Movie Review: Aged

© Harrow House Films

Aged is a familiar horror trope handled with an indie film flair.
by Jeremy Fogelman

Cast: Morgan Boss-Maltais, Carla Kidd, Dave McClain, Bria D'Aguanno, Adonis Ringo, Kelly Kidd, Lisa Alavi, Kristin Henderson, Drama, Horror, Thriller
Rating: ★★★

The horror concept of aging prematurely is a reasonable one, even if you’re no longer young -- the very idea is that one is being pushed closer to death after all. In a way, it’s a kind of torturous, long path to death, a different sort of evil than even the quicker ones of a slasher film. Just so, the perpetrators of such actions paradoxically get both our fear, our ire, and also our respect -- because it is a common desire to remain young, to never deteriorate, and never die before our time. It’s not something I recall seeing in a while, but it’s certainly an old horror trope -- interesting to revisit, even in only mildly creative ways.

Aged is a horror movie from writer/director Anubys Lopez in his second feature film, and stars Morgan Boss-Maltais as Veronica Gray, a young woman recently hired by a middle aged man, Charles Bloom (Dave McClain), to care for his elderly mother (Carla Kidd) who suffers from dementia. It’s a bog standard setup, and the movie immediately makes things creepy with some oddness Veronica notices around, but Mrs. Bloom is a pleasant enough older lady (although the actress actually looks younger than the one playing her son, for reasons that may be intentional).

There’s a lot of that classic harsh violin horror string music throughout the movie, the usual sorts of “something’s wrong here” score, but there’s also a mix of diegetic and nondiegetic very old music like “Daisy, Daisy” as though it was distorted and ancient. Naturally it’s an example of utilizing a low budget and thematic purposefulness to create a reasonably chilling atmosphere.

Soon enough things begin to get worse and worse, as Veronica starts to really think something is wrong, seeing terrifying visions and hearing unsettling noises, while being told at the same time by Charles that she must be seeing things. Gradually we begin to realize the specifics of what’s going on, as Veronica starts prematurely aging in unusual ways, and the underlying plot becomes even more obvious.

© Harrow House Films

But although the story is beyond predictable, and the beats fairly expected, the pacing and general vibe serve to make the world entertaining enough to stay with it. The acting is good enough, without any of those jarring performances that take you out of it, and only a few lines that don’t really feel realistic (the movie intentionally makes the house in an ‘out of service’ place because it’s hard to write around).

It’s not particularly graphic or bloody, nor particularly horrifying or scary, but creepy enough in an “alright, I see where this is going, and I’m okay with it” sort of way, especially considering the microbudget nature of it. The director does a clever job of filming things to elevate the less original story by making things seem a bit more expensively made overall.

Being that it’s both an indie movie and a horror movie, it has a very particular sort of cross section of interest from people, I would expect, especially because it’s more of the “creepy” kind and not so much the “blood & guts” kind. But given all that, it’s not a bad time for this genre and shows some real promise from all involved.

Aged has a run time of 1 hour 30 minutes and is not rated. The film is now available through digital retailers. Click the icons below to rent or buy.