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Plopping some characters in the desert is par for the indie filmmaking course. It makes sense. The desert is vast and unpredictable. The desert is like the deepest depths of the ocean—we think we know what’s down there, but can we really be too sure? Last year, indies Horror in the High Desert 2: Minerva and The Seeding explored opposite ends of what might be lurking in a desolate wasteland, and both were some of the strongest genre offerings of the year. Zeshaan Younus’ The Buildout doesn’t quite reach those heights, but for the length of its run, it’s all too easy to get lost in its spell.
Dylan (Hannah Alline) and Cameron (Jenna Kanell of Terrifier fame) are trekking through the desert. Marred by grief, Dylan has acquiesced to the calling of what amounts to a cult. They’re always setting up shop in the desert, aren’t they? The Buildout eschews the body horror of desert-set The Outwaters, though it maintains its cosmic, otherworldly strangeness.
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Overt horror offerings are stylistically imbued, such as a regular shift between Steadicam shots and found-footage POVs. The horror here is peripheral. Younus is considerably more interested in what drives his two leads, the distinct tether between female friends and the kaleidoscopic unraveling of long-gestating grief in an unforgiving landscape.
It’s both playful and tender, tragic and hopeful, an interrogation of the loss of personal power—our own cosmic agency—and the quest to reclaim it however possible. Forays to base camp augur something sinister as clerics go missing amid survey rotations. Hallucinogenic specters appear off in the distance, intruding upon the visual language with possible paranormal urgency.
The Buildout is a surreal road trip that prioritizes character over conventional scares, and it’s all the stronger for it. Mileage, like the dirt bikes at its core, will likely vary. The desert yields all kinds of horrors, and the ones Younus has in store here might not be what you expect. Yet, amid the pulsating synths is something special, an earnest horizon of divination and suffering, of finding yourself when all else is lost. The Buildout is existential with an omnipresent power. Younus is talented enough to make a believer out of you yet.
Summary
The Buildout is cosmic horror that lands among the stars.
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