Simon decides it's time to leave his shitty, dilapidated town and head south to uncle's idyllic commune. Despite the world being in a steady state of upheaval, his uncle's farm promises plenty of work, and even more enticing, plenty of food.
After a spectacularly awful attempt at getting the local hot chick to come with him, Simon loads up his backpack and begins the journey on foot. Lucky for him (and us, as watching this dude walk around alone for eighty minutes would have had me begging for the end of the world), he quickly runs into two twenty-somethings having a bit of car trouble on their way to wherever. Though Simon can't get a girl, he's a master at revving actual engines, and the three head out to a local campsite for the evening before parting ways in the morning.
Sounds cozy, right?
Basement walls were hot to the touch, the ground began to crack, a sinkhole opened and tried to eat a kid, and as a result the state bought the whole town and told everbody to f--k off.
Not all of them did.
Apparently, a handful of people, not concerned about their health (or the fact that the town has been taken off maps), still live there today.
Sounds like a great setting for a scary movie, right? About that...
Simon is a typical teenage boy, awkward around girls and uncertain about his future. When his mom's struggling business is robbed...again, Simon decides it's time to leave his shitty, dilapidated town and head south to uncle's idyllic commune. Despite the world being in a steady state of upheaval, his uncle's farm promises plenty of work, and even more enticing, plenty of food.
After a spectacularly awful attempt at getting the local hot chick to come with him, Simon loads up his backpack and begins the journey on foot. Lucky for him (and us, as watching this dude walk around alone for eighty minutes would have had me begging for the end of the world), he quickly runs into two twenty-somethings having a bit of car trouble on their way to wherever. Though Simon can't get a girl, he's a master at revving actual engines, and the three head out to a local campsite for the evening before parting ways in the morning.
Sounds cozy, right?
