DOUBLE WALKER: The Past Can Haunt You

A new entry into the indie-horror pantheon, Double Walker is a deeply personal film produced, co-written by, and starring Sylvie Mix as a ghost seeking bloody revenge on the men she believes responsible for her death as a child. Co-written and directed by Colin West, the film developed out of discussions between West and Mix regarding the generational effects of domestic violence and abuse on their own families. Mix’s mother, Maika Carter, not only shared her experiences of domestic violence with West and Mix during the development process but also appears in the film as the mother of Mix’s character. In rendering real-life as art by filtering it through the lens of the ghost story, Double Walker does something pretty intriguing, even if not everything about the film entirely makes sense.

Back from Beyond

The opening scenes of Double Walker comprise a series of cryptic, spooky images: a woman (Carter) tries to scrub a bloodstain out of a carpet; a man (Quinn Armstrong) speaks of his dearly departed daughter’s wise eyes at her funeral while the woman looks on dispassionately; the woman knocks over a Christmas tree, angry and unhappy, as she sips from a glass of red wine. How the little girl (Layla Pritt) died is left a mystery until the final third of the film; what we do know, almost immediately, is that no matter how genuinely he appears to be mourning her, her father is in some way responsible for her untimely demise.

According to the girl, in the afterlife (which is depicted with some wonderfully Lynchian imagery) she was greeted by some dark, cloaked figures who presented her with two options: she could either have one more day on earth, alive, or she could exist forever as a ghost, visible only to “believers and sinners.” That the film casts such a wide, vague net in regards to who can or cannot see the ghost — what kind of believers? And aren’t we all sinners? — is one of the first signs that Double Walker does not have much in the way of consistent supernatural mythology; that the girl’s ghost (Mix, who has a natural screen presence despite this only being her second role) is magically 10-15 years older than she was when she died, with a shock of platinum blonde hair, smudged eye makeup, and only a flimsy white t-shirt as clothes, also provides unnecessary confusion, albeit the kind that the audience quickly learns to roll with.

The ghost sets about investigating her own death and getting revenge on all the bad men in her midwestern town (the film was shot in Mix and West’s hometown of Columbus, Ohio) that she believes are responsible, including her father; she saw them, through the banister, during a secret party her father held in her mother’s absence that seems to have involved a sex worker who may or may not have been underage. Double Walker does an excellent job at portraying those scenes from a child’s distant, not-quite-comprehending point of view; the rumble of voices and the snatches of conversation only hint at what darkness may have been in store for the evening. Whatever it may have been, the ghost knows they were up to no good.

Into Darkness

The death scenes in Double Walker are generally well-crafted, chock full of suspense coupled with creepiness as the men try to seduce the ghost (they can see her because they’re sinners, one imagines, though again, aren’t we all?) only to end up stabbed to death with a spoon. In the film’s most deliciously disturbing moment, an unsuspecting victim is driving his car through a car wash, only for the ghost’s white hood to appear hovering behind him in the back seat; when the car emerges from the suds and spray, the man’s throat is covered in blood. In another compelling scene, the girl enters the home of one would-be victim only to be seen by his young son, who invites her to join his family for dinner; the parents cannot see her, which makes their discussion of her most recent victim right in front of her all the eerier. (But, if the other men can see her, why can’t this one? One is left with so many questions and so few answers.)

Along the way, the ghost encounters a friendly movie theater manager named Jack (Jacob Rice), who offers her clothes and a place to sleep without expecting anything off-putting in return. Through Jack, the ghost gets a tantalizing taste of the normal life that she’ll never get to enjoy herself: drunken house parties, varsity sports competitions, and most importantly, the notion that one’s father can be kind and loving, instead of a volatile, violent creature one must tiptoe around to avoid setting off. But these moments are not enough to deter her from her mission of vengeance and justice.

The most powerful moments in Double Walker—apart from the murders, of course—are the ones in which the ghost sits on the couch with her drunk, depressed mother and they voice their thoughts and feelings about the events that led up to the girl’s death. Their unbreakable bond, even after death, is the heart and soul of the film, with Mix and Carter both giving painfully raw performances in their scenes together. Clearly, mother and daughter are working out a great deal of residual trauma together on screen, to the point that one almost feels like a voyeur while watching them. But without these scenes, which ground the film in an emotional reality that keeps it from floating off into its own confusingly constructed ether, Double Walker would be far less impactful.

Conclusion

Between its seemingly inconsistent mythology and a confusing timeline with more than a few jumps back and forth, Double Walker forces the audience to work a little harder than necessary to appreciate its strengths. Still, the film’s many compelling images and performances make the struggle worthwhile.

What do you think? Are you a fan of low-budget horror? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Double Walker is released in theaters and on demand in the U.S. on November 12, 2021.

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