It’s slightly against popular opinion, but I am way more of a urban legend girlie than a true crime documentary girlie. I’ve spent hours listening to stories about Mothman, The Jersey Devil, Sasquatch, and the countless tales of peculiar happenings in the Appalachians. Do I care if they’re true or not? No, I just think it’s facilitating that someone from may have saw “something” that can’t be fully explain. And when a movie is centered around an urban legend? That will almost immediately get my attention, even if it’s not even based on a real one.
Such is the case for Sunrise the latest offering by the horror powerhouse studio LionsGate Films, and directed by Andrew Baird. The film centers around a rural town in the Pacific Northwest that is known to have a blood sucking demon known as Red Coat haunting their woods for centuries. When a family of Chinese immigrants must defend their lives from Reynolds (Guy Pierce), a merciless demagogue, a mysterious stranger shows up to their door. Fallon (Alex Pettyfer), the stranger in question begins to protect the family from Reynolds and his goons, but demands offerings of fresh blood in exchange, leading their son Nathan (William Gao) to suspect he may be dealing with the legendary demon.
Besides the plot, which I was very enthusiastic about when I read the summary, Sunrise has quite a lot of things greatly in its favor. It’s blessed with an extremely talented cast, especially Guy Pierce who’s portrayal of Reynolds is downright bone chilling, as this is a villain who’s drive is based in his own fear — and that’s always terrifying! As far as Alex Pettyfer goes, I’ve always been a fan, but his acting has definitely grown in maturity over the years (along with his jawline.) I also want to give a shout out to William Gao, as this is the first work I’ve seen from him and I think he has a great career ahead.
Something else this film has an abundance of is gorgeous cinematography. Whether or not it was filmed in the Pacific Northwest area (and it certainly looks like it was), director Andrew Baird masterfully used the scenery to his advantage for the film. I’ll go as far to say even in shots without any of the pretty scenery, everything was masterfully framed and impactful.
Unfortunately, despite the very strong elements this film possesses, when all of them come together, Sunrise just doesn’t hit the mark it should. I’m going to surmise that the majority of its problems lie in the editing. The story really wasn’t that terribly complicated, and yet the way the film was edited, it felt artificially difficult to understand. Like it was trying to be so much more convoluted than it needed to be.
A small trend I don’t particularly love I’ve seen over the years, is when flashbacks are randomly integrated throughout the film and give absolutely zero indication if they’re past or present. Look, I get it. I love that you trust your audience to be intelligent. I also love when said confusing flashbacks lead to a well laid out twist in the story. But in many cases, such as this film, it doesn’t lead to any sort of twist, and confusing editing isn’t challenging the audience’s intelligence, but rather annoying it.
Besides the issues with the flashbacks, the transition between scenes felt downright disjointed. It’s hard to explain, but the scenes just didn’t flow into each other in a way that was satisfying to the story. There was also many occurrences of what I’m starting to call “Greek Chorus” syndrome in films. This is when a lot of what would be the interesting action happens offscreen, and the characters on screen later explain to each other what happened. We the audience just have to take their word for it. While I usually don’t love this in any genre, it’s especially egregious in what should be a horror film. I appreciate the idea of building tension and teasing something scary happening just off screen, but there comes a point that we have to see something.
Overall, Sunrise teased many things I would love, but only left me grasping for more of everything it lacked. I wanted more backstory with Fallon then just the confusing flashbacks. I wanted even more dynamic between Reynolds and his mother’s relationship. And I especially wanted more details, or just screen time of the blood sucking demon of local legend. I would go so far as to say, if an extended and re edited version of this film came out, I would gladly watch it, because there is definitely a good movie in here. But I it’s current form, Sunrise is rather dim.
