Some say the measure of a man is what he can accomplish without help, what he can make out of nothing. If so, director Ti West does pretty well for himself and for his skill at making movies. “Trigger Man,” which West also wrote, filmed and edited, tells the story of three friends on a hunting trip in rural Delaware. Celebrating their last times together before one of the crew gets married, the three drunkenly roam the countryside looking for deer and general mischief. But they aren’t the only ones hunting, and much suspense and blood follow as bullets mysteriously fly from the shadows, and everyone becomes a target.
“Trigger Man” was produced by quasi-famous, but very skilled, multi-hyphenate Larry Fessenden, who has taken a Roger Corman-like approach to bringing about new, talented filmmakers. He designed an offshoot production company, Scareflix, to “exploit hungry new talent and inspire resourceful filmmakers to produce quality work through seat-of-the-pants ingenuity.” This means small budgets for interesting up-and-comers like West, a recent School of Visual Arts graduate, to get their shot at success right away. After the scary-as-hell-’70s-throwback haunter “The Roost,” also produced by Scareflix, West was approached to direct the big budget follow-up to Eli Roth’s career starter “Cabin Fever.” While funding issues stopped work on the sequel early into the process, West turned to producer/friend Fessender with an idea for another (much cheaper) film.
Shot on standard gear from an 18-page draft written in one day, West creates an eerie, earnest feeling with his almost-experimental camera work, realistic gore and accurate tone. There are a lot of moments of emptiness in this film, which leaves room for the director to both convince you that this world is real and assert its strangeness and ability to horrify. Likewise, the movie’s slow buildup offers West the perfect chance to build suspense leading into the film’s climax without having to show any of his cards, allowing him to use his budgetary limits as stylistic centerpieces rather than attempt to make ten grand look like ten million.
West is a heavy hitter, and this is just the beginning. One has to wonder what his work will be like in ten years or so once he has all his chops. That said, “Trigger Man” is not beginner fare but obviously the work of a skilled storyteller comfortable working with the resources available to him.
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