The Quantum Terror

AWARD THIS 2023 NOMINEE! The shiny new star of cosmic horror is writer/director Christopher Cooksey’s awesome The Quantum Terror. Samantha Carroll (Kristin Cochell) is searching for her missing twin sister, Sylvia (also Cochell). Sylvia shared a house close to her college campus with Jacob (Matt Blackwell). While there, Samantha finds many books on the occult. Detective Ritchie (Val Mayerik), who is in charge of the investigation, interviews her as he doesn’t think much of Jacob’s theories about the disappearance.

Samantha’s ex-girlfriend, Lucy (Paula Marcenaro Solinger), arrives in town to help the search, with boyfriend Noah (Jordan Michael Brinkman) in tow. Lucy and Noah run into Professor Rathbone (Dimitrius Pulido), who had both Jacob and Sylvia in his class. Jacob informs the group in his snide manner that Rathbone’s theories, along with her dive into the occult, that caused Sylvia to go missing. Deciding to search the nearby tunnels, the group finds arcane symbols and bizarre diagrams all over the walls. Suddenly there are noises in the dark, and a tentacle starts slithering down the corridor. When Samantha, Lucy, Noah, and Jacob all try to run, they find there are new passageways in the tunnel network that were not there before, leading to who knows where.

I have already watched The Quantum Terror twice and plan for a third screening cause this flick feeds my head. The unearthly visions that fill your eyes as the movie goes deeper into the void are all the more impressive, considering the insanely low budget. Heather Lowe’s miniatures get me high. They have a truly mystical quality unique to the craft. Jenna Green and Cooksey’s practical effects are lit and shot in a highly effective way, a tribute to a largely lost art form. By the time the third act kicks in, the visuals reach the wondrous heights of a dime-store Ken Russell.

“…a tentacle starts slithering down the corridor.”

Combining these effects are trippy camera filters. Add in the shot on the weekend in a subdivision feel of the location, and the film generates an unusual chemistry that works magic. The imagination used with the old-school effects has the same retro renegade majesty found in Basket Case. The stain of cheapness becomes a badge of honor due to all that shiny something that was made out of nothing.

Cooksey’s style is overtly Lynchian in all the best ways. He understands the power of Lynch’s hard-boiled dialogue rhythms, with the simplicity of the speech guiding the viewer through the labyrinthian structures of The Quantum Terror. The Lovecraft influence on the concept is blatant, as there is an early image of a Lovecraft paperback with a bad-a*s cover. This fusion of Lynch and Lovecraft distills the core element shared by both artists, which is their ability to be mysterious. By never fully defining the origins or nature of the threats, the horror unfurls like a 1960s light show into something abstract and horrifying. It also creates a yearning for those so disposed to such things to watch the film in various altered states repeatedly.

The performances are all good, with the actors working their Lynchian close-ups masterfully. Cochell and Solinger generate some believable romance together. The bisexual representation is sensual without being exploitative. However, I can smell the nerds out there whose eyes widened when they saw who plays the detective. Yes, that is THE Val Mayerik, the legendary Marvel Comics artist who drew Man-Thing and Howard the Duck comics (I am currently re-reading them). He does an excellent job, as he is obviously no stranger to the weird world.

I can’t wait to see what Cooksey and company come up with next, be it one of the numbers of unfilmed Lovecraft stories out there or something wholly original. The Quantum Terror is a hallucinatory head f****r that is bound for cult stardom.

The Quantum Terror is a 2023 Award This! Indie Horror nominee.