Herman

Writer-director Andrew Vogel’s Herman is a bleak, introspective psychological thriller that is less interested in shocks than in moral reckoning. This is a character study of an older man confronting the consequences of his own actions, staged as a slow-burning nightmare that looks and reads like a stage play. This is not a bad thing; however, it seems to be a moralistic fallback position that guilt equals madness that is rapidly becoming a genre trope. While the film does not fully sustain its momentum through to the end, it remains an effective horror film, driven by good performances and an oppressive atmosphere.

Herman (Colin Ward), who looks like an older, bearded Alain Delon, is a solitary mountain recluse who has withdrawn from the world to live alone in a remote cabin. From the outset, the mood is one of profound isolation, even though the cabin is situated near a Monastery. Herman’s routines are spare, his surroundings austere if not immaculate, as the cabin is not rundown, and his internal life is weighed down by regret, as he’s a victim of life’s events. It becomes clear early on that he is contemplating ending his life, not out of melodrama, but as a quiet surrender to accumulated guilt. This emotional groundwork is crucial, as Herman is far more concerned with psychological deterioration than conventional genre mechanics.

“On a stormy night, Herman’s isolation is interrupted by a series of visitors seeking shelter.”

For that matter, even attempting a cure or coping and adapting to what life tosses at us from time to time. Herman becomes practical and efficient in the way he somewhat brutally kills a rabbit in a trap and then skins it after lifting his trophy to a member of the monastery. The primitive human, ignoring that he already has food in a well-stocked cabin. On a stormy night, Herman’s isolation is interrupted by a series of visitors seeking shelter. These arrivals are timed almost to the point of being a Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol in nature, as each illuminates something in Herman. The two sisters arrive first. Sister Mary (Suzann Toni Petrongolo) and the blind Sister Josephine (Soni Theresa Montgomery) bring an uneasy spiritual presence into the cabin. Sister Josephine possesses an uncanny perceptiveness that allows her to sense the “darkness” clinging to Herman, while Sister Mary offers compassion and insists on the possibility of forgiveness, who compel a broken man to examine the life he has led and the harm he has done.

Other visitors soon follow, including a stranded hiker, James (Alex James), whose casual intrusion irritates Herman, and later a mysterious, injured stranger (Vogel). These encounters steadily push Herman toward confrontation with his past, more specifically, his relationship with his wife, Alice (Lawson Greyson), whose death looms over the narrative. Alice’s appearances, often spectral in mirrors and in rooms, are among the most effective genre elements, even if the “restless ghost” is a trope.

Herman tries with long stretches of stillness, with abrupt, jarring imagery and shifts in sound design, reinforcing the sense that something is always present, just beyond comprehension. Odd acting moments, particularly with Ward, in which he shows three emotion shifts by turning his head, except the movement and change are telegraphed. The heart of the narrative is Herman himself, and Ward carries the film almost entirely, minus the moments just discussed. The actor resists the temptation to overplay Herman’s anguish in the beginning and does not lapse into the cliché of booze, which is good. He instead allows grief and self-loathing to surface through gestures. Petrongolo provides a counterpoint, embodying empathy without sentimentality.  She almost crosses the line into lust while drinking near a fire.