Don’t Look Back

The tagline for Don’t Look Back should really be: “If you see something, say something.”

That would have been sage advice for Caitlin (Kourtney Bell) and her fellow bystanders in the park on the fateful day they witnessed Douglas Helton (Dean West) receive an unprovoked and vicious attack. Instead, they all simply stood by and watched dumbfounded as the attack unfolded, with one guy pulling out his phone to record it. Eventually, Caitlin came to her senses, grabbed the guy’s phone, and called the police.

“…after the attack in the park, Caitlin starts to have terrifying auditory and visual hallucinations…”

I love movies such as Don’t Look Back that take a socially relevant phenomenon, such as taking video of a bizarre or dangerous event rather than reporting it immediately and use it as the backdrop for a thriller. These movies serve to remind us that even though the technology is there, we must stay humble and not lose sight of our humanity in the face of danger.

Caitlin can almost be forgiven for her paralysis in fear while witnessing the attack. Only nine months prior, she, along with her father (Orlando Eric Street), was the victim of a horrific home invasion by masked intruders that killed her dad and left her momentarily dead. Luckily, she had the caring support of her devoted boyfriend, Josh (Skyler Hart), to help her through her grief.

But after the attack in the park, Caitlin starts to have terrifying auditory and visual hallucinations pertaining to Douglas’s attack, experiences that she is convinced others in the group of witnesses are having. Of course, the cops don’t believe that she saw anything, so she assumes the investigation herself. Soon, however, witnesses to the attack start to turn up murdered. It’s up to Caitlin to uncover the truth behind the deaths before she becomes one of the victims.