A man becomes paranoid that the world is being taken over by body-snatching monsters in They Look Like People. Wyatt (MacLeod Andrews) has recently returned to New York City and is crashing at the house of his friend Christian (Evan Dumouchel), As Christian builds up the courage to date his co-worker Mara (Margaret Ying Drake), Wyatt is preparing for something else. Receiving cryptic calls in the middle of the night, he is warned that “they” are everywhere and that he must prepare for war. Is Wyatt going crazy or is there truly an apocalyptic take-over on its way?
They Look Like People is the debut feature film by director Perry Blackshear and is a very intimate horror film, which deals with the growing paranoia of Wyatt. He has become convinced that these body-snatching creatures exist and spends a lot of his time in Christian’s basement building weapons for the upcoming battle. The easiest assumption here is that Wyatt is suffering from schizophrenia, which is responsible for his monstrous visions and phone calls at night. However, what if the things Wyatt is seeing and hearing is true?
They Look Like People is quite well-constructed thriller, which ends up doing a lot by showing very little. There is a bit of a mumblecore vibe to the plot of the film, which really only centres of the three central characters of Wyatt, Christian, and Mara. The film makes an excellent use of sound to represent the creatures that Wyatt is apparently seeing, with the film actually getting quite tense towards the end. My only real gripe is that the film goes on maybe a minute or so longer than I would have preferred. Other than that, They Look Like People is a very well done minimalist horror film.
★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2 | REALLY LIKED IT