Nerdly » HorRHIFFic 2024: ‘He Never Left’ Review

29th Feb2024

HorRHIFFic 2024: ‘He Never Left’ Review

by Phil Wheat

Stars: Colin Cunningham, Jessica Staples, James Morris, Sean D. Hunter, David E. McMahon, Charla Bocchicchio, William McAllister, Jake Watters, Hailey Nebeker | Written by James Morris, Michael Ballif | Directed by James Morris

He Never Left opens with text that sets up the film’s mythology – a killer, known to locals as “Pale Face,” went on a rampage for a decade in Larsen City. But in 1997 the murders stopped, no one knows why and the townsfolk still live in fear of that name…

After an intro that shows us a young woman, Charlotte (Hailey Nebeker), getting slaughtered in a motel room, a la Psycho, by a knife-wielding, mask-wearing psycho we cut to the present day, as Carly (Jessica Staples) nervously checks into a motel. She should be nervous, for in the boot of her car is her boyfriend Gabe (Colin Cunningham), who is on the run from two US Marshals, Tim, played by writer/director James Morris and Mike (Sean D. Hunter), after killing a teenage manager during an interview. All Gabe has to do is lay low in the motel room and wait for his friend Andre (Jake Watters) to come and pick him up.

Easier said than done.

You see Gabe is not the psychopathic killer that the Marshals think he is. He’s a killer with a conscience, a conscience that is seemingly driving him insane inside the four walls of the motel room he is stashed in. He starts to see his victim, who he feels is taunting him from beyond the grave – perhaps the spectral visions represent the guilt and the regret of Gabe? Whatever it is, seeing his victim is only the tip of the iceberg for Gabe. Late at night he hears a commotion in the room next door – what sounds like a struggle and then a woman screaming. All of which piles on Gabe’s paranoia.

But guess what? Gabe’s paranoia may have some grounding in reality. For this motel is the site of the “Pale Face” killer’s murders and, as the title of the film states, He Never Left…

What starts out as something akin to Psycho – not just due to the setting but also the circumstances of our characters: people on the run from the law after committing a crime, unaware that where they are is probably more dangerous than where they’ve been – turns into a stalk and slash-like horror by way of The Town That Dreaded Sundown, which too had a killer “return” from the dead after a break in their killing spree. But He Never Left plays up the psychological aspect of the story much more than any of those films.

The focus here however is on Gabe rather than the killer, and with good reason. Colin Cunningham (Stargate: Continuum, Falling Skies) delivers a tour-de-force performance as the criminal with a conscience, with the entire film built around his character and the small-scale location in which he’s trapped. Cunningham is a BRILLIANT choice for the role, successfully managing to both be the “bad guy” and have the vulnerability to – as the film goes on – become something of an anti-hero. His conscience eventually driving him to do the right thing – even more so when the actions at the motel affect him personally.

What’s remarkable about He Never Left is how writer/director James Morris makes his film about not only the lasting trauma of Pale Face on Larsen City and its residents, and the effects of that trauma on the generations that follow (as it’s revealed Carly is the DAUGHTER of one of Paul Face’s victims) but also parent’s actions affecting their children, something which becomes VERY apparent during the film’s closing credits – easily the most terrifying portion of this film!

Filmed in the kind of Autumnal hues that marked out John Carpenter’s Halloween, He Never Left couldn’t be further from the traditional stalk-and-slash tropes that the film’s poster would suggest. Instead, this is a thought-provoking film that plays more on the psychology of “evil” rather than its outcomes. All driven by one of the best genre performances of the past six months from Colin Cunningham.