Peekaboo

A writer is having trouble coming to terms with the choices he made to ensure his success.

 

Rex (Hampton) is a very successful writer with four best-selling books under his belt and a giant wodge of cash to go along with them. Sadly though, he has let his success be the main driver in his life and he now finds himself somewhere in his mid-fifties, stuck behind a desk and a laptop most hours of the day, without a partner or family around him to share the wealth.

 

Now, Rex is finding that the edges of reality are beginning to blur, and from somewhere deep inside his characters have started to talk to him, telling him what to do. Rex can’t seem to pull himself away from his writing or his characters, no matter the time of day or night, and he’s beginning to get a little bit worried that he might be going mad.

 

It doesn’t help that one night, while he’s out taking a walk to get away from the intense pressure of the blank computer screen, Rex witnesses a beautiful light show in the sky which turns out to be none other than a UFO. Once caught in the beam of light coming from the flying saucer above him, Rex then begins to see a dark ominous creature across the road, behind a tree, with big dangerous red eyes that are looking straight at him, right into his soul.

 

Obviously, anyone that Rex tries to talk to about this doesn’t believe him, and he’s left alone again with his own thoughts and feelings about himself, but also with a new companion haunting his every step. Rex knows that he’s falling deeper and deeper into a dangerous situation, but what can he do to get himself out of it?

 

Sadly, none of these things that are going on in Rex’s life seem to be directly linked to one another, and there are a lot of things about Rex’s relationship to himself, his characters, and in particular, Vincent, which are never accurately relayed to the viewer. Instead, what we are party to are a bunch of fast cuts to different time-frames, a lot of Rex talking to himself in front of the computer and in mirrors and such, and some jarring sound-effects to express that something dark is happening. None of this is well-presented and none of it makes sense in relaying what on earth writer, director and star, Per Hampton actually seems to think is going on.

 

Thankfully, the cinematography from Jon Schweigart is of a high quality, allowing the film to breathe and settle into its narrative without the viewer having to worry about the visuals, and the expression of ‘the Being’ which eventually latches onto Rex is really, genuinely creepy. However, in terms of positives for Peekaboo, that’s about it. The story is garbled and confused, the acting from Hamilton himself (basically the only character on screen) is pretty hammy, and the direction and writing needed to create a split-character narrative just isn’t there.

 

At only ten-minutes long, there’s not a lot to get into in Peekaboo, and so it’s not so bad that the film is actually missing a lot of things needed for its narrative. As a creepy visual horror, it does its job well enough, but in terms of linking that with the story and the character we see on screen, nothing really seems to fit. Whether Hamilton wanted to make a psychological thriller or an out-and-out creature feature is unclear, but unfortunately the confusion between the two, as well as between the character and his own narrative, means that he doesn’t succeed at either.