What Goes Around is a very low budget slasher film that succeeds where many fail – having a decent story. It doesn’t rely on some weak supernatural curse or some cataclysmic rampaging psychopath unexplainably back from the dead. It has a plot, and it’s deeper than you think.
What Goes Around revolves around Erin, played here by Catherine Morvell. She’s a quiet college student who has suffered from anxiety since an incident at a party messed with her head. After Erin friends start to come up dead in rather gruesome ways, it begs the question; What the bloody hell is going on?
Still in college Erin is part of a film course, and if she isn’t in a lecture, she’s working at the local café. Where all her friends conveniently like to hang out as well. As Erin uncharacteristically starts to fall for Alex (Jason Bouma), and more of her friends cop a slit throat, it becomes a concrete possibility that he could know more than he is letting on. It’s also clear that Erin isn’t all that miffed by her circle’s rapid disintegration, rather, she becomes almost attracted to the scenes that are sent to her email from an unknown source. As Erin and her friends are film students, it’s clear that one is involved. The screamesque premise works though.
Unlike Scream, What Goes Around can only have been made on a reasonably low budget (an estimated $20,000 according to IMDB), luckily it is made up for by the decent story, but it still visibly affects the film. Death scenes are weak and cut away from. It’s one thing that is consistently disappointing across low budget slashers, is a lack of gore – assumedly there’s no budget there for it. But let’s be honest, regardless of the gore content, these films have a place in the market.
Emerging actress Catherine Morvell does well enough here, only just convincing as Erin the introvert. Erin’s has hard a hard time, her anxiety is warranted, I would assume it would not be an easy role for an emerging young actress. Jason Bouma gets the same report for his role as Alex, the mysterious, charming crush of Erin.
Writer/Director Sam Hamilton is coming in to direct his first feature after having written and directed Greensticks back in 2013/14. He has done well the best he can with the low budget he had to work with and has managed to craft a film full of silver linings and what ifs. The silver linings been the decent plot, and the what ifs being, what if he had $20 million instead of $20 thousand? A well-known cast maybe? A decent make up and effects budget?
What Goes Around might not be one that’s going to keep you on the edge of your seat, or shocks you to the core, but it should leave you with at least one thought; What’s next for Sam Hamilton?
Directed by: Sam Hamilton
Directed by: Sam Hamilton
Starring: Catherine Mourvell, Jason Bouma
