Nobody 2is in excellent hands withTimo Tjahjanto. Tjahjanto has a well-defined visual language, well-suited to action. With films likeHeadshotand the wildly entertainingThe Night Comes for Us, audiences should anticipate big swings in theBob Odenkirk-led sequel. For those brave enough, his horror chops are delightfully demented withMay the Devil Take You. But a lesser-known short is some of his scariest—and most violent—work. Co-directing with directorGareth Evans(The Raid,Havoc), Tjahjanto has arguably the best contribution totheV/H/SfranchiseinV/H/S 2—Safe Haven.
Tjahjanto and Evansdrop in vulnerable protagonists the moment a cult turns deadly. It’s inspired by the real-world horror ofJonestown—the Jim Jones-led cult that believed in political suicide—andHeaven’s Gate—a New Age Christian extremist sect that believed death would allow them to ascend. ButSafe Havendoesn’t stop at psychologyon the cusp of mass suicide. It asks how much scarier the world would be if those cult leaders’ claims were right.
Timo Tjahjanto and Gareth Evans Ground Terror in a Documentary Format in V/H/S
Safe Havenis shotdocumentary-style, opening with a few seconds of troubleshooting audio and visual. It subtly makes us feel part of the documentary team and establishes the handheld, point-of-view feel that will define the film.The clips are never editedbut flit between multiple POVs. This isn’t an outlier inthe world of found footage, and it’s used expertly in this case.
The team meets with the cult’s leader, a man called Father (Epy Kusnandar). During the interview, he drinks a glass of milk like a true villain and speaks of a brighter future just ahead. According to Father, a new dawn will come with the opening of the gates. He makes it clear this is no metaphor.Pregnant producer Lena(Hannah Al Rashid) interrupts the interview between Father and her fiancé, Malik (Oka Antara), when things get tense.She assures Father that they’ll give an unbiased, real accountofthe compound’s family dynamicand their true beliefs. And so, Father invites the cameras into his sanctuary, and it’s here when the cameras expand.
A few static cams on the compound reveal Father playing with a knife in his office, classrooms full of young children, the parking lot where the crew is setting up, and a room attended by several women covered in ominous symbols.The most pronounced of these symbols is a humanoid figure made from sticks—thinkThe Blair Witch Project—with a curved half-circle on top of its head. Lena is gifted a necklace of this symbol upon their arrival, and these symbols adorn the wallsunder “family” photos, with the largest of them under the cult leader’s singular portrait. Where the documentary crew still feels in charge, the wealth of surveillance and the more ominous uses of the symbolic figure show that they’ve bitten off more than they can chew.
Even the smallest of interactions with the senior woman and teenage girl chosen to guide their tour show anunsettling level of devotionto Father that ricochets between open praise and guarded silence in response to the simplest of questions. The unease ramps up as they’re led down a long corridor. Some rooms are made to be watched, existing behind glass panels instead of solid walls, and some open areas are unnecessarily behind plastic tarps that obscure the people inside.The reality of the cult greatly outnumbering the four-person crewis oppressive.
The Mundane and the Supernatural Are Equally Scary in ‘Safe Haven’
Thesupernatural slowly creeps into frameas the health of Father, various cult members, and even the documentarians begin to visibly degrade. It’s deeply unsettling to watch Father’s lips become chapped and pale, his eyes shadowed by dark circles that weren’t there moments ago, as he suddenly instructs the cult to “open the gates” over a rattling intercom system. Here,the sonic landscape adds another layer of panic for anyone familiar with Jim Jones’ final broadcast.The intercom’s crisp echoes create a nearly identical sonic landscape. As his speech necessarily ends, cult members sing, emergency sirens wail, and the sounds of death—and screams implying worse than death—fill the space. It would not be out of place inSilent Hill.
But even with a larger spectacle being breadcrumbed,the core of the terrorSafe Haveninspires is human beings betraying human nature. As our POV outsiders become more frightened, a sense of calm and determination increasingly washes overthe cult members, with serenity and conviction visible in the actions they perform. Sometimes they’re uncannily synchronized,almost like dancers, as they stand from their seats, reach for weapons, or even end their lives. The harm they inflict on outsiders, each other, and eventually themselves isdisturbing but grounded in the extremes of fatalistic cults.
‘Safe Haven’ Is the Best Installment of the ‘V/H/S’ Franchise
The camera work becomes more scattered and shaky through the real motion of the cast. Where the lens witnesses plenty of fatalities, some of them take place behind it as those holding the camera lose the fight for their lives. Wherefilms with higher budgets and much longer run times often resign themselves to either spectacle-based fearor fear of the unknown,Safe Havenchooses both. If what these people can manage to point a camera at is this horrific, what lies on the edges of the frame? Or out of our view entirely?
Tjahjanto and Evans make found footagefrenetic and alive. Their experience withaction only heightens the horror. The audience isn’t just bearing witness to the carnage; we’re in it. Withpractical effects and terrifying stunt choreography,the blood-soaked story lingers far longer than many other entrants to theV/H/Sseries.Safe Havenremains one ofits very best.
