Falling Stars

by Hope Madden

Co-directors Gabriel Bienczycki and Richard Karpala balance the banal with the uncanny in their desert folk horror, Falling Stars.

Three brothers sit around a fire pit by the garage in some middle of the San Bernadino County desert. Their dad is eager for them to put the damn fire out and get inside. They know why he’s agitated—it’s the first night of harvest, and the falling stars will appear at any moment.

And around these parts, everybody knows those ain’t stars.

That’s what Falling Stars delivers—the creeping, growing sense that people do know. The inhabitants hereabouts may not have much, but the film never makes them out to be ignorant or caricatured. This story is not from a patronizing point of view—look at what these rubes believe. There’s a levelheaded authenticity, a lived-in superstitious normality that pervades the film and gets under the skin.

The film, written by Karpala and expertly lensed by Bienczycki, creates a sense of place with lonesome landscapes, all stars and sky and desert roads leading to nowhere. So, the brothers—Mike, the eldest (Shaun Duke Jr.); Adam, the youngster (Rene Leech); and Sal in the middle (Andrew Gabriel)—know better than to get into the pickup and head out.

But the sun won’t be down for more than an hour, and Mike knows something his brothers don’t. Their buddy Rob (Greg Poppa) not only saw a witch, but he shot one and buried her in a tarp out in the desert. Who wants to see her?

It’s the same kind of innocent yet macabre curiosity that fueled Stand By Me, except Falling Stars replaces nostalgia and melancholy with witchcraft and curses.

The filmmakers keep the tensions heightened, much thanks to the endearingly vulnerable and human performances of their ensemble. Little acts of friendliness balance with little acts of cowardice, logic gives way to magical thinking, but the fear is real.

A b-story involving an am radio host goes nowhere, but a single scene with the boys’ mama (Diane Worman) turns the supernatural thriller into a psychological horror in seconds.

Falling Stars delivers a fresh take on an age-old tale, but it feels like it’s lived out there in the desert waiting forever.