Not since Young Adult have I seen so much of my own personality and life experience appear onscreen for comedic and (arguably) terrifying effect. Meet Raymond. Raymond used to be able to see ghosts. Now all he sees is his future drifting away from him as six months of unemployment post-MBA results in a move back in with his parents. Oh, and the ghosts suddenly show back up and start attacking people.
So what do I see of myself in Raymond? Aside from the wacky fashion, self-deprecation, and sarcasm so thick you can never tell what he's actually thinking, a big part of Raymond's story and development as a character is his childhood. He was very overweight. He was treated poorly by everyone because of it. He went to college, stopped eating as a way to bury his emotions, and turned into the trim, bitter adult you see before you. So, you know, that all happened to me, too. I rebounded, unfortunately, but even that element of returning home and slipping back into terrible habits as a coping mechanism is real.
What I'm getting at is, for a film more akin to Beetlejuice than The Sixth Sense in its treatment of the paranormal, writer/director Richard Bates Jr. and screenwriter Mark Bruner put a lot of work in to create a believable universe. These characters, however exaggerated for comedic effect, feel real. The struggle of getting an advanced degree and still facing unemployment and condemnation from the generation that demanded college from its children is real. The people who never leave the town and never grow out of their horrible gossipy teenage behavior are real. If all of that feels so real, why wouldn't you go along with a deadly haunting in the house?
Matthew Gray Gubler and Kat Dennings star as Raymond and his new/old friend Becca. They're similarly disaffected young adults who hate the ultra-conservative patriarchal standards of their small town yet struggle to find the strength to stand up when they're struggling to survive at all under those rules. Gubler and Dennings' add layers of sorrow, rage, resentment, and disappointment to every scene in Suburban Gothic in unexpected ways.
The conflict between allies Raymond and Becca and the old guard, represented by parents and the former classmates, is a fascinating hinge pin for a haunted house film. This is a classic film scenario that normally doesn't get to spar with ghosts. Beetlejuice is as close to a parallel as I can think of, and even then poor little Lydia gets supportive, sane parental figures with the recently departed Metlands.
This generational conflict is one of the understated but essential elements of a good haunted house film. There cannot be a haunting with a death, and that death is usually from many years ago. Decades, if not centuries, is the standard. The characters fighting the paranormal force struggle to communicate at all with something so old and otherworldly. They were human, yes, but they also might not have ever seen a time in their lives where young men and women could walk alone without an escort to insure fidelity.
Suburban Gothic extracts that to the immediate, sitcom-like comedy of grown children struggling to communicate with their parents. Not only can Raymond not make an authentic connection with his father or get his mother to admit that he's an adult and not a young boy, Raymond can't even begin to understand the language of the ghosts reaching out to him. He sees visual metaphors in his dreams and disturbing acts of gore in his waking hours. Seemingly no one else can see whatever is happening until they are about to be marked by the spirits. We're left with a young adult trying to convince his parents he is a capable human being when, to them, it sounds like he's making up imaginary friends or only capable of processing bad dreams like a four year old. A child waking up the house because of monsters in the closet is expected; an adult doing the same might need psychiatric intervention.
Suburban Gothic is a dark comedy/horror film in the same vein as John Dies at the End by David Wong. The haunting is essential to the story, but interest comes from the fully realized characters reacting in believable ways to the paranormal. It's fun, funny, and scary at all once.
Suburban Gothic is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.
