THE STORY – When the in-home caregiver assigned to an elderly patient mysteriously vanishes, Dale is quickly sent as the replacement nurse. She rushes to the remote seaside
home, only to find herself in the middle of chaos—forced to deal with an unruly patient,
mysterious neighbors, and terrifying supernatural occurrences that seem to plague the home. Is the house haunted? Or is something even more malevolent to blame? As the walls close in, unsure whom she can trust, Dale fears for her life and that of her patient.
THE CAST – Veronica Cartwright, Michael Steger & Madelyn Dundon
THE TEAM – Steven Mena (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 105 Minutes
Getting older is no picnic. I should know, I’m in my mid-30s. The fear of aging has been used (and exploited) in plenty of great horror movies, from “Rosemary’s Baby” to “The Taking of Deborah Logan.” “The Ruse” is the latest film to center around a creepy older lady, although unlike the more effective movies of its kind, it struggles to make up its mind about exactly what type of movie it is. Is it a haunted house story? Is it a modern-day hagsploitation picture? Perhaps it’s a thriller about a neighborhood with an unsettling secret? The film spends so much time tying itself up in knots with potential storylines and dramatic tangents that by the time it reaches its dizzying conclusion, it offers up only a frustratingly long yet dull explanation, making all that came before it feel pretty pointless.
But before it begins unraveling, the film takes its time laying out its details. Our heroine, Dale (Madelyn Dundon), is an at-home caregiver who, after a patient recently died on her watch, has been on probation by her agency. When the nurse of an older woman named Olivia (Veronica Cartwright) mysteriously disappears, her desperate boss decides to let Dale prove herself by taking on the position. Olivia lives in a remote seaside home surrounded by mementos of her past, including keepsakes from her long career as a composer and conductor along with her deceased husband Albert’s belongings. She goes in and out of lucidity, at times giving Dale useful advice about aging and, at other times, confusing who Dale even is. Thankfully, the neighbor Tom (Michael Steger) takes a liking to Dale and helps her out as needed. But Dale starts to suspect that something might be off with Olivia, and that she may have had something to do with the unexplained disappearance of her previous caretaker.
Cartwright is obviously the film’s main draw. She’s made a career of playing highly strung characters (“Alien,” “The Witches of Eastwick”) and portraying them with a go-for-broke energy that can be effectively unnerving. She’s no different here, showing an agile ability to switch quickly between Olivia’s modes of recognition and consciousness. In one scene, a precious possession that reminds her of her dead husband is broken, and Cartwright’s reaction is genuinely upsetting. Unfortunately, her scene partner doesn’t match her energy. Dundon has trouble modulating her emotional responses to properly deliver what the situations her character finds herself in call for. Her line readings, even in dramatically heightened situations, often come across as flat. This could also be blamed on the limp direction from writer-director Stevan Mena; besides Cartwright, nearly every element of the film and performance feels low energy. In fact, his most inspired choice is the film’s opening shot – an impressive, long drone shot over a vast body of water. On the other hand, his dialogue has moments that accidentally conjure up laughs, such as when one character, when telling Dale why she should be wary of Tom, suddenly blurts out, “You know he killed his wife, right?” Mena is also listed as a producer, along with bearing the responsibility of editing the film and composing its score. His music is pretty and generally well-assembled, although its placement throughout the film is heavy-handed (which actually fits the tone of the screenplay).
The first scene attempts to do something close to the original “Halloween,” with the camera taking on the menacing perspective of an unseen person. But it’s far less effective than that horror classic, or even most films that copy its opening. This is mostly due to the sequence’s undercooked ending, which is indicative of the disappointment to come. The character of Dale gets herself wound up in all the possibilities of what could actually be going on with Olivia, her house, and the characters around her and – given that the audience is only privy to what she sees and hears herself – this has the effect of making the film feel scattered in both its general intention and its approach to telling its own story. It’s as if the screenwriter was afraid of leaving any possible explanation or conclusion out of the script and just threw everything in it.
“The Ruse” is the kind of mystery-thriller that becomes less interesting and thrilling with each passing minute and with every answer given. When all is finally revealed, it’s so convoluted and overly-explained that it’s borderline comical. The film wants to be a lot of things, but a comedy is certainly not one of them.
