Director: Jordan Graham
Notable Cast: Michael Daniel, Rachel Johnson, Aurora
Lowe, Gabriel Nicholson, June Peterson
With the advent of various technologies that allow filmmakers to do things quicker, cheaper, and on their own laptops, perhaps it’s
not surprising that the man behind Sator, Jordan Graham, essentially made
the film on his own. Director, writer, music, production, and in a relatively
candid interview after the first screening of the film at the Telluride Horror
Show film festival, he casually mentioned that he built the cabin set of the
film with his friend. To say that this film is, at its core, the result of one
man's pure will power might be an understatement. The fact that it’s a rather impressive display
of arthouse horror is what makes all of the mentioned work by Mr. Graham even
more fantastical. Playing with naturalistic horror in a way that begs the
question on why A24 hasn’t picked up the film yet is par for the course. The
minimalistic approach to most of its plot and narrative can be both frustrating
and fascinating. Sator is an intimate film with visual style seeping off
the screen and an up-for-interpretation through-line that will certainly
appease the horror fans looking for one of those slow burn arthouse horror
flicks.