Director/writer Paul Bickel brings psychological horror to life in Our Happy Place. Raya (Raya Miles) lives in a remote location while caring for her incapacitated husband, Paul (Bickel). The weight of isolation bears down on her. Her only contact is Amie (Tracy Thoms), on internet calls. After Raya begins having nightmares, she wakes up in the forest, not knowing how she got there. A pattern sets in of recurring nightmares each night where she is being chased and attacked in the woods, followed by her waking up on the ground away from the house. She concludes that she must be sleepwalking. The dreams are disjointed and frenetic, as she runs away from an unseen attacker. One morning, upon waking, she finds a shovel planted in the ground next to her.
The viewer sees flashbacks to better times, dinner parties, and good times with friends, including Amie and other couples they know. As the nightmares continue, they seem to be painting a picture, beginning to include glimpses of Paul, at first peaceful, but then sinister. As the ordeal progresses, she begins waking up in freshly dug graves. She is living two lives, one in the waking world and one in her increasingly violent dreams. One night, she sees someone in the house who matches the description of a missing woman. She can’t be sure what is real at this point, as the threads tying the mystery together begin to converge, but she becomes certain that she is being shown something important. Dreams and reality become intertwined for Raya.
“… nightmares reveal the truth for a woman living in the woods with her incapacitated husband …”
This film is a low budget Covid pandemic project shot at Big Bear Lake while Bickel and Miles were isolating away from L.A. The result is an intelligent psychological horror film grounded by powerful performances. Miles carries the film convincingly as Raya, trying to navigate a horrific situation. She has an easy, authentic rapport with Tracie Thoms. We haven’t seen Thoms for some time, but remember her fondly in Deathproof, Rent, and other features from the early aughts.
Bickel uses a variety of dynamic visual styles, from steadicam to zoom calls, keeping the pace quick and building tension. He describes the innovative techniques needed as a result of directing, acting in, and shooting scenes at the same time: “…shot with a crew of only two people: myself and usually the other actor who was present at the time. There were several instances where I appeared on camera and needed to perform a rack focus. In those moments, one hand would be off-frame pulling focus while I remained in the shot. On one occasion, I was holding something in my hands and had to rig a wire from the focus puller to my foot, balancing on one foot while managing focus and performing in the scene. Also, all the effects in the film are practical—there is no CGI …”
Tight editing keeps the action moving. David Hernandez’s soundtrack is the final crucial thread of the dark tapestry, building tension and releasing it with musical peaks that create the emotional map of the film, right down to the blood-soaked finale. Our Happy Place is a crisp thriller, spooling out its secrets deliberately, keeping the viewer in suspense as the terror builds. It showcases the high-quality cinema that can be accomplished in an Indie film with minimal resources, if the filmmakers are talented and inventive.
Learn more at the official Our Happy Place website.
"…keeping the viewer in suspense as the terror builds"
