‘Jethica’ Review: An Ingenious, Deadpan Horror-Satire That Asks “Can You Ghost a Ghost?”
variety.comJessica Kiang There is an endearingly throwback vibe to Pete Ohs’ “Jethica,” a deadpan supernatural dramedy that lasts less than 70 minutes, but feels animated by a host of ghosts, not just of individual movies, but of entire filmmaking movements past.
In particular, the restrictions of shooting in a pandemic seem to have liberated some of the gonzo spirit of an early-90s microbudget indie, the kind that happened when a gang of friends, armed with little more than enthusiasm and weapons-grade cinephilia, maxed out their credit cards on a couple of weeks in the desert and came back with sunburn on their noses and an inspired riff on a genre or six in the can.But if the mix of dead-serious themes and playful, why-the-hell-not approach gives off a youthful, almost film-studenty energy, the actual craft is well above amateur-level.
Ohs wears well the hats of director, editor and co-writer (alongside the entire cast of four who also get script credit), but especially as cinematographer, he does a sterling job of maximizing a doubtless threadbare budget.
Not only does the photography make good use of the free, enormous New Mexico skies that hover over the central location — a trailer in the middle of an arid, windy nowhere — but the handheld camera finds unusual compositions and delivers ingenious genre homages (an “Evil Dead”-style low-to-the-ground tracking shot gets a workout early on) that make a sparse, brief movie feel rich with mischief and film lore.
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