Gale

Directed by Daniel Alexander

2023

"Stay away from Oz”.

West Midlands filmmaker Daniel Alexander broadens his proof-of-concept trailer Gale with an expanded short that again journeys down a (yellow brick) road of horror.

Emily (a riveting performance from Chloë Culligan Crump) is a young woman who is troubled by her past and longs for answers to her mysterious family history.

As we are introduced to her swaying in a rocking chair, we get glimpses of a ruby red jewellery box that haunts a room with its jingling music. Yet as a wheelchair moves on its own, an ominous voice calls for “Dorothy” whilst a clanging sound increases in volume.

But before processing what’s going on, a jump scare brings us back to reality as we discover Emily is deep in therapy and the ‘Tik-Tok’ noise is a metronome. Here, a psychiatrist (an excellently creepy Laura Bailey) is attempting to unlock the meaning of the horrific dreams Emily is experiencing.

Gale sets up its world well, giving enough information through a tight script and visual clues, to cryptic characters and their backgrounds. But it also leaves a lot of aspects unexplained creating a nice atmosphere of dread.

Some well used stock footage (despite its Birmingham origins) transports us to the USA – mostly – and the British actors do well with their accents. And the use of the journals, gramophones and even log burners help link the present and past, cementing a theme that runs throughout.

After uncovering a journal full of scary scribbles, Emily finds a telephone number and heads to a large residence where a woman (a mysterious Clara Emanuel) attempts to establish who Emily is and the meaning behind her visit. This drip-feed of information throughout means the director does extremely well to create a tone where each character appears to have much more going on under the surface.

Here, we finally come across an elderly Dorothy Gale (an intense Karen Swan) and discover she was an author whose fantastical imagination helped her create successful fiction novels. More recently though, she has been writing reams of bizarre words. Yet before Emily can fully converse, Dorothy awakens from her tranquil demeanour with an outburst of unhinged heel-clicking and trance-like chanting.

As characters flicker onto screen and materialise at different points, the film constantly asks the viewer to question what is real – with certain items in Emily’s dreams also appearing in the real world. But although this enigmatic tone keeps you guessing I did think Gale perhaps suffered from one too many “wake-up-in-fact-we-are-dreaming” jump scares.

Despite that, the film brilliantly incorporates Wizard of Oz iconography. Props and dialogue hint upon the famous tale and we also have a terrier dog (Toto) photo and the legendary slippers. Yet the director and screenwriter Matthew R Ford steer away from 1939 film by making these silver, as they are in L. Frank Baum's original novel.

Also, the appearance of a Wheeler - people with wheels instead of hands and feet – plus hints to electro-shock therapy captured in flashes of light, align more with the 1985 sequel movie Return to Oz.

As the horror rises, the film begins to pull its strands together as another hypnosis session sees Emily experience further shocking images as an intense finale builds. And amongst an emerald-green outdoor landscape, the film finally gives a glimpse behind the curtain to explain its many mysteries but also leaves on a cliffhanger promising adventures ahead.

From top-notch cinematography capturing fairy tale reds and greens, to the frenetic editing, tick-tock sound mixing and plenty of chills, Gale is a wickedly entertaining film from the outset. The literary themes combine with genre scares to create a new take on previously established lore.

And with the films and novels providing hundreds of interpretations over the years, it’s very much to the filmmaker’s credit that they’ve had the courage and the heart to deliver something truly unique with plenty to recommend across the board.

★★★★★

5/5

Michael Sales