The Facts:
Synopsis: On the verge of a nervous breakdown, Ian disappears from the world and takes a hike in the New Zealand wilderness. His efforts to avoid other hikers are futile, and he can never shake the constant feeling that they are being stalked by someone or something sinister… Far from society, Ian questions his sanity before plunging into a bloody battle for survival.
Stars: Thomas Sainsbury, Hayden J. Weal, Tawanda Manyimo, Kate Simmonds, Noa Campbell
Director: Thomas Sainsbury
Rated: NR
Running Length: 95 minutes
TMMM Score: (7.5/10)
Review: This past summer, I was walking in Hyland, one of the little treasures in my mostly urban Midwest locale. A park preserve largely untouched with plenty of walking paths free from city noise and traffic congestion, this is a calming spot to clear your head or leave the house to stretch your legs. The fresh air fills your lungs, and if you see people, they greet you with a small smile and a gentle nod as they leave you with the same peace you grant them.
On this occasion, I started a little later than I would have liked and got turned around from my usual path. It started getting dark, and suddenly, the trails looked less friendly than they did before, and the runners that came from behind seemed to do so with a bit more, was it aggression, or was it just my mind playing tricks on me? Then there were the branches cracking and various rustlings in the far and, later, near distance, which suggested some early evening denizens had stirred as the light was fading fast. Why did this benign locale now seem so treacherous and scary, and the people I passed feel like they could double back and jump me at any moment? Even the soccer mom on her brisk power walk?
Spoiler alert: I made it safely back to my car around the same time my Apple Watch congratulated me for hitting a new active heart rate, and I vowed in the future to clock the sunset and time my walk appropriately. This memory sprung to mind as the sly new thriller Loop Track unfolded before me. While the hike taken through a New Zealand forest by a troubled man paranoid he is in imminent danger had more twists and turns than my relatively straightforward trek, it made me realize once more how vulnerable we become once we enter an environment we can’t control.
What is going on with Ian (Thomas Sainsbury, Guns Akimbo) that would make him so jittery? He’s arrived in the parking lot of the loop track of the (fictional) Eyers Forest, unable to answer his ringing cell phone and jumping in fright when a park ranger knocks on his window. Ian doesn’t look like your typical hiker, and the beauty of the forest doesn’t seem to attract him. It’s just the ability to go deeper into its heart and away from the enormity of the outside world. Taking pains to avoid contact with anyone he sees on the trail, his tentative steps forward are interrupted by Nicky (Hayden J. Weal, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey), an alpha male who claims to have been following him and wonders if he could join a reluctant Ian on his hike to the next hut where they will bed down for the night.
At the hut, the two men meet up with a couple (Kate Simmonds and The Meg’s Tawanda Manyimo) and notice the bags of another group, but no sign of where they may be. This is not the experience Ian had planned, but he’s easily persuaded to join this threesome on their exploration of the loop track. Ian begins to feel that something is off in the forest as they travel, or is it within the new people he’s met? Occasionally, he thinks he sees a dark figure in the distance watching them, but when he pulls someone aside for them to look, there’s nothing. And what of the other group that never came to pick up those packs? Is Ian’s paranoia part of his reasoning for being there in the first place? Or is it a valid warning they must pay attention to if they want to survive until the trail’s end?
Written and directed by Sainsbury (who, it must be said, does a terrific job in the leading role), Loop Track is a tricky film that I wasn’t sure would be able to make it to its finale without twisting its ankle. Wow, did it ever surprise me, though. I won’t say if Ian’s suspicions about evil lurking in the forest are real or if he should be afraid of the strangers he has just met, only that Sainsbury has taken a page from the suggest-don’t-show films from the ’70s and ’80s to create a highly satisfying, spooky flick. That the solution takes so long to be revealed and doesn’t become frustrating is another positive for Sainsbury’s pacing. By the time we are let in on what’s happening, it’s such a rug pull followed by breathless action that we don’t have time to dissect any logic leaps.
An overall feeling of confidence runs through Sainsbury’s script that doesn’t overshadow its mystery; it likes keeping you off-kilter and playing a guessing game to Ian’s sanity. Is he the problem all along, or is the loop track hiding a more terrifying secret? The performances are level-headed and free from the over-the-top wackiness that could have spoiled the often-serious tone of the film, and the special effects are wisely used sparingly with practicality. These are the kind of suspenseful, calculated-risk movies that I love to uncover because had even one element of Loop Track been out of sync, this brisk and biting walk would have been an interminable slog.
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