A Desert

by Adam Barney

The desert is a scary place and for good reason – it’s easy to get lost, there are poisonous reptiles underfoot, the conditions will kill you, and you might even run into the most dangerous thing – strangers who choose to live out there.

Alex (Kai Lennox, Green Room) is a landscape photographer traveling around the American Southwest trying to recapture a spark from his early career. He likes to shoot abandoned buildings, but he has a burgeoning attraction to shooting portraits of the desert’s denizens.

He takes an interest in Renny (Zachary Sherman) and Susie Q (Ashley Smith), a drifter couple staying next door at his cheap motel. After too many drinks, they promise to be his tour guides and show him some hidden sights in the desert, places that no photographer has ever seen. Bad decisions are made.

After his daily check-ins stop, Alex’s wife Samantha (Sarah Lind, A Wounded Fawn) hires a P.I. (David Yow, Dinner in America, Under the Silver Lake) to go looking for her husband and retrace his steps. What follows is a sun-drenched, neo-noir mystery that may be a little thin on narrative but delivers on atmosphere and vibe.

The film sprinkles in some supernatural elements on the fringes like a creepy old movie theater and an abandoned scientific facility. Is there something more going on here or is that just the desert playing tricks on your mind? Don’t expect it to be Lost Highway or Southbound, but these otherworldly touches add a welcome surreal layer.

Director Joshua Erkman and co-writer Bossi Baker clearly have an affection for noir. They enhance the basic “man gone missing” mystery through their setting, which creates a pervasive and nightmarish sense of dread.

If you enjoy a good slow burn mystery, A Desert is a trip worth taking.