‘Haze’ Movie Review [Fantasia 2024]: A Patchy Queer Thriller Echoes The Horrors Of Repression

Photo from Fantasia Film Festival

Shame is a prevalent theme in queer cinema exploring identity as a core theme. Writer/director Matthew Fifer weaves this thread into an investigative thriller for his sophomore feature effort. It’s haunting, ethereal, and seductive in many ways, although it comes up a bit short when it comes to the story’s dramatic stakes.

Joe (Cole Doman) is a young man who returns to his small hometown after completing rehab. He works as a journalist, deciding to write his next piece on the psychiatric center that closed after eight people mysteriously died. Joe strikes up a steamy connection with a handsome local named Luke (Brian J. Smith). Meanwhile, several suspicious deaths begin to occur across town.

The story about a troubled gay man traveling back to where he grew up, only to encounter his greatest familial traumas from the past sounds rather close to Andrew Haigh’s stunning All of Us Strangers. The two films share some similarities, but their differences grow the further you tread down the rabbit hole. 

Haze is all about how the past can haunt the present. Beyond its direct place in the narrative itself, Fifer searches in Joe’s past with his sister, who validated his identity from a young age before her tragic death. Memories of her adolescence are frequently mixed up with his by a peculiar neighbor (David Pittu). Joe holds onto fragments of his sister, as he unapologetically dances and puts on lipstick and nail polish, only to retreat into shame soon after.

The connection Joe strikes with Luke is an important piece of the puzzle, but it’s more sexual than romantic – at least on the surface. They don’t share a whole lot of conversation, but the emotions they share on an unspoken level are tangible. The longer Joe spends in his hometown, the more he falls into the abyss he once escaped. A sudden streak of ominous deaths further complicates his research.

Haze doesn’t go anywhere particularly surprising with its reveals, treading the obvious ground one would expect. However, Fifer’s screenplay is brimming with sincerity that gets little room to breathe in this short 76-minute runtime. There’s an unnecessary voiceover, which occasionally lets us into Joe’s mind that could be eliminated in its entirety. Joe and Luke share the film’s few moments of joy that are too glossed over.

Much of the movie’s authenticity comes from Doman’s leading performance as Joe. He conveyed a remarkably earnest performance in 2023’s Mutt and once again delivered in Haze. Even with limited dialogue, he captures so much pain, loneliness, and desire in a simple glance. He’s one worth keeping an eye on.

Where Haze feels thin in narrative and characterization, it feels rich in atmosphere. Eric Schleicher’s cinematography is fittingly dark and gloomy. Fifer doesn’t shy away from the film’s sexual nature, capturing physically intimate moments between Joe and Luke that range from cold and distant to warm and personal. These sex scenes reflect on Joe’s journey and state of mind, as the story of a closed psychiatric center continues to unravel him.

Joe’s editor notes that his piece needs teeth, something to make people care about the story he wants to tell. The same can be said about the movie itself. Haze is moody and haunting, but it lacks a dramatic impact. Doman’s performance elevates material that is a little too predictable. The world needs more LGBTQ+ filmmakers like Fifer who aren’t afraid to put imperfect queer characters on the screen. This movie just needs more depth.

Rating: 2.5/5

Haze played at Fantasia 2024 on July 27th, 2024.